PURI JAGANNATH TEMPLE – LESS KNOWN FACTS BY P V Rajgopal, Bangalore

  

I hail from Orissa, the land of the famous temples at Puri, Bhubaneshwar and Konark.  I was allotted to Madhya Pradesh, again a land of  beautiful temples at Khajuraho, the magnificently designed and extremely well preserved thousand years old Nilakanteswara temple at Udaypur in Vidisha district built by the son of Raja Bhoj and yet another thousand years old circular Chaunsath Yogini Temple with pillars all around the circle in Mitaoli in Morena district, which served as the model for the British architect, Henry Baker, to design the Parliament House in New Delhi, with minor modification. Interestingly, the Parliament House is the only building built by the British which does not reflect Western architecture. With such an exposure to temples from a young age, I developed a keen interest in the history, architecture and symbolism of Hindu temples. Based upon my study of the temple of Lord Jagannath in Puri, I am narrating some facts about this temple, its traditions and its practices without touching upon the religious and mythological aspects.

I would like to start with the account of the Chinese Buddhist monk, scholar and traveller, Hiuen-Tsang whose 16 years pilgrimage to India from 627 to 643 AD, started from Taxila (now in Pakistan) to Nalanda, Bharhut (Satna), Sanchi (Raisen) and on to Puri and other Buddhist centres down south. In his travel log he has mentioned about a Buddhist shrine at  SI  HA-LI  CHE-TA-HA-LO in Kamrup (Assam).   Since Chinese do not use the letter ‘ra’, the place mentioned by him has been deciphered as SRI HARI KSHETRA. He also made mention about a place in the east coast named SI CHE-TA-HA-LO where there is a big stupa situated on a small mound 3 Li from the  sea (in Chinese measurement a Li is 500 metres). It means the stupa was one and a half kilometers from the sea coast. SI CHE-TA-HA-LO has been deciphered as SRI KSHETRA. Here, I would like to reiterate that even to this very day Puri is also referred to as Sri Kshetra (or Sri Khetro as Oriyas pronounce it).                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

In the 7^th Century, Buddhism appears to be the religion practiced through the entire stretch of land from Afghanistan to the south of India. This explains the existence of huge statues of Buddha in Bamiyan in Afghanistan (destroyed by the Taliban in recent years) to the picturesque limestone stupa at Amravati in Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh (relics now displayed in the Museum in Chennai)

Many years later, Adi Shankaracharya, who is believed to have lived for only 32 years from 788 to 820 AD, travelled the entire length and breadth of the country unifying and establishing the main currents of thought in Hinduism. Though the origins are not clearly known, the school of Hinduism propagated by Adi Shankaracharya attributes the origin of the four monasteries (char dhams) to the seer.  The four monasteries lay across the four corners of India - Badrinath in the North, Puri in the East,  Dwarka in the West and  Rameswaram in the South. These mutts were headed by learned teachers of Hinduism who came to be known as Shankarcharyas. Over the next 2 or 3 hundred years, starting from the North, Buddhism gradually faded out in India and Hinduism revived  throughout the country.

The Tibetan Buddhist Lama Taranath describes how by the tenth century, after repeated onslaughts on Buddhism by a mainstream Hinduism, Buddhism lost a lot of ground in the north and thereafter in the rest of India. With this fading out of Buddhism, the stupa at Puri fell into disuse. With the predominant presence of adivasis, known as sabaras, in the area, they appear to have put up their deities made of wood where the stupa stood, in accordance with the adivasi’s tradition of worshipping wooden logs or poles and not a humanised physical representation of a deity.

