Saraswati Puja celebrated

Saraswati Puja, a major religious festival of the Hindu community, was celebrated across the country on Thursday with much enthusiasm, festivity and religious fervour.

Saraswati Puja is celebrated on the fifth day of the bright fortnight of the Bangla month of Magh. The day is called Vasant Panchami.

Hindu devotees, especially students, worship the Goddess Saraswati and celebrate the puja at educational institutions and temples.

Our Gopalganj correspondent reports the people of the Hindu community of the district celebrated the Saraswati Puja with the spirit of pursuing education and knowledge, traditional gaiety and due religious fervour.

Puja mandaps, mandirs and educational institutions have been colourfully decorated as hundreds of devotees seek blessings since morning from the ‘Devi Saraswati’, the Goddess of knowledge.

The devotees, especially the students attired in colourful dresses, offered special prayers and observed fasting as per the ritual of the festival to seek knowledge from the Goddess Saraswati.

Swaraswati Puja was celebrated at different mandaps, mandirs, houses and many other places in the district.

On this occasion, most of the educational institutions of the district town constructing puja Mandaps placed the books and educational items on the foot of the idol of Saraswati to get her blessing in educational life.

The celebration also included offering of Devi Aradhana, Pushpanjoli, and distributed prasad among the devotees at the end of puja.

In Rajshahi, People of the Hindu community celebrated the Saraswati Puja with the spirit of pursuing education and knowledge, traditional gaiety and due religious fervour everywhere in the city as well as other districts in Rajshahi division.

Puja mandaps, mandirs and a large number of educational institutions have been colourfully decorated as hundreds of devotees seek blessings since morning from the `Devi Saraswati’, the Goddess of knowledge.

In Rajshahi city, a large number of images of Goddess Saraswati, symbolizing a graceful woman riding on a swan, were erected at different puja mandaps, mandirs and educational institutions.

Swaraswati Puja was celebrated at Rajshahi University, Rajshahi University of Engineering and Technology, Rajshahi College, Rajshahi New Government Degree College, Rajshahi Medical College, Teachers Training College, Polytechnic Institute side by side with different educational institutions and many other places in the city.

The celebration also included offering of Devi Aradhana, Pushpanjoli, ‘archanas’, ‘anjolis’, ‘aratis’, distribution of ‘Prasad’, ‘Arati Competitions’, cultural functions and staging of drama.

To mark the celebration, Rajshahi University Central Puja Udjapan Parishad (RUPUP) arranged a bani archana programme on central puja mandap premises today.