‘Ker Puja’ begins in royal ‘Ujjayanta Palace’, to end on Wednesday morning

By Our Correspondent

Agartala, August 4, 2026

The traditional ‘Ker Puja’ , household deity of Tripura’s royal family since at least the early fifteenth century as per historical records, commenced within the royal ‘Ujjayanta Palace’ from Monday night and is set to end on Wednesday morning. The detailed rituals of the ‘Ker Puja’ which is done in accordance with the ‘Tantric’ rules, were performed in the royal palace.

According to sources aware of the nature of ‘Ker Puja’ and its significance, the formal worship coincides with the beginning earlier of the ‘Kharchi Puja’ and festival . The ‘Ker Puja’ is organized annually for protection of the state and its people and the royal family from warborne trouble, natural disasters , epidemic and other dangers from unholy forces. A flexible bamboo poles bent in the middle is symbolically worship in ‘Tantric’ rituals and a visible image of the deity is conspicuous by absence . The main ‘Yajman’ of the ‘Ker Puja’ as that of the fourteen deities is the main royal personage and the area around the ‘Puja’ is also barricaded to bar entry of any other individual into the ‘Puja’ compound. Earlier the entire area around the royal ‘Ujjayanta’ palace including a distance up to the Ker Chaumuhuni used to remain barred from public or vehicular movement. But now only the right side of the Sachin Debbarman Sarani-that is the right side of the road from Rabindra Bhawan chaumuhuni upto the palace proper remains closed to movement. This prohibition on movement and presence of people will be lifted from tomorrow morning after the last round of the ‘Ker Puja’.

The ‘Ker Puja’ has been continuously held by the royal family from early 15th century but since the merger of the state with the Indian union on and from October 15 1949 the expenses for the ‘Puja’ isi borne by the state government, In the merger document signed by the then Maharani Kanchan Prava Debi and the government of India represented by V.P.Menon it was agreed that the government of Tripura or India would continue to bear the expenses of worship of deities in ‘Tripureshari’ temple in Udaipur, Kharchi Puja in old Agartala, Laxmi Narayan Bari temple and Durga Bari temple in Agartala as these temples would always be patronized and financially backed by the royal family of Tripura till the date of merger.

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