Jharkhand CM Raghubar Das today held a meeting with officials to hold Itkhori Mahotsav with an aim to popularise Itkhori in the international map as it is the temle complex in Chatra.
The state government is planning to hold Itkhori Mahotsav on February 19-21 with an aim to develop it as a tourist spot.”The Mahotsav should be held in a grand way”,said the CM addressing officials inside his office in Ranchi.
Das said the culture of Jharkhand is rich.It has many historical and methological herritage sites.”The need was to retain and promote them”,said Das.
Itkhori is famous religious place,located 1.5 KMs away from Itkhori Block in Bhaduli village,Chatra district.This place is surrounded by three sides from Buxa River whose water flows in U-shaped.
The premises of Maa Bhadrakali Temple is sorrounded with green forests and falls. It has great importance in History of India because of the black colour statues(specially constructed in Shak,Gupta and Vardhan period – 1500 to 1800 years ago).
These staues were found in exacavation. Today it is one of the great holly place as well as tourist spot of Hindus. In Budhdha period, Budhdha came here and stayed for sometime.In the meantime his relatives came to Itkhori searching him and found him though Budhdha did not identify them as relatives.His relative told “Itkhoi – Yahi kho diya”, since then its name became ITKHORI.
The Archaeological Survey of India (Ranchi circle)’s excavation in Itkhori — so far only the wild undergrowth on the site close to Ma Bhadrakali Temple is being cleared, scientific digging is yet to start — on Tuesday 10th Jan 2012 yielded a black stone plate of a Jain Tirthankar.
The discovery of the 20cmx10cm disc related to the Jain faith near a Buddhist stupa on temple premises on january 10,2012 further cements the site’s reputation as a confluence of the three faiths.
Residents are hoping that the excavation succeeds in proving Itkhori as birthplace of Jain Tirthankar Sheetalnath as well as the site where Gautam Buddha visited.Then,the place will become a global pilgrimage address. There is a strong possibility of a big discovery underneath the site,”N.G. Nikoshey,Superintendent Archaeologist of ASI is quoted having said.
Now,with the Das government getting ready to organise Itkhori Mahotsav,the residents are happy.”The people will come to know what this historic cite is all about.In the past,the people had discovered the ‘charan paduka’ of Jain Tirthankar Sheetalnath in 1983.
