By Dhirnayak dasa, Utkala-Banga Padayatra leader
The Bengal-Orissa Padayatra reached the town of Kantilo, about 100km west of Bhubaneswar, on February 8, 2022. There is a Sri Nilamadhava temple in Kantilo situated on the banks of the Mahanadi River atop twin hills with surrounding green forests. The temple is a miniature form of the Sri Jagannath temple at Puri and observes similar rites and rituals.
Tribal king Visva Vasu was secretly worshipping Nilamadhava. Later the Lord vanished and subseq
This year’s Vraja Mandala Parikrama was special due to there being a confluence [sagam] of padayatris from three different padayatras:the All-India Padayatra, the Maharashtra Padayatra, and the Uttar Pradesh Padayatra. Also present were the devotees from the soon-to-be-inaugurated (on October 17) Andhra Pradesh Padayatra.
Normally in our Vraja Mandala Parikrama tent city we have tents of various groups such as volunteers, matajis, and prabhujis, but this year we had tents named after the padaya
Having completed the one-month Vraja Mandal Parikrama, on November 16 Maharashtra’s padayatris returned to Aravade, the birthplace of our spiritual master, Lokanath Maharaja. The ratha, oxen and padayatra deities Sri Sri Gaura-Nitai stayed in Aravade’s Sri Sri Radha-Gopal temple during our sojourn in Vraja, the temple devotees taking great care of all of them. It’s because of those devotees that we were able to experience the bliss of Vraja dhama and we are grateful to all of them: temple presi