 Two or three centuries later, King Chodaganga appears to have decided to construct a temple dedicated to Lord Vishnu at the same place where earlier there was the Buddhist stupa and later the adivasis’ temple. He took care to ensure there was a fusion of Buddhism and tribal faith in the temple dedicated to Lord Vishnu, which he planned to construct. Thus we observe that the idol of Lord Jagannath is a carved and decorated wooden stump with large round eyes and a symmetric face, with a conspicuous absence of hands and legs. The image consists of a square flat head and the pillar representing his face merging with the chest. The icon lacks a neck, ears, and limbs. Within this face are two big symmetric circular eyes with no eyelids. History has it that he was a tribal deity, adorned by the Sabara people. He is shown with the Vaishnava U-shaped mark on his forehead. His dark color and other facial features are an abstraction of the cosmic form of the Hindu god Krishna.  Further, the King appears to have retained the worship procedures, sacraments and rituals including rites that are not common in Hinduism.  King Chodaganga started the construction of the Shikhar or the main structure where the idols are kept and the Jagamohana or the assembly hall. After his death, his grandson, Anangabhima Deva completed the construction of the temple in 1174 AD.

According to the established norms of Hindu temple architecture, the way to identify to which deity a temple is dedicated to is to look at the niche in the walls on four sides of the main temple (known as Suknasas). In a temple having a Shivlinga, there is the humanized form of Shiva and Parvati in the Suknasas. In Puri, we see the four different avatars of Lord Vishnu in the four Suknasas.  Since the half man-half lion Narasimha avatar of  Lord Vishnu, should never be prominently displayed, in the Puri temple the statue of Narasimha has been placed in the rear side Sukhnasa.

It is to be noted that in this Hindu temple dedicated to Lord Vishnu, there are two features which are unique. One is that the idols are not made of stone or metal like most other Hindu temples but of wood which is a recurring theme in the forest dwellers religious practices. The second is that the persons who have a fair share of responsibilities to perform rituals of the temple are not Brahmins but tribals, who claim to be descendants of the hill tribes of Orissa known as Daitapathis. Since wood has a limited life span, hence after some years when one lunar month of Aashada is followed by yet another lunar month of Aashadha, new wooden idols are freshly carved from Neem wood to replace the old ones. This can take place in 8, 12 or even 18 years. This ritual is called Navakalevara (taking of a new form)

In a secret and sacred ceremony, the new idols are placed in front of the old idols and after midnight something is taken out of the body of the old Jagannath idol and placed inside the body of the new idol. The transfer of this "Life Force" occurs in total silence. There are strict rules attached to this act that the three Daitapatis must adhere to. Among them are the Daitapatis must fast and meditate the whole day inside the temple, they should be blindfolded, they must tie a piece of cloth around their palms so that they cannot feel what they are transferring. It is this ceremony that is the actual Navakalevara ritual, or Transformation Ceremony of Lord Jagannath. What’s interesting is that no Daitapati till date has been able to experience what actually is this sacred item. When asked of their experience at this time, the Daitapatis say, "it is very difficult to express what the item is. It can't be seen or felt. Our eyes are blindfolded and our hands are covered with cloth when we carry it. Yet a powerful feeling is very much present. This is our experience. Beyond this, exactly what this “Life Force” is that is so powerfully felt, nobody is able to say". After this ceremony, the old deities of Jagannath, Bhalabhadra ans Subhadra are   buried within the temple premises before dawn. There are three separate graves for the three deities. All the previous Jagannaths are laid to rest in the same grave, one on top of the other. Similarly with the other deities. The idols that are currently being worshipped in the temple were installed in the year 2015.

There are several interpretations about what is this item that is transferred from the old to the new idol with so much secrecy, devotion and sacred ceremonies. The interpretation that has appealed to me is that it could be the casket containing the relics of Lord Buddha which must have been recovered from the erstwhile stupa. As has been stated above, the temple was built over the ruins of a Buddhist stupa. It is well known that all stupas have at the bottom a stone casket containing the relics of Buddha or some Bodhisattva.  I have seen one such casket, carved out of stone, at a place called Ratnagiri in Orissa which was once a Buddhist center. The heavy stone casket was about 12 X 10 X 4 inches with a stone lid. The reason for so many non-Hindu practices being followed in the temple could be due to presence of this casket in the body of Jagannath idol.

