Ratha Yatra is the annual car festival of Lord Jagannath, the most revered deity of the Odias. On this occasion, I would like to share the legend of Lord Jagannath with everybody.
After 36 years of the Mahabharata war, Lord Krishna's duties were completed in this mortal world. He wanted to leave this world and for that, he organized a Leela. He was mortally wounded by the arrow of a Dhiver called Jara. After his death, Arjuna cremated his body. To his surprise, Krishna's whole body burned down into ashes except his heart which was still beating. Arjuna kept the heart with himself, as a symbol of his deceased friend, guide, and Lord. One day, a divine voice asked Arjuna to cast the heart into the sea. Arjuna did the same.
The heart kept of floating on the sea and gradually turned into a blue statue of Lord Krishna. The heart floated towards the eastern coast of India and was collected by a tribal leader called Vishwavasu. The tribal group enshrined the statue in a cave and started worshiping it. The statue came to be known as Nilamadhava- the blue Krishna. The fame of Nilamadhava reached to many ears in India. However, nobody except the people of Vishwavasu's group had ever seen the statue.
King Indradyumna had heard about Nilamadhava. He thought- the Lord needs a temple, not a primitive cave. He wanted to build a grand temple and enshrine the statue of Nilamadhava in the temple. For this, he appointed a person called Vidyapati to collect the statue for him. Some legends say that Vidyapati was Indradyumna's minister, while other legends say that Vidyapati was a Brahmin scholar.
To collect the statue, Vidyapati made the daughter of Vishwavasu fall in love with him. When she wanted to marry him, he asked for dowry- a view of the statue. To make his daughter happy, Vishwavasu agreed to allow a view of the statue to Vidyapati. He blindfolded him and took him to the cave. Vishwavasu didn't know, that Vidyapati was secretly dropping mustard seeds on the way. When Vidyapati saw the statue, he was overwhelmed by the view and regretted tricking the innocent tribal king like this.
Click below for Part 2:
Story Part 2: History Behind the Annually Conducted Jagannath Rath Yatra
This is the story telling why the jagannath rath yatra is conducted annually, the purpose of the jagannath rath yatra, bhagwan jagannath, culture of orissa, temple, lord krishna, mahabharat, heart of Krishna, Arjuna, Nilamadhava, VidyaPati and Vishwasvasu and Kin Indradyumna .
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