- A momentary reprieve for the faithful
Thursday, 11 August, marked the beginning of the annual Esala Festival held in Kataragama and the city saw droves of people from around the island crowding to the holy ground near the Kirivehera Raja Maha Viharaya, the Kali Temple, and the Kataragama mosque.
Sella Kataragama has been hosting a limited number of visitors during the perahera season in the past couple of years owing to Covid restrictions. However this year, the festival is finally being held free of any major Covid limitations.
Return to normalcy
Kataragama Divisional Secretary A.M. Nandasiri, who is currently stationed in the vicinity of the holy ground to monitor the situation, noted that they saw the worst of it in 2020. “We held a Kataragama Committee specifically for addressing the Covid restrictions and enforcing those rules. We even had extremely limiting restrictions where we decided to allow only 10 devotees to participate in the Maha Devalaya rituals,” he noted.
However, this year he said that while the collective of the Local Government in Sella Kataragama would be on high alert and paying close attention to the goings-on in and about the holy ground, they were a lot more lax this year, with security and safety being their main priority.
Nandasiri said that this year they hoped to conduct the festival in the same manner they had in years prior to the Covid pandemic. He added that while they were aware of the recent concerns of pockets of the virus popping up and were being mindful, this year they were allowing visitors from around the island to enter the city and practise their faith as they wish.
Restrictions relaxed
We also reached out to Kataragama Public Health Inspector (PHI) Thakshila Madushan, who noted that much like what Nandasiri shared, this year they were not looking to impose any health restrictions, primarily because their guidelines had changed. He noted that the instructions were such that the public had been tasked with responsibly following the public health guidelines provided by the Ministry of Health to all Sri Lankans and beyond that they would not be imposing any restrictions.
He said that in 2021 they did not allow any members of the public to participate in the 15-day festival. “We only allowed officials who were part of the festival and its activities to be a part of the full festival. It was an unfortunate situation where for two consecutive years we had to bar the public from this event – the height of it was in 2020 and then of course last year. However this year we will be able to conduct the festivities as we did in 2019 and in the years before that.”
‘Pada yatra’ pilgrims
He also made special note of the ‘pada yatra’ pilgrims who have been flooding in for weeks now: “The ‘pada yatra’ pilgrims always start to come in about a week or two prior to the festival and they usually come and stay for the full 15 days of the festival. The devalaya takes care of them, sponsors provide food and drink, and they usually stay on the devala grounds for the full duration of the festival.”
However, he said that this year they had instructed the pilgrims to take care not to crowd the area too much and to consider heading back after completing their activities, before the full 15 days.
“We give them instructions just as they exit Yala National Park. We tell them that they can stay for about three days and then they must leave. This is so that the crowd doesn’t build up and there is a rotation of pilgrims occupying the spaces, which allows those coming in late to also comfortably experience the holy ground,” he said.
However, he added that they were not strictly enforcing this as at present it was only a suggestion and they would not be forcing pilgrims to leave before they were ready to do so.
The PHI also noted that while originally they had asked the pilgrims to manage space due to the heavy rains from early last week, the public health system also lacked resources such as antigen tests so it was best to encourage people to leave early if possible.
Positivity despite difficulties
Chintha Damayanthi from the Women’s Civil Defence Department of the Kataragama Police shared that they too had been given instructions to monitor the holy ground, but had not been given any strict guidelines to enforce health or Covid-related restrictions.
She noted that personally it had been heartening to see the pilgrims and people of all faiths from around the island finally being able to gather in the city after such a long time and being allowed to move freely.
The perahera has brought with it an air of celebration and an overall positive mood despite the struggles people are enduring during these difficult times.