On the morning of the second day the new deities are seated on the altar, new garments are given to the new deities, food is offered, and puja is done. Devotees can then come inside for darshan. And on the third day the new deities emerge from the temple for the annual Rath Yatra Festival. They are brought out and taken up to the Gundicha temple three kilometers away in huge chariots decorated as per the unique scheme prescribed and followed for centuries. They are covered with bright canopies made of stripes of red cloth and combined with those of black, yellow and green colours. There are three chariots for the three deities of Jagannath, his brother Bhalabhadra and sister Subhadra. The Rathas are huge wheeled wooden structures, which are built anew every year. The chariot for Jagannath is the biggest and is approximately 45 feet high and 35 feet square.

At the beginning of the Rath Yatra, the Daitapathis bring the idols from the sanctum sanctorum of the temple and with a lot of effort, pull them up on to the three chariots. After this, rituals that are actually a mix of mainstream Hindu, Buddhist and tribal traditions are performed by men from all castes and sects. The rituals begin with an untouchable, who is normally not allowed inside the temple, offering a coconut to the Lord. Thereafter, the most significant ritual associated with the Ratha-Yatra takes place. The erstwhile Raja of Puri dons the outfit of a sweeper and sweeps all the three chariots with a gold-handled broom and also cleanses the road in front of the chariots and sprinkles sandalwood water and powder with utmost devotion. This centuries old ritual is a relic of a Buddhist tradition – the most exalted person in the kingdom, rendering the most menial service to Lord Jagannath witnessed by lakhs of people. This ritual signifies that under the lordship of Jagannath, there is no distinction between the powerful sovereign and the most humble devotee. Led by the Raja and Rani, all devotees, irrespective of their caste or creed, pull the strong ropes tied to the chariots to Lord Jagannath’s aunt’s house, some three kilometers down the road, while the town resounds with sounds of priests and masses singing, dancing and chanting prayers and banging on gongs.  This is the only time when people, who are not allowed inside the temple premises, such as non-Hindus and foreigners, get a glimpse of the deities

Legend has it, that one Salbaig, the son of Lalbaig, a 17^th century Muslim Subedar at Cuttack and the Brahmin widow he married, became a devotee of Jagannath and took to composing and singing songs for the Lord standing outside the temple. At each Rath Yatra he would stand and sing soulfully to his Lord. Even after four centuries, all three cars make a brief halt at the grave of the Muslim musical mureed which is on the way the Gundicha temple. The deities are kept for nine days at this place and thereafter they ride back to the main temple. These nine days absence is probably meant to give the maintenance people time to look into the essential maintenance of the sanctum sanctorum.

According to historians, the Ratha Yatra was started on the completion of the great temple around 1150 AD. This festival is one of the Hindu festivals that has been reported to the Western world very early. Friar Odoric of Pordenone (in Italy) visited India in 1316-1318. In his own account of 1321, Odoric reported how the people put the "idols" on chariots, and the King and Queen and all the people drew them from the "church" with song and music.

 The colours of Jagannath, Bhalabhadra and Subhadra are black, white and yellow. Social anthropologists interpret these colours to represent the three races of mankind viz the black, the white and the yellow. The eyes of Jagannath  are regular circles, the eyes of Bhalabadra and Subhadra are oval. The head of Bhalabhadra is scalloped with a semi-circular lobe. Subhadra’s head is a tiara and Jagannath a straight line. Originally, when the temple was built, there was only one image of Jagannath representing Vishnu. Bhalabhadra and Subhadra representing Saivite and Shakti faiths were added subsequently.

A magnificent sixteen-sided 100 feet high monolithic pillar known as the Arun stambha stands in front of the main gate of the temple. This pillar has an idol of Arun, the charioteer of the Sun God Surya, on its top. This pillar was earlier located in the Konark Sun temple. Later, the Maratha guru Brahmachari Gosain brought this pillar from Konark.  There are numerous small temples and shrines within the Temple complex. I had been to the Surya temple. A small image of the Sun god is placed in front of a screen. I peeped to see what was behind the curtain. There was the big black stone statue of Surya Bhagwan, sitting in a Padmasana position. This was the statue which was worshipped in the now dilapidated Konark temple. Since the statue is slightly disfigured, it is not worshipped and hidden from view.

