The story of Maa Bipattarini
Legend
The legend is set in Vishnupur or Bishnupur (in the present West Bengal), the seat of the Mallabhum kingdom from the 7th century AD to the 19th century
during the period of Malla kings who belonged to the Bagdi caste (Barga Kshatriya). The queen was a great devotee of Mata Shakti.
She had a friend belonging to the Mochi caste who used to eat beef. The queen was horrified to
learn this and out of curiosity, the queen wanted to see the meat. One day, the
queen asked her friend to show it to her. The girl initially refused, fearing
the wrath of the pious Hindu king, however later she complied with the queen's
request. However, the queen got betrayed and the furious king rushed to kill
her. The queen hid the meat in her clothes and prayed to goddess Durga for
help. Subsequently, when the king tore her clothes to find what was hidden
beneath them, all he could find there was a rakta jaba (red hibiscus). Even today the
goddess's puja remains part of women’s rites and is performed for the goddess'
intervention during a family crisis.
But in our scriptures very less has been described her appearance.
Later Maa Bipattarini came into Dulal’s dream to show him the divine appearance
of the primordial energy of mother form. It started in November 1916 when Dulal
was born to
a middle-class family in Rajpur, North 24 Pargana. From a very tender age, he
was a great devotee of Maa Adishakti. One night when he was sleeping, he got an
oracle. He saw a divine lady form come in his dream and told him about her wish
to appear as Maa Bipadtarini. Then after he meditated under a bilwo briksha (Aegle marmelos) for consecutive 3 days. On
the 3rd day during dusk, Baba Dulal saw the full grace of Ma Bipattarini
Chandi. The Aegle marmelos tree is still situated at Rajpur
Bipattarini Chandi Bari as Ratna Bedi. After the incident, he established an idol
of Maa Bipattarini on the first floor of his house. Soon the tale of the mandir started gaining popularity and the number of devotees visiting the temple increased. Dulal was
then doing a job in Kolkata to sustain his family. For that he used to stay the
five working days in Kolkata and resides at his Rajpur house during the weekends.
Seeing the rising number of devotees, he felt an urge to extend his first floor
and make a big shrine for Devi. A sculptor came up to him and speak about his
wish to sculpt a new idol for the temple. The new idol was going to be bigger
than the previous one. As soon as the sculpting was over mysteriously the
sculptor was not found anywhere. In 1960, in the month of Jaistha on Falaharini Amavasya (New
moon night) a new idol was established on the shrine.
On Durga
Sasthi, Deepanwita Amavasya or Amavasya falling on Tuesday or Saturday puja is
offered to the Ratna Bedi prior to the main shrine. And on Deepanwita Amavasya
(Kali Puja) a special bhog called Annakut is offered to Maa Bipattarini.
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