The Myth of Masan Baba

 Masan Baba is a folk deity of benevolent and/or malevolent nature worshipped mainly by the Rajbanshi community in North Bengal, especially in the Dinhata subdivision of Cooch Behar district. Every year on the first day of the Bengali month Jaishto (May-June) a fair is organized centering the annual worship of Masan Baba in the village named Alokjhari at Gosanimari under this very subdivision. The God, worshipped in this very temple by the name Garkata Masan as well as Alokjhari Masan, is the most primordial and popular one among its other equivalents forming one hundred twenty six in total while in the district itself only twenty eight of its equivalents are found to be worshipped. The Rajbanshi community believe that the different forms of Masan Baba can cause different harm to the people of different ages such as spreading several diseases and bringing about natural calamities and in a bid to get rid of these diseases and calamities they started to worship Masan Baba.

As mythology goes, goddess Kali is the daughter of Dharma Thakur and out of her eighteen sons the eldest one who is the source of the equestrian supreme power, is Masan Baba. Another strand continues by saying that the God sprang from the beads of sweat of the goddess Kali when she was dancing in a trance. It was also believed that once Maa Kali went to take bath in a river when Dharma Thakur suddenly appeared before her and it was after their union Masan Baba was born. The name then given to Him was Pitchla Masan. Many people particularly belonging to the Rajbanshi community believe that Masan Baba sprang from the matted locks of Lord Shiva. As legends describe, Sati who was the favourite child of Daksha, marries Shiva against her father’s wishes. After Daksha humiliates her and her husband, Sati kills herself in the yajna (Fire-Sacrifice) to protest against him, and uphold the honour of her husband. Deeply hurt by the death of His wife, Shiva performed the destructive Tandava dance. And during that time some of the hair from His matted locks fell on earth from which the God is believed to have sprung. According to the Rajbanshi community, the God was born on Saturday in the Bengali month of Bhadra and it was believed that after His birth the kundali was thrown into the river and it was from His kundali water spinach (kalmi saag) was grown as a vegetable. This is the reason that the Rajbanshi people avoid eating water spinach in the month of Bhadra. 

There is a small village named Trimohini near Sahebganj under Dinhata subdivision where there is a temple of Masan Baba in which He is revered by the name Khyataora Masan. The speciality of this temple is the ingredients that the local people vow to the God with, such as needle and thread, to have their wishes fulfilled. Masan Baba is accompanied by various mounts with respect to His nature, forms and their individual worship including tortoise, pig, stripped snakehead fish (shol mach) and sheep. Masan Baba has not yet achieved the status of a home deity and so is worshipped outside the territory of the house — sometimes under a Banyan or Sheora tree or sometimes in a small house made of corrugated iron. Though the modern medical science is improving day by day, yet the worship of Masan Baba is followed earnestly by the Rajbanshi community.