Purî is a Holy City of the Orissa, on the coast of the Bay of Bengal, located at 500 km in the south-west of Kolkata and at 60 km in the south of Cuttack. It is one of the tops of the triangle Bhubaneswar - Konârak - Purî which concentrates the major part of the cultural heritage of the State. In 2005, its population is of more than 150.000 inhabitants.
The city, probably very old, carried during the time of other names like Srî Kshetra , Purushottamapurî or Jagannâthapurî . The tradition also identifies it with Dantapura , literally the city of the tooth , the city which lodged the tooth of Buddha, a holy relic of the Buddhist world, collected in ashes its to rough-hew cremation, which Ashoka sent to the Sri Lanka and which is now in the Dalâda Maligawa, the Temple of the Tooth of Kandy.
The philosophers Hindu S Shankarâchârya and Chaitanya remained there.
Purî is entirely dedicated to Krishna, in its form of Jagannâtha, and it is one of the places of pilgrimage or tirtha , the most crowned of India. One of the most famous demonstrations of this devotion is the festival of the tanks or Râthayâtra , where the divinities of the temple, Jagannâtha, his/her brother Balabhadra and his sister Subhadra ravel in the city on tanks of procession ( râtha ). The event, which takes place each year in the month of Âshâdha, is in June - July, is famous in all India and recently retransmis on line on television Indian.
The temple of Jagannâtha with Purî
One of the holiest places of India is the temple of Jagannâtha of the city, whose principal statue of worship is supposed to contain the relics of Krishna. The temple, thing rather rare in India, but current in Orissâ, is interdict with the not-Hindus.This statue, older than the temple itself, is a rather coarse piece of wood. According to the legend, the remainders of the bones of Krishna were collected by pious people after her cremation, which one can bring closer to what was known as tooth of Buddha, above. Vishvakarma, under the request for Indra or Vishnu would have started to carve a reliquary to him, but disturbed in its task, the sculpture with the state of outline would have left.
The temple of Purî such as we know it today was built under the aegis of the sovereign of the dynasty of the Ganga of the East, Anantavarman Chodaganga (1077 - 1147) at the 12th century. Built in the style characteristic of Orissâ, it comprises a Shikara of more than sixty meters, which one calls deul in this area, preceded by a jagamohan , a to natamandir and a bhog to mandir . It is enclosed of a wall enclosing of 218 meters out of 210, and high 6 meters bored of four doors, to the east, the Singhadwara or Carries Lion, to the south, the Ashwadwara or Carries Horse, to the west, the Vyaghradwara or carries Tiger and to north, the Hatidwara or Carries Elephant.
In this XIIe century when the worship of Vishnu became dominating in Orissâ, and where the religious current was impregnated southernmost doctrines Shrîvaishnava, one needed a temple for the measurement of the devotion.
However the mentions of a temple of Jagannâtha with Purî largely precede the reign by Anantavarman Chodaganga since the inscriptions credit the king Somavamshî Yayati II (1025 - 1040) with the restoration of the temple
It is thus probable that a first temple existed, at least as of the 10th century and that with the XIIe under the rise of the Shrîvaishnava doctrines, school of Bhakti (see Hindouisme) including Lakshmi, incarnated in Radha, in the worship due to Krishna, a second temple was built on the foundations of the primitive temple.
The temple was restored at the 14th century and for the last time in 1922. It is claimed that it has the greatest kitchens in the world, being able to prepare until 100 000 meals feastdays and 25 000 are not unusual a normal day. 6.000 priests are with his service, classified in 36 orders.
The temple is sometimes called the white Pagode , name given by the European sailors for whom it was a reference mark of navigation because of its surface covered with stucco. In the same way, the temple of Sûrya in Konârak, located close to the shore, a little more in north, was the black Pagode because of the deposit of dirtiness which recovered its stone before it is restored.
The British if were impressed by the demonstrations of enthusiasm which took place during the Râthayâtra , that they borrowed the name of Jagannâth (a) to make the word juggernaut which means irrepressible force.
The Râthayâtra or festival of the tanks
During July is held the festival of the temple or Râthayâtra - sometimes named Gundichayâtra according to the name of the temple where the procession Gundicha Mandir or Ghoshayâtra finishes, the procession of the tanks with Purî. Going back to the Xe or 11th century, the festival of the tanks is the commemoration of the episode of the Purana where Arjuna removes Subhadra, the sister of Krishna in a tank, that is to say a reminiscence of Buddhist times of the Kalinga where the three jewels of the Bouddhisme were celebrated: the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha. Besides Râthayâtra offers some resemblance to the Perahara, the festival where the relic of the tooth of Buddha preserved at Kandy, to the Sri Lanka, is carried in procession on an elephant in the streets of the city, which consolidates the identification of Dantapura in Purî.The festivities start with the construction of the three large charriots, the third day of the luminous about fifteen Baisakha (the third day after the new moon in May), followed Bain ceremonial the day of full moon of Jyestha (June-July) and celebrate it, itself, begin second during the day from luminous about fifteen Ashadha and finish with the return voyage of the divinities after a one week stay to the temple of Gundicha. The divine, known procession under the name of “Pahandi Bije”, starts when déitiés leave the temple to be installed on their carriage, accompanied by the rate/rhythm by the cymbals and the drums and by the songs dévotionnels. Once places from there in their respective carriage, accompanied by their vehicles Garuda, Basudeva and Jayadurga, their Daruka drivers, Matali and Arjuna, their Trailokyamohini flags, Umnani and Nadambika, the Râja of Purî carries out the Chhera Pahanra - dusting of the charriots - with a gilded small brush, then begins the most important part of the ceremony, the traction of the charriots by the excessively pious people on the Bada Danda or main street, on approximately three kilometers, in direction of the temple of Gundicha, Balabhadra ahead, followed by Subhadra while Jagannâtha closes the road. The test of the traction of the charriots is supposed to erase all the sins and to allow the realization of all the wishes.
Râthayâtra is not complete without the return voyage of the deities to the principal temple, the Bahudayâtra , which takes place later ten days and is held in an identical way.
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