Dharmathakur

Dharmaraj Gajan is the traditional festival of Barddhaman, Bankura district villages
The traditional shrine of Dharmaraj at a Barddhaman,Bankura District's villages.

Dharmaraj (also called Dharma Thakur, Dharmaraj or simply Dharma) is a Hindu deity of death and justice, worshipped by villagers in the traditional Rarh region in the present day Indian state of West Bengal as one of their special village gods (gram devata). He is represented by a shapeless stone daubed with vermillion and is normally placed under a tree or placed in the open, but sometimes enshrined in a temple. The worship takes place in the months of Baisakh, Jaistha and Asarh on the day of full moon and sometimes on the last day of Bhadro.[1] Dharmaraj is worshipped mainly by the Bauri, Bagdi, Hari, Dom etc. castes.[2]

A temple of Dharma stood in the Jaun Bazaar street in Calcutta during the late 19th century.[3]

  1. ^ O'Malley, L.S.S., ICS, Birbhum, Bengal District Gazetteers, p. 36, 1996 reprint, first published 1910, Government of West Bengal
  2. ^ Mitra, Ajit Kumar, Birbhumer Loukik Debdebi, (in Bengali), Paschim Banga, Birbhum Special Issue, pp. 321–334, Government of West Bengal
  3. ^ The Calcutta Review, Volume 106, 1898 p. 322