ರಥಯಾತ್ರೆ | Ratha Yatra

Ratha Yatra is the chariot festival of Jagannatha, Balabhadra and Subhadra at Puri. On this day the three leave their temple, are drawn by hand along the road to the Gundicha temple about three kilometres away, and remain there for a week before returning. It is one of the few occasions in Indian practice when the deity leaves the sanctum entirely and is seen by anyone standing in the street.

When it falls

The tithi is Ashadha Shukla Dwitiya, the second of the bright fortnight, and the day is the one on which the dwitiya is running at sunrise. The return journey, the Bahuda Yatra, is on the dashami of the same fortnight, and the deities are taken back inside on the dwadashi.

The fortnight before is part of the same cycle. On the full moon of Jyeshtha the images are given a ceremonial bath, the Snana Yatra, with a hundred and eight pots of water. They are then held to have fallen ill and are kept out of sight for about a fortnight, the anasara, during which the temple is closed to darshana and the images are repainted. They are shown again, as Nabajouban, a day or two before the chariots move.

The chariots

Three new chariots are built each year from fresh timber and are not reused. Jagannatha’s is Nandighosha, Balabhadra’s Taladhwaja and Subhadra’s Darpadalana, and they differ in height, in the number of wheels and in the colour of the cloth. Nothing mechanical draws them; the ropes are pulled by whoever takes hold of them. The Gajapati king of Puri sweeps the platform of each chariot with a golden broom before they move, a rite whose point is that the office is subordinate to the deity.

The word juggernaut in English comes from Jagannatha, by way of European travellers describing the chariots and repeating a story about devotees crushed under the wheels. The word entered English carrying that sense, which was mostly an outsider’s invention.

Where the name means something else

This matters in Karnataka more than anywhere. Rathotsava and ratha yatra are the ordinary words for the car festival of any temple, and almost every temple of any size has one, at its own date fixed by its own tradition: Udupi, Gokarna, Sringeri, Melkote, Nanjangud, and hundreds of village temples. A reader who sees Ratha Yatra in a panchanga and expects the local car festival that day will usually be disappointed. This entry is the Puri festival specifically.

The Puri form has also travelled. The chariot processions held in Bengaluru, in other Indian cities and abroad by ISKCON are held on or near this tithi and follow the Puri pattern rather than the local temple one.

Navakalevara

In years with an intercalary Ashadha, the wooden images at Puri are replaced. New ones are carved from neem trees identified by particular marks, and the brahma, the substance held to be the life of the image, is transferred at night by priests who are blindfolded. This happens roughly every twelve to nineteen years and is the largest event in the temple’s calendar.