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WORLD September 8, 1999 VNN4685 Comment on this story Janmastami 1999 At Bangalore BY ANUTTAMA DAS BANGALORE, INDIA, Sep 8 (VNN) — We just concluded a 3-day Sri Krishna Janmashtami and Vyasa Puja festival. Although September 3rd was Janmashtami as per ISKCON's calendar, we invited the donors on September 2nd. Many local people celebrated Janmashtami on this day (as per their calendar). On 2nd, there were 5 abhishekas for Sri Radha Krishna-chandra: At 9 am, 12 noon, 6 pm, 9 pm and 11pm. All these were sponsored by donors. These were held in "Dwarakapuri" - ISKCON Bangalore's 5-star marriage hall. At the end of each abhisheka, while Sri Radha and Krishna-chandra were being dressed and receiving their bhoga offering, Sri Krishna, Rukmini and Satyabhama seated on a swing received a special seva known as Dolotsava (also known as "Unjal seva", "unjal" means swing). While highly talented singers sang melodious bhajans glorifying Krishna, the donors and other devotees came up in a line and pulled the Their Lordships' swing for a few minutes each. The dolotsava concluded in an arati for the Deities. This year saw an unprecedented response from the Life Patrons. ISKCON Bangalore has around 21, 000 Life Patrons and about 4, 000 donor patrons. Despite rain and cold weather, this year had the largest all-time turnout of pilgrims at a Janmashtami festival of ISKCON Bangalore. Apart from the special prasadam that is given to the patrons, every pilgrim received a cup of hot "bisibele bath" (a karnataka prep, along the lines of the Bengali "kichadi" or the Tamilian "ven-pongal"), and a sweet. No special invitations were sent out for the celebrations of September 3rd. There was nevertheless, a steady inflow of pilgrims till midnight. The maha-abhisheka began at 9:30 pm and culminated with the maha-mangala arati at 12 midnight, marking the Lord's appearance. An estimated 1700 people packed into the main temple hall to witness the abhisheka and the arati. Immediately after receiving arati, the Their Lordships Sri Radha Krishna-chandra came out of the altar on a grand palanquin and rode to the Main temple Plaza, (outside the temple hall) to the accompaniment of roaring kirtan. Following Them was Srila Prabhupada, riding in a smaller and simpler palanquin. There They witnessed a colourful fire-crackers show that lasted around 20 minutes, before finally returning to Their Shayana rooms for rest. Vyasa puja on September 4th began around 12:30 pm and went on till 5 pm. Devotees offered both food and homage offerings to Srila Prabhupada. The food items totalled to 1530 in number, and included a large cake made by ISKCON Bangalore's bakery devotees. The cake was the biggest many of us have ever seen - about 4' x 2.5' x 1' in size! The devotees vowed to offer Srila Prabhupada 2000 items next year, commemorating the year 2000. The offerings were all distributed among the devotee visitors and the pilgrims who came to the temple in the evening. Among the Vyasa puja homage offerings that were read out, many remembered how Srila Prabhupada is rightfully the only acharya of the ISKCON movement. How Srila Prabhupada struggled hard to build ISKCON, set the standards and gave lasting instructions that would guide us for the next 10, 000 years. And how, even today, he is working to clear the setbacks his movement has suffered since his physical departure. The 3-day festival at ISKCON Bangalore has generated immense enthusiasm amongst devotees to serve Srila Prabhupada and Lord Krishna more sincerely than ever. Srila Prabhupada ki jaya! Sri Radha Krishna-chandra ki jaya! your servant, Anuttama Dasa Comment on this story  Contact VNN about this storySend this story to a friend
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