Konark festival or Magha Saptami which is also called Chandrabhaga Mela is the most popular festival which fall in the month of February. This is a day specially set aside for the worship of the Sun God at Konark. sAlthough the temple is a ruin, even today thousands of pilgrims flock to Konark every year on the Magha Sukla Saptami, the day of Spring Festivals, to celebrate the new birth of the Sun God. When the Sun has returned on its northern course, they assemble before sunrise to take bathe in the sacred Chandrabhaga river and in the nearby sea. When on that day the Sun God emerges from the ocean in the Agni Kona, the south eastern corner of the horizon, they adore and worship him with silent prayers or yells of joy, and many in their ecstasy imagine they actually see him rising from the water in his luminous chariot drawn by seven fiery horses. After that they walk one and a half miles to the temple to circumambulation the shrine and to worship the Navagraha stone which originally was above the eastern portal and is now set up in a small shed outside the compound. When their religious duties are performed, they pass the rest of the day in cooking, eating and merrymaking and by nightfall that have all dispersed to their homeward journey. Some of these people come on foot from distant place and eventually spend a whole month on the road before reaching their destination. This shows how great is their faith and their love for the Sun God, and how strong are latent memories of ancient traditions.