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Mathura gears up for ‘Mudiya Poornima’ fair
The five-century old ‘Mudiya Mela’ is organised on Poornima (full moon night). A sea of devotees performs 21-km ‘parikrama’ (circumambulation) around Goverdhan hillock in Mathura after having a bath in Mansi Ganga and offering prayers in Daanghati temple in Goverdhan
Agra The Mathura police and district administration are gearing up for a major event of Braj region known as ‘Mudiya Poornima’ fair to be held on July 3. Divisional commissioner of Agra Amit Gupta held a meeting on Saturday to assess the preparations and ordered to complete all arrangements by June 20. He also pointed out places on ‘parikrama marg’ where water from drains was found overflowing.
Inspector general (Agra Range) was in Mathura earlier this week to review security arrangements.
The five-century old ‘Mudiya Mela’ is organised on Poornima (full moon night). A sea of devotees performs 21-km ‘parikrama’ (circumambulation) around Goverdhan hillock in Mathura after having a bath in Mansi Ganga and offering prayers in Daanghati temple in Goverdhan, already declared ‘teerth’ (pilgrimage) by the Yogi regime.
As per locals, the footfall for this fair is more than that for Sri Krishna Janmashtami .
Padma Shri awardee and veteran of Braj literature Mohan Swaroop Bhatia informed that Goverdhan was believed to have been lifted by Lord Krishna to save the resident of Mathura from the anger of Indra – the god of rain – who had decided to teach a lesson to Mathura residents.
Bhatia said, “The Mela has a Bengal connection and dates back to the times of saint Sanatan Goswami and his brother Roop Goswami who were basically ministers in the court of Hussain Shah in Bengal about five centuries ago. Well versed in Persian and Sanskrit, the brothers came to Vrindavan after being inspired from Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, a great saint also from Bengal who had come to Vrindavan.”
‘Sanatan Goswami was assigned the task of tracing ancient sites in Braj and in process got much respect from his disciples. It is said that Lord Krishna in ‘bal swaroop’ (child form) gave ‘darshan’ to ageing Sanatan Goswami and asked him to have rest instead of doing ‘parikrama daily,” Bhatia said.
‘Sanatan Goswami insisted on ‘parikrama’, so Lord Krishna left his foot -print on a ‘shila’ (stone) and gave it the status of Goverdhan hillock. Sanatan Goswami was so revered that his disciples shaved their heads and staged ‘parikrama’ when he left for his heavenly abode 465 years ago. Since then, the tradition continues,” said Bhatia.
Followers of Sanatan Goswami, with shaved heads, move with ‘mridang’ (a percussion instrument) and sing Bengali devotional songs.
