Lord Jagannath and His Yatra

 

The Holy Trio is the centre of life in Odisha. Earlier he was Nilamadhaba. It seems a giant glowing precious stone (Neela) was worshipped. There was a blue glow within the temple where it was worshipped.

The Pandavas came to offer their worship. One finds indication of their visit to the place and the state of Odisha where they stayed for one year, in a nearby forest in the district where there are temples dedicated to them and Mother Kunti. I am fortunate to visit that wonderful coastal forest interspersed with rivers and roam within it feeling their presence.

There is indication that Lord Krishna and his consort Laxmi used to be worshipped in a temple near the present Gundicha Mandir. The structure still exists but I have not seen it.

There was also a temple of Lord Krishna within the sea. It was threatened by the sea. Thus there arose the need to build another temple away from the sea at the present spot. Earlier in this spot was a temple dedicated to Lord Narasimha. It still stands within the present Jagannath temple.

Legend has it that the huge temple was constructed and some event prevented it from being inaugurated. The King who built it went to Lord Brahma to invite him for the inauguration. He just went and came but many years passed as he traversed both worlds.

As he returned, he found that a long time has passed and another king had discovered the temple under the sand (sand is piled up to construct such temples) and after excavating was about to inaugurate it.

The king was aghast. To top it all nobody was willing to recognize him or believe his tale. So he called upon some characters within the temple who testified that it was indeed he who constructed the temple.

Such tales of travel to other worlds and the passage of time is also narrated in other cultures of the world.

The temple has been attacked a number of times and deities shifted till the crisis passed. The Jagannath culture has spread across the state as the places the deities were shifted to have temples as the people remember and rejoice that the Lord was in their midst.

During one such time in the period post Buddha the temple worshipped the image of the Buddha. The statue of the Buddha is still there within the premises.

The Jagannath culture is a mixture of tribal culture, vaishnav culture, shaiva culture, various forms of advaita, tantra, and influence of Buddha and Sikh culture. It is also associated with prominent Muslim devotees. The temple records tell of Yeshu Nath who visited the temple during his sojourn to India. It is truly an amalgamation of all faiths.

When you visit the temple you will be reminded of Ramanuja, Shankaracharya, Guru Nanak, Sri Chaitanya, Totapuri, Maa Sharada, and many other spiritual giants who travelled over arduous terrain to meet the Lord.

The Temple is also significant because it provides signs before untoward events happen. Recently before Cyclone Fani people could know that the storm would have a devastating impact.

The temple also indicates world events and currently almost all the signs for the end of this age have been witnessed. It is predicted that during the very end the temple will face another devastating attack and blood will flow within its premises.

It is also predicted that a huge asteroid will fall in the sea causing the ocean to rise and destroy the region and the temple. The deities will be rescued by a foreign force who will seek to take it to their land. However the train carrying the deities will face an accident in the Bairi station and the public will transfer the deities to the nearby temple at Chhatia that is now ready for the shift, another indication that the time is very near.

That the temple would be mismanaged, the Lord slandered, and the faith of the people would decline is predicted as an end time event. This indicates that protection is being taken away for the destruction to take place.

The Ratha Yatra itself would stop for six years. If 2020 is the start of the prediction indicating that Kaliyuga will end nine years, nine months, nine days post the Ratha Yatra held without devotees (during Covid times), then this year could well be the last Ratha Yatra at Puri. After a brief Ratha Yatra at Chhatia, the Yatra will be regularized again at a spot near Paradeep where the Lord will finally be stationed.

Mahasambhuti Chakradhar has also visited Puri, once in his childhood with his parents, and the second time we were fortunate to be with him during the visit. It was predicted that he would first visit Khandagiri at Bhubaneswar before visiting Puri and it happened on both times.

I was also at Khandagiri with him on the day before the Puri visit. There is a temple beneath the Udaygiri hills that reminds people of the visit of the Lord at the end of Kaliyuga. A priest there narrated to Chakradhar (without knowing who he was) about the prediction. As usual he listened to it stoically without expression.

Chakradhar preferred to live an ordinary life. He did not encourage any kind of idol worship. He was annoyed that spiritual people tended to go to the hills, away from civilization. This led to fall of moral and ethical values in society. He indicated that in the next age all would have to work for the betterment of society.

He however advised us to place him within our hearts. "He who was Shiva, and then Krishna, is now before you as Chakradhar. This is a new incarnation, and you should treat it as such forgetting the previous incarnations." This self declaration during his birthday celebrations at Pahadpur was a great solace for all of us present.

At Khandagiri he acknowledged that there are souls who have acquired ultimate knowledge and tremendous powers. Those powers would be displayed in the devastating third world war. He himself would go into a reverie and shudder while talking about that war and the natural devastation that would accompany it.

He often said, "Why should all suffer for the crimes of a few?" The matrix of the world is predestined and even the Lord has to bear it. He had told us that his coming this time was to meet his devotees after a gap of thousands of years, and to strengthen the matrix such that the coming devastation does not annihilate creation.