Word: jagannath
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...ancient King Indradyumna, it is said, sought to find the Lord of the Universe-Jagannath, one of the names of Vishnu, the Preserver. After many hardships, it was miraculously revealed to him that Jagannath would come to him as a log of wood, and soon thereafter a huge log with strange markings appeared, floating in the Bay of Bengal near the city of Puri. The king ordered his carpenters to carve an image from it, but their chisels broke. At last the Lord Vishnu himself appeared, disguised as an old carpenter, and the king agreed...
Last week, as they have each year in the thousands of years since the time of legendary King Indradyumna, the three gods made their triumphal procession from their temple at Puri to their summer house, a mile away down a broad avenue. It was an awesome sight. For Jagannath is the famous Juggernaut, riding the vast cart beneath whose creaking wheels fanatic worshipers once threw themselves to be crushed to death...
...Jagannath is 6 ft. tall, with a flat-topped black face, round white eyes, a diamond painted on the forehead, a mouth set in a wide led smile. His brother, Balabhadra, is 7 ft. tall, with a white face, a rounded skull and oval eyes; sister Subhadra is only 5 ft. high, with a yellow, pinched face that gives her a hungry look. Making a new set of idols to replace the worn-out trio at least once every 25 years is a tricky business. First a neem tree must be found, in which no bird is nesting...
Babies & Walking Dead. Last week, when the day of the Jagannath Festival dawned, the city of Puri (pop. 60,000) was packed with 150,000 pilgrims from all over India. Some had come crammed into special trains from Calcutta, 265 miles to the north; wide-eyed peasants had come on foot, herded by professional guides. There were women with babies, young students of Yoga, families of dark, half-naked tribesmen from the jungles. Medical officers manned every road, armed with hypodermic needles to head off the cholera which used to sweep through Puri after the festival. Holy men, their naked...
...crowd cheered and surged against police lines at the sight of each deity swathed in colored gauze, profusely garlanded and shaded by an umbrella. In a shimmering uproar of crashing gongs they were loaded aboard their high carts. The 29-year-old Raja of Puri, hereditary superintendent of the Jagannath Temple, swept each cart with a golden broom to show that in the eyes of the god all men are lowly...