JUGGERNAUT | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jun 26, 1893

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 19, No. 33.

JUGGERNAUT.

INDIA, with her long line of history, her strange customs and peoples, is a fascinating country to learn about. All the opulence and mystery of the East clusters around that name. We have always marveled at this wondrous land, with its "Black Hole of Calcutta," its Thugs, its peculiar "Baboo" English, and its horrid customs of throwing infants into the sacred river Ganges, and immolating its devout believers beneath the monster Juggernaut.

Vishnu, the second person of the Hindu trinity (Brahma, Vishnu and Siva), was the preserver of creation. He had nine avaters, or incarnations. The eighth one is known as Krishna, and Juggernaut was the form in which he appeared to men. The name comes from the Sanskrit, jagannatha, meaning "lord of the world," and the original and principal seat of worship was at Puri, a small seaport on the Bay of Bengal, in the extreme east of the Indian peninsula. Every year over 300,000 pilgrims repair to this shrine, which contains 120 temples.

The object of most reverence, however, is the great car of Juggernaut. On a large platform, 200 feet high, are three wooden figures made of rough wooden logs. They are armless, and crudity itself, but they represent the great Juggernaut, his brother Balabhadra, and sister Subhadra.

The trappings and jewels which adorn this car are magnificent, and there is a tradition that one of the large diamonds now in the crown of the queen of England once formed one of the eyes of this idol, whence it was stolen by a French soldier in the early part of the eighteenth century and sold to a British nobleman, who presented it to the crown.

The first historical appearance of Juggernautism was in 318 A. D., but myth carries back its history for several millions of years previous to this. The story runs thus: In the golden age, that is, long before history commences, King Indradyumna was ruler of Malva. Vishnu, the Preserver, had gone from the earth, and the king sent holy Brahmans out to find him. Those who went northward, eastward, and westward came back with no tidings. But the one who went southward, after penetrating a great jungle, came to Orissa on the sea. There dwelt a fowler named Basu, and with him the Brahman lodged. Basu, proud at having a holy Brahman as a guest, gave him his daughter for a wife, and they lived happily together. One day the Brahman asked Basu to whom he presented his daily offerings of fruit and flowers. For answer the fowler blindfolded him and led him out to a secluded spot. When he again saw, the Brahman perceived a coarse blue stone at the foot of a sacred fig tree. Then a voice from heaven said: "Return to King Indradyumna. Thou hast found the Lord of the World." The Brahman returned, and Indradyumna marched to Orissa with an army of 1,300,000 footmen and stonecutters and built the great temple. For a subsequent act of arrogance the blue stone god disappeared from earth, and now he and his confrères are represented by wooden images.

Once every year the great car, with its wheels 16 feet in diameter, is drawn out from the temple and pulled for the distance of about a mile by the enthusiastic pilgrims, amid the incantations of the priests and the songs of the worshipers, who sometimes work themselves up into a frenzy, and have been known to throw themselves beneath the ponderous wheels, thinking thus to secure a passport to eternal bliss. Of late, however, travelers and writers of authority deny that this immolation is or ever has been a custom, averring that it is only the wild act of some of those fierce zealots who have become exhausted by the great pull in the intense heat, and wrought up to a pitch of semi-insanity by their religious zeal.—The Voice.