Panihati Festival
Festivals are joyous moments that bring families together for a grand celebration. Have you heard about the festival of Punishment??? Well, this beautiful festival of Punishment is also known as Panihati Festival or Cida-Dahi Mahotsav and this punishment is actually the mercy of Lord Nityananda Prabhu on Srila Raghunatha Dasa Goswami.
This year by the mercy and blessings of Sri Sri Radha Londoniswara, Sri Jagannatha, Sri Baladeva and Sri Subhadra Mai, and Sri Sri Gaura Nitai, East London Congregation got the wonderful opportunity of celebrating this blissful festival of Panihati at the Sri Radha Krishna Temple, Soho.
The essence of this year’s Panihati festival was in all the devotees coming together with their full enthusiasm and their servitude attitude to assist Srila Raghunatha Dasa Goswami in pleasing Sri Nityananda Prabhu in the beautiful pastime of Panihati.
The three essential M’s that one could experience through the festival of Panihati are as below:
- First M - Mixing the Cida-Dahi preparation with lots of love and devotion
- Second M - Mood of service for the pleasure of Nityananda Prabhu
- Third M - Mercy received by engaging other devotees and serving everyone Prasadam
East London congregation is grateful to the Soho temple authorities for having given them such a wonderful opportunity to serve the Lordships on the auspicious occasion of Panihati. This year the Panihati festival was on 12th June 2022, Sunday. As the East London Congregation received this blissful opportunity to celebrate the festival at Soho temple for the very first time, prior to the celebration day there were lot of planning by the Festival team, under the guidance and expert advice of all the senior devotees and the local authority.
Planning for the celebration
Owing to the 53rd Anniversary celebration of the Lordships, East London Congregation planned to offer 53 beautiful Panihati pots for the pleasure of Sri Sri Radha Londoniswara, Sri Jagannatha, Sri Baladeva, Sri Subhadra Mai, Sri Giri Govardhan and Sri Sri Gaura Nitai. The local authority, senior devotees and the festival team conducted meetings and provided instructions on the standards, the timelines, the process to be followed for preparing the Cida-dahi offering and helped all the selected devotees to be a part of this wonderful celebration.
Prior to the actual Panihati celebration day, there was a session conducted to help all the team of devotees to understand the process of mixing the Cida-dahi for the offering. Senior devotees set up calls for the selected team of devotees and every devotee got an opportunity to either choose a salty or a sweet Panihati recipe for their pots and they also shared the respective theme/ past time for their pots. This entire planning activity for the Panihati festival symbolized the team effort put by the entire East London Congregation.
A day before the actual celebration (11th June 2022)
Studio 108 was the location where the Cida-dahi preparation for the 41 pots out of the 53 Panihati pots was supposed to happen. So, there were group of volunteers who teamed up to make arrangements, setup the tables and assign respective spots for the selected devotees who were supposed to prepare the offerings for these Panihati pots on the actual day of the festival celebration.
Remaining 12 pots offerings was supposed to take place at the Soho temple. On 11th June 2022, Saturday there was another team of volunteers who were engaged in cleaning and decorating the Soho Temple Room. The cooking team led under the guidance of HG Ujjwala Mataji was engaged in various services such as chopping vegetables, dry fruits etc. at the Avanti Court Primary School. East London congregation devotees had planned to serve take-away Prasadam for all the devotees on the Panihati day.
The Celebration Day (12th June 2022, Panihati Day)
On 12th June 2022, many devotees from East London Congregation attended the morning Mangala Arati program at Soho temple. There were 12 main Panihati pots which were to be offered inside the Altar of Sri Sri Radha Londoniswara. So, the offerings for these pots were done by a group of devotees under the guidance of the senior devotees. As it was Sunday, East London devotees also got an opportunity to prepare and offer the Sunday Morning breakfast for the dearest Lordships.
On the other side, at Studio 108, another group of devotees gathered and started preparing their respective Panihati recipes for their pots. The entire process was very time bound as all the 41 pots were supposed to be a part of the Raj Bhoga offering. The time allotted to complete the Cida-dahi offering preparation was close to 3.5 hours. Post this, the devotees from the temple were going to take these filled pots with the Cida-dahi offerings to the Soho temple.
The Soho temple room was filled with huge crowd of devotees on this auspicious Panihati festival day. There were blissful Kirtans going on for the pleasure of the Lordships throughout the day. The main festival schedule was expected to commence post the Raj Bhoga Arati at 12 noon. There were nearly 108 Raj Bhoga offerings for the Lordships on the day of Panihati. In addition to this, all 53 pots were also arranged beautifully for the Raj bhoga offering.
Post the Raj Bhoga Arati was completed, the altar was opened and all the assembled devotees were witnessing the beautiful 53 pots that were offered to the Lordships. The pots were being displayed for auctioning and the auctioning was led by HG Yamuneshwari mataji. The main purpose was to auction these 53 pots and the Laxmi collected was to be offered to the New Mayapur Temple in France.
The auction started at 1 pm UK time and ended around 5:30 pm UK time. Many devotees felt blissful participating in the spiritual auction, distributing the Prasadam and receiving the mercy of Lord Nityananda. Gaura Arati which took place on the day of Panihati was super ecstatic. Once the Gaur Arati was completed, there was an announcement regarding the Panihati Drama.
Panihati Drama was led under the guidance of HG Yogeshwar Prabhu and the entire team of devotees who were engaged in this wonderful Panihati drama actually conveyed the essence of this festival very beautifully. Then all the devotees were able to perceive the beauty of the Lordships at the time of Shayana Arati at 9 pm UK time.
A long day filled with spirituality and blissfulness was coming to an end but we could witness that all the devotees assembled still had high-level of enthusiasm and eagerness to continue this spiritual hangover which was only due to the nectarian mercy received from Lord Nityananda Prabhu.
