Panchbadan Palki From Tedhineem Seats Baba on Garbhagriha Swing

The panchbadan movable silver image of Baba Vishwanath was carried in a palki on Friday evening, 28 August 2026, from the former mahant house at Tedhineem to Sri Kashi Vishwanath temple, by way of Sakshi Vinayak and Dhundhiraj Ganesh, and seated with the mahant family on the swing in the garbhagriha. Traditional jhulanotsav then began.

That seating is the result. The road is how the image arrived. The swing is where the festival started.

Earlier the same Friday, at the mahant house, the movable image received a cow-milk abhishek. Eleven Vedic brahmins sat under Pandit Sushil Tripathi at brahmamuhurta. A floral rakhi was tied on the image. Brahmamuhurta is the window named for those eleven brahmins, and cow’s milk is the abhishek medium at the house. The floral rakhi is a house tying. None of that is the evening swing. It precedes it.

Sanjiv Ratna Mishra did the panchbadan shrigar and carried the danda in the palki. Pandit Vachaspati Tiwari carried the silver mashal on the road and performed dikshit mantra puja once the image was in the garbhagriha. Mishra’s work is the dressing and the staff on the carry. Tiwari’s work is the torch on the route and the mantra puja at the sanctum. The names are not interchangeable.

The 36th Battalion of the Provincial Armed Constabulary put a band on the Tedhineem-to-temple stretch. Natyakot traditional instruments travelled with that band. The band and the Natyakot instruments are the sound on the road. They travelled with the palki from Tedhineem. They are not a separate concert.

The route does not add a third shrine beyond Sakshi Vinayak and Dhundhiraj Ganesh. Those two stops are the ones named between the former mahant house and the temple. Tedhineem is the start. The former mahant house is the room from which the silver image left. The garbhagriha is the room in which the image was seated with the family. The swing is the furniture of jhulanotsav. None of those places was substituted.

Since 2022 the panchbadan image has travelled uncovered. That change sits on the Amrit Mahotsav year under former mahant Dr Kulpati Tiwari. Before 2022 the same movable image went under white cloth. Friday evening’s palki ran on the uncovered custom. The cloth rule is a 2022 change, not a Friday invention.

No crowd figure was issued with the Friday evening rites. The priests named above, and the PAC battalion on the road, are who put the palki and the swing on the record.

The swing in the garbhagriha is where Friday evening stopped being a road. The family sat with the image. Jhulanotsav began there.