The five hundred years old historic Manasa Temple, popularly known as ‘Bijoy Gupter Manasa Mandir,’ reopened at Goila in Agoiljhara of Barisal after completing reconstruction and renovation on Friday.
Other works of reconstruction and renovation with the unique dome-shaped architecture were opened to people on the day by lighting Mangal-Prodip.
Among others, Talukdar Md Yunus, local AL lawmaker, Abu Alam Shaheed Khan, secretary local government ministry, Khandokar Shawkat Hossain, secretary public works ministry, Ranjit Kumar Biswas, secretary cultural ministry, Prodip Kumar Chakraborty, chief of the priest Dhakeshswari National Temple, Swami Bijit Atmananda, chief Ramakrishna Ashram Barisal, Atulananda Bhrhamachari, chief of Ganesh Pagal Ashram Madraipur, attended and addressed the programme.
Bijoy Gupta was the poet of popular Padma Puran (1484-5), tales of Devi Manasa in ‘Mangal Kavya trend, one of the most important composed forms of the mediaeval Bengali literature dedicated to deities of rural and low-caste.
Bijoy Gupta established the first idol of Manasa Devi at his birth place of Goila under Agoiljhara upazila of Barisal in 1494.
The local worshippers built there a beautiful brass idol of Manasa Devi in the early twentieth century.
The temple and the idol were looted and destroyed by Pakistani occupation army in 1971.
The devotees, most of whom were refugees during the liberation war of Bangladesh in 1971, built a makeshift idol with sand and cement in the post-liberation period.
In 2003, local people formed ‘Manasa Devi idol reconstruction committee’ to rebuild the temple in its original form.
Under that project, a 27-maund brass idol of Manasa was prepared by Ramgopal Kangsa Banik of Dhaka Shakhari Patty and placed in the temple early this year.
-With New Age input
