The Antiquities of Orissa v2.c17.105

v2.c17.105

*1. Prathamāṣṭamī.* The first festival, according to this mode of reckoning, comes on the 8th of the wane. It is called *Prathamāṣṭamī Yātrā* or 'the feast of the first 8th' It is not recognised in the Bengali calendar. At Bhuvaneśvara it is celebrated in the form of a car festival. A small brazen image, having the name of Candraśekhara, and usually kept in the little temple by the southern entrance of the Mohan, is taken out, as the proxy of Bhuvaneśvara, placed on a large car, and carried with much pomp and music to a tank called *Pāpanāsinī*. There it is bathed, dressed with new clothes, and worshipped with a special formula devised for the purpose, and then brought back with equal pomp, through a dense crowd, roughly estimated at ten thousand. The tank is situated at a distance of about 300 yards to the west of the Great Tower, [78] close by the Temple of Maitreśvara, and held in great esteem as especially efficacious in washing off all moral taints, whence its name.