King Indradyumna and the sacred wood

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Namaste. Let us sit quietly for a breath. In. And out.

Today we begin a series on Jagannath, the lord of the world, whose great temple stands in Puri on the coast of Odisha. Puri has many old names. It is called Purushottama Kshetra, the field of the supreme person. It is called Shankha Kshetra, because tradition says the sacred area is shaped like a conch. And for most people in Odisha, it is simply Srikshetra, the holy place.

Over five sittings we will walk slowly through this place. Today, how Jagannath came to Puri. Then the chariots and the great road. Then the renewal of the wooden forms. Then the temple kitchen and the food that is shared. And last, the poets, saints, singers and dancers who have loved this lord.

In this first sitting we hear how Jagannath came to Puri. This story is told in more than one way. The Skanda Purana has a long section about Puri, and the people of Odisha have their own much-loved telling, kept by the temple servants and in Odia literature, including the Odia Mahabharata of the poet Sarala Das. We will hear them side by side.

Let us begin with what both tellings share.

Long ago there was a king named Indradyumna. The Skanda Purana says he ruled from Avanti, and he was a deep devotee of Vishnu. He came to know that Vishnu was worshipped in a hidden form, called Nila Madhava, somewhere in the forests near the eastern sea. His heart was set on finding this form and on building a temple where everyone could worship.

The name itself is worth holding for a moment. Nila means blue, the colour of a deep sky or a deep sea. Madhava is a name of Vishnu. So the king was searching for the blue lord of the forest, worshipped quietly, far from any palace.

In the Skanda Purana the king does not travel alone. The sage Narada goes with him, and the king comes east with his people and prepares great rites of worship in the land by the sea. The Purana spends many pages on the holiness of this shore, its waters and its sacred places. For the Purana, Puri is a place where the lord has chosen to stay, and the king's task is to make that visible to everyone.

In the Odia telling, the king sends a young brahmin named Vidyapati to search. Vidyapati reaches the forest and stays in the home of Vishvavasu, the chief of the Sabara people, a forest community. Vishvavasu is a devotee of Nila Madhava and worships him secretly in a cave.

Vidyapati comes to love Vishvavasu's daughter, Lalita, and marries her. After some time, he asks to see the one his father-in-law worships. Vishvavasu agrees, but leads him there blindfolded. Vidyapati, the story says, carries mustard seeds and drops them along the way. When the rains come, the seeds sprout and mark the path.

I want to pause here. This part of the tradition is precious to the people of Odisha. It places a forest community at the very beginning of Jagannath's story. The lord was first loved in the forest, by people who asked for nothing but to serve him.

To this day, a group of temple servants called the Daitapatis, who are counted as descendants of Vishvavasu's line, have special duties in Jagannath's worship. They are the family who look after the lord at the most intimate times. We will meet them again in the third sitting, when we hear about the new bodies.

When the king finally reaches the place, the tellings agree that Nila Madhava is no longer to be seen there. The king is heartbroken. He has come so far, and the one he came for is hidden from him.

The Skanda Purana then tells that, in answer to his devotion, the king is told that the lord will come to him in the form of daru, sacred wood, floating on the sea. And so it happens. A great log of wood is seen at the shore.

Think of that picture. A king who has searched the forests stands on a beach, and what comes to him is not a jewel or a golden image. It is a log of wood, carried in by the waves. The lord chooses the plainest material, and the most ordinary road, the sea that every fisher in Puri knows.

Who shapes the wood into the forms of the deities? Here, again, the tellings differ, and both are loved.

In the Skanda Purana, the divine craftsman Vishvakarma carves the images.

In the Odia telling, an old carpenter arrives at the court and offers to do the work. He has one condition. He will work behind closed doors for twenty-one days, and no one may open them until he is done. The days pass. The sound of the chisel stops.

Queen Gundicha, worried that something has happened to the old man, asks for the doors to be opened before the time is over. When they open, the carpenter is gone. The images are there, but without finished hands and feet.

And this, the Odia tradition says, is why Jagannath, his elder brother Balabhadra and his sister Subhadra are worshipped in the form they have today, with large round eyes and without finished hands and feet. People in Puri do not see this as something missing.

There is a line people often say: he has no hands, yet he holds the whole world; he has no feet, yet he comes to every devotee. The form itself teaches that the lord is not limited by a body.

And there is something tender in the queen's part of the story. She did not open the doors out of greed or pride. She was worried for an old man working alone. Her care, the story seems to say, is part of how the lord came to be seen by all of us.

We will not try to decide which telling is the true one. The Purana and the people of Odisha have both kept this memory for centuries, and in Puri you will hear both, sometimes from the same person on the same afternoon. Traditions differ, and each is held with love. Our part is to listen.

Let us now come to the temple as it stands.

The Shree Jagannath temple at Puri was built in the twelfth century under King Anantavarman Chodaganga Deva of the Eastern Ganga dynasty. Its tall tower rises above the whole town, and people say fishers at sea have long used it to find their way home. Four deities are worshipped together on a jewelled platform, the Ratnavedi: Jagannath, Balabhadra, Subhadra, and the Sudarshana, a pillar that represents Vishnu's discus.

Because the deities are made of wood, they are renewed from time to time. This ceremony is called Nabakalebara, the new body. It happens in certain years when the lunar calendar has an extra month of Ashadha. New trees are chosen by signs that the tradition describes, and the Daitapatis carry out the most sacred parts of the work. The last Nabakalebara was in 2015.

And every year in the month of Ashadha comes the Rath Yatra, when the three deities leave the temple and ride in great wooden chariots down the Bada Danda, the grand road, to the Gundicha temple. The name of that temple remembers the queen from our story. The lord leaves his temple and comes out to the people on the street, and anyone may see him there.

There is one more small thing I love. At the main Lion Gate, the Singhadwara, there is an image called Patitapabana, placed so that anyone passing on the road can have darshan of Jagannath without going inside. Darshan means seeing the lord, and being seen by him.

So let us gather what we heard.

Puri remembers King Indradyumna, who longed to find Vishnu's hidden form, Nila Madhava. The Odia telling adds Vidyapati, the forest chief Vishvavasu and his daughter Lalita, and gives the Sabara people a place at the start of Jagannath's story.

The lord comes as sacred wood from the sea. In the Skanda Purana, Vishvakarma shapes it; in the Odia telling, an old carpenter works behind closed doors until Queen Gundicha opens them early. The temple was built in the twelfth century, and the lord comes out to his people every year in the Rath Yatra.

One thing to take with you. Puri's story does not treat the unfinished form as a flaw. Think of one thing in your own home or work that you have been waiting to make perfect before you begin. Begin it tomorrow, as it is.

In the next sitting, we walk the Bada Danda and hear the story of the Rath Yatra and the three chariots.

Keep going

• Listen: King Indradyumna and the sacred wood
• Next: Rath Yatra and the three on the chariots
• हिन्दी में पढ़ें
• All episodes of Jagannath: the lord of the world at Puri