The temple's kitchen is reputed to be the largest in the world. It can prepare food for over one lakh people within a few hours notice. 56 varieties of offerings known as Chappan bhog are prepared every day. Cooking is done only in earthen pots. After being offered to Lord Jagannath and the other deities, the mahaprasad is sold at Ananda Bazaar, an open market inside the temple premises, where it should be eaten off leaf plates or broken pieces of the earthen pots.

 The Jagannath temple maintains a chronicle of all the historical events that have taken place. It is mentioned in this chronicle, called Madala Panji, that the temple was invaded and plundered eighteen times. In 1692, the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb ordered the temple to be closed otherwise it would be demolished. The temple was therefore, for the first time, closed for 15 years till the death of the Muslim bigot in 1707.

Many supernatural things are attributed to the temple. I would like to relate only four things which I have observed and could not find rational explanations for them. The first one is about the heavy metallic Sudershan Chakra on the pinnacle of the Shikar. From any direction you look at it, it appears as if it is facing you. The second one is the long triangular flag which flies on top of the temple. When the wind blows the flag should fly in the direction of the flow of the wind but this particular flag flows in the opposite direction to the wind's course without any scientific background to back it up. Thirdly, I have never seen a bird sitting on the temple. Fourthly, seven pots are used as vessels mounted one on top of another and are cooked using firewood. Surprisingly, the food in the top-most pot gets cooked first, and the rest follow the same order.

The shrine at Puri where the worship procedures, sacraments and rituals associated with Jagannath are syncretic, and include rites that  are uncommon in Hinduism was perhaps the first conscious experiment in synthesising India’s diverse religions and religious principles that flourished in the east around the 12th Century. It became the meeting point for all major Hindu and non-Hindu cults: Buddhism, Jainism, the Tantrik Panth and various tribal religions that pre dated all of these.

There is an interesting connection between Sikhism and Puri. Visitors to the Puri temple can write their names in the scrolls maintained there.  Guru Nanak, who visited Puri in June 1510 had also written his name, his father’s name and the name of his village.  When President Zail Singh visited the temple, the scroll containing Guru Nanak’s name was shown to him. Guru Tegh Bahadur, the 9^th Guru also visited Puri in 1670. In March 1699, at an assembly in Anandpur Sahib when Guru Gobind Singh, the 10^th Guru wanted five persons to volunteer to sacrifice their lives for the religion, a courageous Oriya water carrier from Puri, by name Himmat Rai, volunteered to get his head chopped off. He was declared as one of the (five) Panj Pyare by the Guru under the name Bhai Himmat Singh.

NEHRU MEMORIAL MESEUM AND LIBRARY BY SHRI PV RAJGOPAL

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                   NEHRU MEMORIAL MUSEUM & LIBRARY

                                                               P V Rajgopal, Bangalore

The Commander-in-Chief (C-in-C) of the Indian Army ranked just below the Viceroy of India in the Order of Precedence during the colonial period. While the Viceroy’s house (Rashtrapati Bhavan) was constructed on a 320 acre plot, the residence of the C-in-C was constructed on a 30 acre plot on Haifa Road in 1930.The building named ‘Flagstaff House’ was designed by Robert Tor Russell, the British architect who also designed the Connaught Place. After Independence, in mid-1948, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru moved into this building from his earlier York Place (Motilal Nehru Marg) residence and stayed in this mansion, renamed as Teen Murti Bhavan and the road renamed as Teen Murti Road, for 16 years till his death in May 1964.

After Nehru’s death, his daughter was insistent that this building should be converted into a Museum for her father much against the wishes of the successor PM Lal Bahadur Shastri who wanted this house to be earmarked as the permanent residence of the Prime Ministers of India much like the 10 Downing Streetresidence in London. The Museum and the Library started functioning in this  building from Ist April 1966 and later the Library was shifted to a separate building constructed in January 1974 in one corner of the vast complex. Thus was born the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML)

After my retirement from Service I got down to writing the two-volume biography of Mr K F Rustamji. In one of my interviews with him, he told me that he had donated all his diaries to the NMML. For five years I kept going regularly from Gurgaon, where I had settled after retirement, to the NMML to go through the vast collection of Rustamji’s papers.

