Bishnupur Guide

After being initiated by Sri Nibas Acharya the spiritual guide of Maharaja Bir Humbir, the Maharaja constructed lot of Vaishnava temples in Bishnupur. To produce different sweets as offering, used in the adoration purpose, Maharaja Bir Humbir brought and placed some Gowala (milkman caste) and Moira families in Bishnupur. He further made some arrangements for their residential purpose near every temple. Through their revolutionary art of making great sweets, these two casts created record in the food history of Bengal. The craziness of eating milkmaid products in Vaishnaba religion was the major reason to produce different new food items.

‘Motichur’ and ‘Mihidana’ are very famous sweets in Bengal. Both sweet contains many granulated sweet small balls. But both sweets are different in their looks and quality. The Motichur balls are bigger in size then Mihidana balls. ‘Moti’ means ‘Pearl’ and ‘Chur’ means ‘sweet’. During that period, the Modak or Moiras (sweet makers) used the flower of ‘Peal’ seeds to prepare this Laddu (Big sweet contains many granulated sweet balls).Beside of that they used ‘Gawa-Ghee’( clarified butter) and Samsara molasses (treacle from samsara sugarcane). The granulated sugar from the Samsara sugarcane was called ‘Dola Chini’. Dola Chini was famous for its flavor and color. Gopal Nag, a reputed moira of that time got Mondal title from the Maharaja for his famous ‘Mitichur Laddu’.

But unfortunately during the period of 1939 to 1945 AD, at the time of 2nd World War, all the Peal trees was completely destroyed by the British solders. To prepare aerodromes they had to clear all forests near Gamarbani, Benachapra, area and thus the scarcity of peal seed was the main cause for which the production great Motichur Laddu stopped and extint slowly.