Subhadra

The divine sister of the god Jagannath,
who is invariably pictured with him and
their brother Balabhadra. The most
important site for these three deities is
the Jagannath temple in the city of Puri,
at which Jagannath is the presiding
deity. Although Jagannath is identified
with the god Krishna, he is generally
considered an autochthonous (“of the
land”) deity who was originally the local
deity of Puri. He has been assimilated
into the Hindu pantheon by his identification with Krishna.
One piece of evidence for this theory
is the deities’ invariable appearance,
with Jagannath (Krishna) on the right,
his brother Balabhadra (Balarama) on
the left, and Subhadra as a smaller figure
in the center. Such a triadic grouping
is virtually unknown in Krishna devotion, which tends to stress either
Krishna alone or the divine couple
of Krishna and Radha. The female figure
of Subhadra is also very unusual, since
as Jagannath’s sister she is ineligible
for the amorous adventures usually
associated with Krishna. Although
Jagannath is the most important of
the three deities, the identifications with
the other two also reveal larger
syncretizing tendencies. Balabhadra is
sometimes identified as a form of
the god Shiva, and Subhadra as the
powerful goddess Durga. In this way,
Puri’s divine trio embody the three
most important Hindu deities. For
further information on Subhadra and
her brothers, the best source is
Anncharlott Eschmann, Hermann
Kulke, and Gaya Charan Tripathi, The
Cult of Jagannath and the Regional
Traditions of Orissa, 1978.