The Gurukula students of Braj Gopika Vidyamandal along with their teachers came together to enthusiastically participate in the Gundicha Marjan Festival which was observed last Friday, 13th of July.
The students went to Sri Nanda Bhavan Krishna Balaram Temple on the top of Nandgaon hill and they scrubbed and cleaned the temple hall, courtyard, marble pillars, stairways and the parikram path. The girls were blissfully singing the glories of Krishna while they were engaged in cleaning the whole temple.
The annual observance of Gundica Marjan, the cleaning of the gundicha temple in Puri, takes place a day before the grand Jagannath Ratha Yatra festival. This festival is known as Gundica Marjanam, or the cleaning of Gundica temple. This special occasion was celebrated by Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu Himself. The history of Gundicha cleaning goes back five hundred years, when Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu personally cleaned the Gundicha temple to set an example to his devotees. In preparation for Lord Jagannath’s arrival at the Gundicha temple, Mahaprabhu guided his devotees to clean the temple. Lord Chaitanya gathered the piles of dust, sand, debris and instructed his associates by his personal example.
Lord Chaitanya Mahāprabhu is teaching that if a fortunate soul desires to invite Kṛiṣhṇa to sit on the temple of their heart, then they should first of all clean their heart of all contamination and impurities; making the heart spotlessly clean, peaceful, and pure. If any thorny bushes, weeds, dust, or sand (unwanted desires) remain within the field of the heart, then the Lord, the ultimate recipient of all service, cannot be seated therein. Though Krishna always resides in the hearts of the living entities, but we want our hearts to be worthy places for Him to stay and enjoy His pastimes.
