AN Eight-wheeled Vijay Rath will be crafted for the renowned Bastar Dussehra festival this year. To build the chariot, around 240 trees, including Sal and Bija, will be felled in the Machkot, Darbha, and Jagdalpur forest areas. The construction will take place in front of Sirhasar Bhawan. Initiated approximately 615 years ago by Maharaja Purushottam Dev, Bastar Dussehra has been celebrated with great enthusiasm ever since. Traditionally, a chariot with either four or eight wheels is built annually for the festival. This year, the eight-wheeled Vijay Rath will be used on Vijayadashami, known locally as Bhitar Raini, and the following day as Bahar Raini. Dedicated to Mata Mawali and Danteshwari, Bastar Dussehra does not include the tradition of Ravana’s effigy burning, which is common in other parts of India.

 

Around 150 artisans from the villages of Beda and Jhar Umargaon have arrived in Jagdalpur to construct the chariot, which requires approximately 54 cubic meters of wood. The wood is provided free of cost to the Dussehra Committee by the Forest Department. For the past five years, the Bastar Dussehra Committee has discussed replanting four times the number of trees cut down for the chariot, similar to the practices in Jagannath Puri. Plantations were carried out in 2020, 2021, and 2022, but not in 2023. According to the District Magistrate’s office, compensation plantations for 2023 and 2024 will be undertaken on the day of the Bastar Dussehra Committee meeting. In 2021, villagers from Darbha area opposed tree felling, leading to the planting of around 500 sal saplings in the forests of Darbha, Jagdalpur, and Machkot after the festival. This replanting aimed to compensate for the 240 trees cut to construct the chariot.