Nauka Puja In Barak Valley, Assam

Dr. Amalendu Bhattacharjee

Barak Valley wears a festive look, rejoicing and singing in time of Nauka Puja, a special religious ceremony. Dr. Amalendu Bhattacharjee reports.

Nauka Puja is a very popular festival of rural Barak Valley of N.E. India. In Cachar District Gazetteer (Ed. B.C. Allen, 1905) Nauka Puja is described like this, “A special form of religious ceremony is known as the ‘noaka’ or boat puja and is performed by a wealthy man in satisfaction of a vow, who generally spends from Rs. 300 to Rs.500 on the ceremony. A shed is built, at the end of which is a boat painted and gilt, from which rise, tier upon tier, the images of various Gods, amongst whom Bishahari is generally the most prominent. For several days sacrifices are offered to the deities and Brahmanas, who are well paid and feasted for their services, offer up their prayers. At the end of this time the house and its contents are abandoned and allowed to fall to pieces. The Nauka puja is associated with the ‘Manasamangal Kavya – a medieval poetic narrative of Eastern India. It is believed that Bishahari or Manasa and all the Gods and Goddesses assembled in the Deva Sabha at the time of the dance of Behula are to be placed in the boat minimum 14 hands long and then worshipped. In fact it is a glorious Bishahari (a snake deity) worship. As the principal deity Bishahari and other Gods and Goddess are kept in a boat (nauka) hence the worship is known as nauka or boat puja. It requires mentioning that even the boat man and other officials of Chand Sadagar (the merchant leader and the hero of Manasamangal Kavya) are also worshiped with equal status. The Puja starts on the Sukla Panchami (fifth day of the bright half ) in the month of Magha or Falguna. Every day from morning to night Manasamangal Kavya is sung with dance. There is no dearth of the groups of singers for there is a tradition among the performers of Manasamangal – whenever the singers come to know about the Nauka Puja being celebrated in any place, they go to the place of worship and sing Manasamagal without any payment.