The NMML has a massive collection of original manuscripts belonging toseveral eminent personalities carefully preserved in thousands of boxes. The Oral History Division recorded the reminiscences of over 800 makers of modern India.The library had also microfilmed several newspapers (some more 100 years old) and these form a valuable source of information. There is a separate photo section with about two lakhs photographs related to the freedom movement. The library houses more than two lakhs books catalogued in the computer for easy retrieval. I thoroughly enjoyed spending hours in the library and in course of time it became a second home for me.

Anyone wanting to go through the old manuscripts and archives   has to sit in a small room which has about 15 small desks arranged in the manner of a school classroom with two officials constantly keeping watch. One sits in the front like a teacher and the other at the back, ensuring no one did any damage to the valuable manuscripts. Sometimes I found it boring going through just only Rustamji’s papers. Therefore I used to peep into what the other readers were going through and got absorbed reading some of those manuscripts described below.

Bhagat Singh: The fiery revolutionary Bhagat Singh Sandhu who was hanged in Lahore Jail in 1930 at the age of 24, had folded a brownish foolscap size papers twice and made a small booklet in which, in his extremely beautiful handwriting,he had noted down some interesting quotations of famous English poets and authors like Charles Dickens, William Wordsworth and a few Marxist authors. I could never imagine that the revolutionary was proficient in English and had such high literary tastes.

Nizam of Hyderabad: I saw a copy of the Fortnightly Report submitted by the British Resident in Hyderabad to the Government of India in 1934. In his report he wrote that he had met the Nizam, who kept complaining to him that a very large number of low caste Hindus were fed up of the treatment meted out to them by the higher caste Hindus and hence wanted to convert to Islam but the bloody Brahmins were preventing them from doing so.

C. Rajagopalachari:  A day after Independence, the Radcliffe Award demarcating the boundaries of India and Pakistan was announced. Immediatelythereafter, riots broke out and there were large scale killings on both sides of the border. I was told by Mr Ashwini Kumar, a Punjab Cadre officer and later DG BSF, that it was difficult to travel from Delhi to Karnal – a distance of 120 km - due to the stench emanating from the decomposed bodies lying all along the highway. The situation was out of control. Nehru and Patel just did not know how to put a stop to it. Nehru wrote a long letter dated 4th September 1947 to C Rajagopalachari, who was then Governor of West Bengal, about the brutal killing of lakhs of people and the transfer of population taking place between India and Pakistan. Nehru wrote, “Though we are opposed to it, we are seeing the massive exchange of population taking place right in front of our eyes. We are unable to control the situation. I was thinking about a peaceful exchange of population between West Bengal and East Pakistan. It is just a thought. Nothing concrete has been decided. Just keep it to yourself. Let me know what your view is.” This letter, in C Rajagopalachari’s file, gives an indication of Nehru’s line of thinking  at the time when the country was going through an unprecedented crisis.

Prof J D Bernal: When PM Nehru went to China in 1954, he met his old friend the eminent scientist Prof J D Bernal who was a Professor of Physics in Cambridge University. He was the founder of Molecular Biology and his research helped develop X-ray crystallography. He was also Secretary of the Communist Party of Great Britain. He knew Nehru since 1937. In the transcript written by the Professor in his own hand regarding his meeting with Nehru, he wrote, “Nehru told me ‘most of my ministers are scoundrels or reactionary, but as long as they are my ministers, I can keep a check on them. If I were to resign, they would be the government and they would unleash the forces that I have tried, ever since I came to power, to hold in check.’” Bernal added, “I think he (Nehru) was perfectly sincere in what he said but I also felt he should have never said it to me.”

C C Desai ICS: I came across a booklet containing the transcript of a long interview done by a NMML official  of C C Desai, a 1922 batch  ICS officer allotted to MP. He was in Cambridge University along with Subhas Chandra Bose. The Jalianwala Bagh massacre which took place a few years earlier had a deep influence on Bose who wanted to devote his life to the freedom struggle. However, his father, who was a Police Prosecutor in Cuttack, (Orissa) insisted he should continue with his studies and appear for the ICS.  Desai stated that Subhas Chandra Bose qualified for the ICS securing a 4th position. He joined the training, but after sometime decided to resign as he did not want to serve under the British masters. However, the problem was that since Bose had undergone the training, he had to reimburse 250 pound sterling for his resignation to be accepted. On a request made by Bose, Desai gave him a loan of 250 pounds. Bose did not return the money for many years. Desai stated that Bose, who had no source of earning, took many years and repeated reminders to return the entire amount in small instalments.

