Puri

City and sacred site (tirtha) on the Bay
of Bengal in the state of Orissa. Puri is
best known for its temple to the god
Jagannath, a local deity assimilated
533
Puri
Rath Yatra festival in Puri.
into the pantheon as a form of the god
Krishna and therefore, by extension, a
form of Vishnu. The temple was completed in 1198 C.E. and is currently
receiving much needed restoration,
after several pieces fell off the tower in
the early 1990s. The most important
annual festival held in Puri is the Rath
Yatra. During this festival, Jagannath,
his brother Balabhadra, and his sister
Subhadra are carried in procession
through the city’s main street in enormous wooden carts. They travel to
another temple about a mile away,
where they stay for a week, and then
return to Puri. Aside from the spectacle,
the ceremony is an important ritual
theater used to demonstrate the relationship between Jagannath and the
kings of Puri, who were considered to
be deputies ruling in his name.
Although the kings no longer wield
actual power in modern times, by
virtue of their status they still play an
important ritual role.
Aside from containing the temple
of Jagannath, Puri is one of the four
dhams, which symbolically mark the
geographic boundaries of India. It is
also the home of the Govardhan
Math, one of the four Dashanami
Sanyasi sacred centers supposedly
established by the philosopher
Shankaracharya. Puri’s character as a
holy city has made it an attractive
place for religiously inclined people to
make their homes, most notably the
Bengali saint Chaitanya (1486–1533),
who lived there for much of his adult
life. The cultural life generated by the
worship of Jagannath also made Puri
a center for the arts, and it is the
traditional home of the classical
dance form known as Orissi. For further information see Anncharlott
Eschmann, Hermann Kulke, and Gaya
Charan Tripathi, The Cult of
Jagannath and the Regional Tradition
of Orissa, 1978; and Frederique Apffel
Marglin, “Time Renewed: Ratha Jatra
in Puri,” in T. N. Madan (ed.), Religion
in India, 1991.