Have you ever wondered when did the first Durga Puja take place? What was the first of first? Obviously the first thing that clicks our mind is – to google. But when you Google ‘oldest Durga Puja in West Bengal’, you get the Barisha Roy Choudhurys’ 1610 puja. That’s how Google works when there’s no one to document oral history and have it claim a spot on its hallowed first page. However, the elder has it that the Maharaja Nara Narayan of Koch Bihar initiated a Durga Puja. It was the year 1533. He called her the ‘Boro Debi’ — Great Goddess, loosely translated. She appeared to him in a dream after a fast of several days to please her. This Boro Debi is Durga who is being worshipped across the country.
Even in 2020, the Boro Debi still resides in a little corner of West Bengal. However, the Durga Puja that is celebrated there is not your go-to event. The lion here is replaced by a tiger, given that this region had a lot of them. The Maharajas regularly went hunting for big game in these parts; so a tiger as Durga’s ‘vaahan’ in Nara Narayan’s dream is not unusual. The idol is the same as the king saw in his dream. 488 years later too.
In here, Durga doesn’t have her kids Lakshmi, Saraswati, Kartik and Ganesh with her here. Jaya and Bijaya have replaced them. The earthen diyas in their hands have made way for electric bulbs now, but the platform the Goddess is built on remains the same. The Boro Debi has stayed aloof to the changes around her. Unlike other Durga idols which are brought to the mandap on Panchami or Shashti, this Durga is built out of clay on that platform itself. On Mahalaya, she gets her eyes.
A few days after Dashami, the clay is dissolved and the straw floats up to the surface of the pond. And this is how the oldest Durga disappears, without leaving a mark.
