by Gunacuda Devi Dasi
Padayatra Odisha began on November 10th and lasted for 20 days. Around 40 devotees from ISKCON Bhubaneswar and local Nama hatta centers took part. They were joined by devotees from New Zealand, England and Ghana at different times.
The devotees accompanied a bullock cart carrying the Deities of Sri Sri Gaura Nitai and Srila Prabhupada through Nayagarh district. Walking along the road, chanting and dancing, the cart had to stop many times whilst local people offered fruits, flowers and incense to Sri Sri Gaura Nitai. The devotees were always greeted enthusiastically by school children, who ran out of their classrooms to see the merciful Mahaprabhu and Nityananda prabhu, and chanted loudly with the devotees. There would then be short impromptu programs for the children ,who happily took the prasadam that was distributed. Most days, the devotees walked between 8 and 12 kilometres to the villages where the evening program would be held.
Everyone commented how fast the journey went as they performed harinama sankirtana the whole way. In many villages, headteachers and principals of schools were keen to have the devotees hold programs in their institutions , as they could see that following Krishna consciousness would be the way to save their students from blindly imitating the sinful activities going on in the world around them. Nearly all the schools and colleges bought sets of Srimad -Bhagavata , which had been translated by Gour Govinda Swami into Oriya on the instruction of Srila Prabhupada. Along the road devotees were also distributing Srila Prabhupada’s divine books to the many interested onlookers and this continued until the evening, when they would set up a stage in the centre of the village for the program.
Every evening, villagers would join the devotees for Gaura arati and then hundreds of them would sit to listen to the bhajans and lecture delivered in their local language. This was often started by a western-bodied devotee speaking about Krishna consciousness, before the main program began. The local people seemed very interested and many bought japa malas and enquired how to chant the maha mantra after hearing the glories of harinama from foreign devotees. In Kantilo, the program was held close to the temple of the ancient deity of Sri Nila Madhava mentioned in the Skanda Purana.
The organisers of Padayatra Odisha welcome devotees to join them next year to spread the holy name in Odisha -the land of Lord Jagannath.
