Beating the scorching heat, some women on Thursday came with all the cooking equipment along with rice flour, fresh cheese , coconut, jaggery, sugar, firewood and a new earthen pot to the Chandi Dei temple at Indupur to worship the deity by offering a variety of cake called Manda Pitha.
They prepared the sweetmeat outside the temple by setting up a hearth. Later, they returned to their houses by destroying an earthen pot near the temple in which the cakes were offered.
The women sought to appease the Maa Chandi Dei and prayed before Her to save their lives and property from the global pandemic, Covid 19.
Notably, the people of the district have strong faith on Maa Chandi Dei as the deity does not disappoint Her devotees.
One Sabita Sahu who came to the temple was sure that the Maa would protect her family as well as the State by preventing the spread of global pandemic.
According to Jayanti Jagati, another woman, she also prepared cake outside the temple and offered cake to Maa Chandi Dei. The only reason was the corona pandemic would not affect her family members as well as the district badly.
“About 300 years back people died like flies of diarrhoea epidemic. The presiding deity Maa Chandi Dei had come to the dream of the then priest of the temple and directed the priest to offer lakhs of manda pitha (cake) to Her on every Thursday that would fall between Mahabishuba Sankranti and Brusha Sankranti to save them from the disease. Later, the then priest of the deity had appeased the deity by arranging lakhs of manda pitha and as a result, the epidemic had vanished," said Chandidei temple priest Maheswar Rana, adding that ever since there is a belief that if women prepare pitha for the Maa and offer the same to her, the Maa is appeased and saves people from any crisis.
