Hati Besha or Gaja Besha

Hati Besha or Gaja Besha or the Gajanana Besha is represented on Snana Purnima as a part of the Snana Jatra tradition.

GAJA or Hati means- "Elephant"
It also signifies Shree Ganesha.

The first four letters of Jagannatha Mahaprabhu- JAGA.

It may be noted that GAJA and JAGA have the same four English letters/alphabets.

The principal servitor of Shree Jagannatha is "Puri Gajapati" i.e. the King of Puri.

Snana Jatra or Snana Purnima and Gajanana Besha or Hati Besha

Deba Snana Purnima or Snana Purnima is on June 22nd this year.

It is also called the Jyeshtha Purnima as it is in the "Jyeshtha" month.

It is also called Snana Jatra. The name has the term "jatra," which means "journey."

Snana Jatra means the journey to take a bath.

It is no ordinary journey or bath as this is related to the sibling deities - Shree Jagannatha, Shree Balabhadra and Devi Subhadra. As we know, everything about them is grand.

They are moved from their Ratna bedi to the Snana Mandapa in a Pahandi just like during Ratha Jatra. The difference is that this movement - Snana Jatra - is within the Shree Jagannatha Temple, Puri.

During Ratha Jatra, the deities move out of the Shreemandira.

I had written a previous post on Snana Purnima in 2022-

"Snana Yatra and Gajanan Besha"-

https://www.anitaexplorer.com/2022/06/snana-yatra-and-gajanan-besha.html

I have felt guilty (and still feel guilty) about using words such as "Yatra" instead of "Jatra" in the past.

Using the local word "Jatra" will be true to the Odia spelling and pronunciation.

Today, while searching online, I found that most articles and reports—including my own blog post mentioned above — have used "Snana Yatra" as the name.

I used "Yatra" in the name as it is more widely known, and people would find my Snana Jatra post if and when they searched.