Surrendering To Puri Jagannath

This article appeared in The Times of India on 05^th JUL 2011 (Tue)

by Ratnottama Sengupta

Lord Jagannath resides in Puri on the shores of the turbulent Bay of Bengal. Once a year he comes out of the temple and devotees vie with one another, trying to pull the cord of his commanding chariot. The rest of the year, a restricted crowd gets a glimpse of him inside the distinctive temple, the only one in the world devoted to siblings: the reigning deity at all other places of worship are consorts or mother and child.

Many moons ago, a senior journalist from Hyderabad was in Bhubaneswar. When she expressed a desire to visit the Lord in Puri, she was informed that she could not gain entry for only Hindus were allowed. “Let me see the outside then,” she said, and made her way to the temple. Walking around, admiring the architecture, her eyes fell on a man beckoning her. “Want to go in?” She nodded and followed him silently as he led her through a maze of doors and courtyards. Not a word was exchanged, not even when the lights went out without warning. When the bulbs came alive just as suddenly, she found herself in the garbhagriha, face-to-face with the main idol whose magnificence overwhelmed her. “Ya Allah!” she exclaimed in sheer admiration as the experience could not be described in words.
What is so special about this image of Krishna at Puri? Why was Sri Chaitanya of Nadia – considered an avatar of Vishnu, no less – willing to give up everything for a darshan of Jagannath? Why do crowds throng the temple despite the heat and dust, the confined space, and the exploits of pandas? Doubtless, it is the allure of the icons of Jagannath, Subhadra and Balaram. The figures are crafted in wood that comes from an uncontaminated tree with distinctive marks. What is less known is that periodically the idol ‘dies’, like any human. But what prompted the craftsman to create an ‘imperfect’ God? A damaged idol is normally immersed in water. The Puri idols have very large, round eyes without eyelashes, and stubs for hands without fingers.
One story says that an Orissa king asked an artisan to make an idol of Krishna that no one in the universe had ever seen. He agreed, on one condition: he would not be disturbed by anyone as long as he worked on the image. “Granted,” said the king. But when days lapsed into weeks and months, the queen could not contain her curiosity. One day she forced open the door and entered the room. Immediately the craftsman left, leaving the icons incomplete, never to return.
“Think,” said my guide. “Who are the people who have no eyelashes, or have mere stubs for fingers?”
In a flash i was reminded of Shamba, Krishna’s son who had travelled to Konark because he had contracted leprosy. “Those days, there was no cure for leprosy. Only those who could take a dip in the holy waters of the Chandrabhaga during a solar eclipse benefited from certain properties in the refracted rays of the sun at that position. That is why leprosy patients travelled here from far and wide.”
It became clear to me that the enlightened artisan had given form to the saying: “Bhakter bojha bhagawan dhoye” – “The Lord takes upon himself the suffering of his devotees and absolves them when they surrender to him.”