M A Jinnah: The NMML had a large room which housed the microfilming section. There are several monitors where one could sit and go through newspapers of bygone years. I found some interesting articles in the old newspapers. In one of the leading newspapers, there was a write-up by Mr. Sri Prakasa, India’s first High Commissioner to Pakistan from 1947 to 1949. He has written that the President of Pakistan, M A Jinnah once summoned him and said, “I say, tell Jawahar not to be so mean and declare my house in Bombay as Enemy Property. When I was agitating for Pakistan, I thought that once Pakistan is formed, I shall go back to Bombay and spend the last years of my life in the house that I built with the sweat of my brow. I never thought I would get stuck in this dusty, bloody place (Karachi). Tell Jawahar that we have been family friends for many years. Whenever I used to go Allahabad his father would insist I stay in his house. Ask Jawahar to give the house on rent to a European who would treasure the lavish house with its ornate furniture and fittings and not to an Indian as Indians do not know how to maintain a house.” Sri Prakasa further wrote that he conveyed this to PM Nehru who appears to have obliged Jinnah despite his animosity towards that man. The house was given on rent to the Deputy High Commissioner of UK who had his office and residence in that house for several years.   

Mr Rustamji has mentioned in his diaries that during the six years he was with Nehru, he often heard Nehru cribbing that he spent nine long years in British jails, whileas that man Jinnah never went to jail even for a single day as he took no part in the freedom struggle but yet he got his Pakistan on a platter. Jinnah’s house is situated on a 2.5 acre (over one lakh sq ft) plot in the posh Malabar Hill area overlooking the sea. He had engaged a British architect to design the house on which he spent a colossal amount of Rs 2 lakhs in 1936. The house, which is lying unoccupied and is in some legal dispute, is now worth several hundreds of crores. 

Travancore-Cochin (T-C): Going through newspapers of 1953 in the Microfilming section, I came across a small news item which read that the government of T-C has appealed to the Centre to permit its people to appear at the Competitive examination for selection to the IAS and IPS. This news item intrigued me and so I tried to find out why such an appeal was made. The present State of Kerala comprises of the two princely States of Travancore and Cochin and the erstwhile British district known as Malabar. At the Congress session in October 1946, when Sardar Patel raised the subject of having the two All India Services (AIS) namely the IAS and IPS, there was vehement opposition from all the Congress Chief Ministers led mainly by Gobind Ballabh Pant of UP and Ravi Shankar Shukla of MP, who did not want outsiders to govern in their State. They wanted to have their own State Service officers to man the top posts. Patel got furious and shouted, “The Union will go if we do not have an AIS to keep the country united.” The State of T-C did not take in AIS officers. Patel retaliated by debarring people of T-C from appearing for the competitive exams. I saw the old IPS Civil List and found that Kerala Cadre had two direct recruit officer of 1948 seniority. I discovered they were transferred from Madras Cadre in 1956 at the time of reorganization of States. None was recruited from T-C from 1948 to 1953.Three officers were recruited in 1954 for the first time. Apparently, the State government appeal was acceded to by the Center.

It’s a misnomer to think that the NMML is a storehouse of documents pertaining to Nehru only. It also has papers relating to leaders of other political parties and several freedom fighters of the last 160 years, i.e. from 1857 onward.The vast, rare collection of archives and manuscripts has been possible mainly due to the pioneering efforts put in by a few dedicated individuals who contacted the surviving freedom fighters and retired officials or their family members and persuaded them to part with their manuscripts or interviewed them and made a transcript. Their labour resulted in preserving for posterity archives pertaining toIndia’s freedom struggle.

           

                               ooooooo0ooooooo