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Thousands of Manipur devotes celebrated “Maha Raas”, a festival celebrating the love life of Lord Krishna in Tripura.
The festival is celebrated every year on the full moon day of “Kartik Purnima” in the Hindu month – “Kartik” to mark Lord Krishna’s love for Radha.
Girls in their traditional dresses danced around the idols of Lord Krishna and Radha even as girls enacting the role of ‘gopies’ sing devotional songs throughout the night at the local temple.
Even from Manipur people are participating and Langlen Thoibi Ningthouja is one of the gopi from Manipur.
The Maha Raas celebration started in Tripura is 223 years back after a Maharani of the Manikya dynasty, who was from Manipur brought the idol of Radha-Krishna from there and established a Radhamadhav temple here.
Although Raas is a festival of particularly the Manipuri community but today both Bengali Hindus, Muslims and even the tribal population of the state participate in the celebrations.
It has in fact turned into a platform where people get united forgetting their differences and thus can play a vital role in bringing back peace in this small state burning in the flames of militancy and communal violence for more than two decades.
