Rath Yatra

Festival falling on the second day of the
bright (waxing) half of the lunar month
of Ashadh (June–July). The primary
deity worshiped in this festival is
Jagannath, who is considered a form of
the god Krishna. This festival is celebrated all over India but especially in the
sacred city of Puri, where the principal
temple of Jagannath is located. During
the festival in Puri, Jagannath, his brother
Balabhadra, and his sister Subhadra
are carried in procession through the
city’s main street to another temple
about a mile away. They stay in this
nearby temple for a week, and then
return to the Jagannath temple.
The deities are processed by their
devotees (bhakta) in three enormous
wooden chariots (rath), which the devotees pull using long ropes. The largest of
the three, belonging to Jagannath, is
forty-five feet high, thirty-five feet broad
and wide, and travels on sixteen wheels
each seven feet high. The English word
“juggernaut” is a corruption of Jagannath,
and the connotation of a juggernaut as
an unstoppable force undoubtedly
derives from the momentum that these
carts attained once they began to
move. One of the staple fictions of
British colonial lore described Jagannath’s
frenzied devotees committing suicide
by throwing themselves under the
car’s wheels, so that they would die in
the sight of God. Despite such tales
being widely repeated, suicides of this
sort were extremely uncommon. Still,
there was some risk in pulling the
carts, since people losing their footing
in the massed crowd would be unable
to get up, and could potentially be
crushed by the wheels. For further
information see T. N. Madan (ed.),
Religion in India, 1991.
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Rath Yatra