I have known for some years Professor Kanhu Charan Misra, Professor of Oriya Language and Literature at Ravenshaw College in Cuttack. Prof. Misra has been a very close student of history, culture, art and religion of Orissa. This year he got his Doctorate from the University of Calcutta on a very unique work namely on 'The Cult of Jagannatha. Puri or Jagannatha is one of the pan-Indian Hindu religious centres and shrines, and it is of primary importance in modern Hindu corporate as well as personal religious life. It has a long tradition with regard to its ritual of daily worship. The temple has its beginnings in the age of the Keshari kings of Orissa-over 1500 years from now, and the present temple was built by the founder of the Ganga dynasty in Orissa, Ananta Varman Choda Gangadeva, who ruled from 1074-1154 approximately. The Jagannatha temple was built on the ruins of an earlier temple built by the Keshari Emperor, Yayati Keshari and seems to have been erected in its present form near about 1000 A.D. The traditions of daily worship and other matters connected with the religious service has thus had a continuous development for near about 900 years.
This book is a unique production, and the first one of its kind in English language. The temple of Jagannatha is known all over the world. and people are interested in its history and its religious surroundings. It is a very complicated system, almost like that of a little state within a big state, and everything has been very well organised since the time of its foundation. Prof. Misra has been in close touch with the temple ever since his childhood and he knows how the temple carries on its daily ritual of worship, and he is also familiar both with the outward forms as well as the inner meanings of the ritual. He is therefore specially qualified to write on this subject working under an eminent scholar of Indian religion and religious art like Prof. Jitendra Nath Banerjee, retired Carmaichel Professor of Ancient Indian History and Culture in the University of Calcutta. Prof. Misra has produced a very valuable monograph on the subject. He has illustrated it with a number of photographs as well as special paintings which he got executed to indicate various aspects of temple worship. Within the limits of one volume he has given everything that is worth knowing about the temple and its history and ritual and its place in Hindu life.
The origin and the cult of the mysterious deities of Jagannatha, Bajabhadra and Subhadra of Puri have engaged the minds of scholars for centuries. Neither in the early historical accounts, nor in the ancient Indian texts upto the 5th or 6th century A.D. do we get any explicit reference to these deities. The Agamas or the early Puranas do not contain any clear reference to the rituals and the iconographic features of these peculiar images of Puri though, in some of them, some implicit allusions to these deities are found.
Many scholars have worked on the historical background of the worship of Jagannatha. Mention may be made here of the notable ones among them, W. H. Hunter, A. S. Sterling, MM. Sadasiva Mishra of Puri, R. L. Mitra, R. D. Banerjee, M. M. Ganguli, Pandit Nilakantha Das, Pandit Kedarnath Mahapatra, Dr. Nabin Kumar Sahu, Dr. H. K. Mahatab, Pandit Suryanarayana Das, Dr. Benimadhava Padhi, Gurudas Sarkar, Sundarananda Vidyavinoda, Dr. D. C. Sircar etc. In spite of all these previous attempts to trace the origin of the cult, there is still much scope for original research about its obscure beginning and development. It is no exaggeration to say that, the early history of Orissa is still, to a great extent, dark. I had long been contemplating to do some original work on this topic and had been patiently collecting materials for the purpose. I was fortunate enough to get the close guidance of the late lamented Dr. J. N. Banerjee, Retired Carmaichæl Professor of History and Religion of Calcutta University in this matter and I have followed his advice and instructions to the best of my ability.
The history of the religious development of Orissa, which was in ancient days known as Kalinga with its subdivisions of Tosali, Kongoda and Dakshina Kosala, could not be properly dealt with on account of the paucity of data. To study the history of religion in the country, we have to consider two important factors, one connected with its general history and the other with its ethnology. The original inhabitants of this region were some aboriginal tribes whose faith differed from that of the subsequent settlers. But, in course of time there came about an admixture of religious beliefs and practices, which moulded the religious concepts of the indigenous people to a great extent.
Vedas (1216)
Upanishads (507)
Puranas (634)
Ramayana (759)
Mahabharata (372)
Dharmasastras (167)
Goddess (519)
Bhakti (251)
Saints (1558)
Gods (1310)
Shiva (392)
Journal (181)
Fiction (62)
Vedanta (383)
Send as free online greeting card
Email a Friend
Visual Search
Manage Wishlist