The Durga Puja ritual of Pushpanjali on Maha Ashtami can now be conducted in Bengali with a scholar, linguist and a priest coming together to translate the verses from Sanskrit.
Sanskrit scholar Nrisingha Prasad Bhaduri, linguist Pabitra Sarkar, and Kaliprasanna Bhattacharya, a priest who has conducted Durga Puja rituals for at least 60 years, came together for the initiative as part of a campaign to promote Bengali.
“The devotion lies in the heart and not in the language in which the shlokas are chanted. It is always better to offer the prayers in a language, which we know and understand, rather than saying it in Sanskrit with half of the meaning not understood by us,” Bhaduri told PTI.