Orissa Review * June - 2006

Jagannath : The Epitome of Supreme Lord Visnu

Jayanti Rath

In the comological trinity, Visnu is the name representations show him sleeping above the given to the cohesive or centripetal tendency. Ocean on the coils of the Serpent Remainder All that in the universe tends toward a centre, (Sesa-naga) or standing with four arms and a toward more concentration and more cohesion. number of attributes as the ruler of Sattva, the More existence, more reality, all that tends cohesive or centripetal tendency. toward light, toward truth, is the Visnu The worship of Visnu or Vaisnava cult tendency. Visnu pervades all existence, hence was prevalent in Orissa long before the advent He is known as the of Shri Chaitanya. The Pervader. The name 9th-10th century grants Visnu comes from the of Dandi Mahadevi and root visir, which means Tribhuvana Mahadevi, "to spread in all two renowned queens directions," to pervade. of the Bhauma Dynasty, As the inner cohesion tell that they were great through which followers of Vishnu. everything exists Visnu Shrimad Bhagavata dwells in everything, had already been owns everything, defeats translated into Oriya the power of before Shri Chaitanya destruction." He is came to Orissa. With the Visnu, he overcomes all. rule of Chodaganga All the qualities in 1078, Orissa and attributes which are also came in contact inherent in the nature of the pervader and which with the Alvar School of Vaishnavas. Rai are found in his mainfestations are simbolized Ramananda was a learned Vaishnava poet who by the different qualities and attributes of his flourished even before Shri Chaitanya came image. The significance of the icon of Visnu is to Orissa. explained in the Puranas and several minor The Padma Purana describes twenty- Upanisads. The two most common four epithets of Vishnu (Kesava, Narayana,

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Madhava, Govinda, Visnu, Madhusudana, have been found and exacavated in the valley Tribikrama, Vamana, Sridhara, Hrisikesa, of the river Prachi not far from Puri. Padmanabha, Damodara, Sankarsana, In the beginning of the present millenium Vasudeva, Pradyumna, Aniruddha, therefore when the worshippers of Jagannath Purusottama, Adhoksaja, Narasimha, Achyuta, felt the necessities to explain to themselves and Janardana, Upendra, Hari, Krisna). others this strange form and wooden character In Orissa, Narayana, Madhava and of their deity, they naturally thought first of Krisna forms of Visnu have gained immense Nilamadhava which was the most common adoration. And all these forms have been form of Vishnu in those days. Initially the Lord symbolized in the form of Lord Jagannath. was worshipped by Viswavasu, a Chief of the Lord Jagannath has been undoubtedly taken Sabara race. Bidyapati, a Brahmin emissary as the epitome of Supreme Lord Visnu. of king Indradyumna of Malava wanted to have a darsan of the Lord. He discovered the Lord. He is the beloved Krisna Gopinath, He But the Lord vanished and a divine voice was is Madhava, and He is Purusottama. He is the heard to the king that the Lord would now no outcome of many shapings and reshapings by more be visible to the people in his the religious cross-currents of this land. Nilamadhava form which was appropriate only The peculiar iconography of the wooden for the golden age of humanity (Krtayuga) but images of Jagannath, Balabhadra and Subhadra would instead assume a new shape more with their thick and massive heads and stumps suitable to the prevailing time to be worshipped emerging out of the middle of the head; devoid as a deity made of wood. totally of the legs, speaks of its tribal origin Why the wooden images of Jagannath and character even to a layman. Long after the etc. have exactly these peculiar and uncommon total integration of the Jagannath figures into features, has also been explained either as the Hinduism, their iconography persistently will of Visnu who himself appeares as reminded the people of their origin. carpenter to fashion the images or as a result During the period when the wooden of the uncalled for curiosity of Gundicha, the image or images of Jagannath were accepted legendary queen of Indradyumna, who opened in the Hiduistic fold, the most popular Visnu the doors of the Carpenter's Workshop after images in Orissa were those of Madhava, who the lapse of fourteen days whereas they were was also known as Nilamadhava, since those to remain shut up for three weeks, an act which images were carved out of the black chlorite - offended the divine carpenter so much that he black or blue being the body hue of Vishnu. disappeared leaving the work unfinished. Madhava, (as it is said earlier) is a standing The effort to explain the strange form form of Vishnu with four arms in which he and unusual substance (wood) of Jagannath holds (beginning from the upper left) a conch, which at no stage seem to have just been taken a mace, a lotus (in Orissa, however, this lower for granted is the beginning of the speculations, right mostly displays the varada-mudra) and not only about the origin of Jagannath, but also a discuss respectively. A number of such about his true nature. Leaving aside here the images belonging to the 8th - 10th centuries question, how this wooden image was

52 Orissa Review * June - 2006 identified with Visnu, we may recall that who became the son of Devaki in the Dvapara Jagannath has very often been characterized Yug not the other way round. as the Buddha incarnation of Visnu in the That Jagannath is the avatari from whom Orissan literary tradition. Sarala Das, (first half all the ten avataras have emanated is of the 15th century A.D.) refers to this propagated vigorously in the 17th century also identification several times in his Odia by the poet Dinakrusna Das in his work . This tradition persisted and 'Rasakallola' and especially by Divakara Das flourished in the works of the Panchasakha in his Jagannath Charitamrita who declares (beginnng of 16th century A.D.) and others. Krisna to be only the 16th part (one Kant) of Buddha is not the only form of Visnu, Lord Jagannath. with whom Jagannath is identified. There are Kavindra Upendra Bhanja, the greatest sufficient evidences in the cult practices to of the Oriya poets, writting in the second half show that atleast in a certain phase of his of the 18th century, describes the images of development, Jagannath has really been Jagannath etc. as shapelss, devoid of form considered as identical with Narasimha, the being the svarupa of Visnu. Jagannath, to him, man-lion. The Purusottama Mahatmya of represents the Nirguna (non-qualified) form of Skanda Purana for example, mentions God. Narasimha as a combined form of all the three deities, Jagannath, Balabhadra and Subhadra. Thus the development of the concept of Jagannath is also the history of the development It was the Krisna incarnation, however, of philosophical speculations in Orissa. which was to succeed in the end partially due to the reason that, the cult of Krisna became Book References : increasingly popular in the beginning of 11th 1. Nandita Krishna - The Art and Iconography of and 12th centuries in Bengal and Orissa owing Vishnu Narayana, Publisher - D.B Taraporevala to the tremendous influence of Bhagavata Sons & Co. Pvt. Ltd, Bombay, 1980 Purana. Latest by 1250 A.D. there stood three 2. T.A. Gopinatha Rao - Elements of Hindu images in the temple of Puri, which were Iconography, Vol - 1, Part I & II, Publisher - identified with Krisna, his elder brother Motilal Banarasi Das, Jawahar Nagar, New Delhi - 7, 1968 Balarama and their sister Ekanamsa. The identification of Jagannath with Krisna was so 3. Kamapala Das, Matsya Purana, Ed. by Balaram Das, Nityananda Pustakalaya, Cuttack, 1955 popular that Sarala Das was inspired to evolve an interesting story about the material 4. Kamapala Das, Vishnu Purana, Edward Press, identification of the wooden image of Cuttack, 1915. Jagannath with the dead body of Krisna. Gradually, the relationship between Krisna and Jagannath was changed. The Oriya poet Karttika Das, writing a little later in the Jayanti Rath is the Curator-in-charge, Numismatics same 16th century, tells us that it was Jagannath Section, Orissa State Museum, Bhubaneswar-14.

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