Shri Jagannath

01Indradyumna and the log

The Purushottama Kshetra Mahatmya of the Skanda Purana tells how King Indradyumna of Malava, longing to see Nilamadhava, was told in a dream that the Lord would come to him as a log floating in the sea. The log came, but no carpenter could cut it, until an old craftsman, Vishvakarma himself by the katha, offered to carve it in a closed room for twenty-one days. The impatient queen opened the door early; the craftsman had vanished, and the forms stood unfinished. They have been worshipped that way ever since.

02Rath Yatra and Nabakalebara

On Snana Purnima in Jyeshtha the three are bathed with 108 pots and fall ill; for a fortnight, the anasara, they rest out of sight. On Ashadha Shukla Dwitiya they come out on three new chariots, Nandighosha, Taladhvaja and Darpadalana, and the Gajapati king of Puri sweeps the road before them with a golden broom. Lakhs pull the ropes to the Gundicha temple. In some years with a double Ashadha, as in 2015, the old wooden bodies are buried and new ones carved from specially chosen neem trees: the Nabakalebara.

03Shrimandir and its kitchen

The present temple was built by Anantavarman Chodaganga Deva of the Eastern Gangas in the twelfth century, and its spire with the Nilachakra rises over the town. Its kitchen cooks the Mahaprasad in earthen pots over wood fires, and it is shared by all who come, without distinction. Jayadeva’s Gita Govinda has been sung before Jagannath for centuries, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu spent his last years at Puri, and Adi Shankaracharya’s Govardhan Matha stands here as the seat of the east.

In the texts

• Skanda Purana, Vaishnava Khanda, Purushottama Kshetra Mahatmya
• Gita Govinda of Jayadeva
• Madala Panji (temple chronicle)

Utsav: festivals