The Antiquities of Orissa v2.c17.s1.308

v2.c17.s1.308

This is the ceremony which has made the name of Jagannātha a by-word in the English language and associated it with everything that is odious and detestable. It is this which has made Jagannātha, in the eyes of some Europeans, 'India's greatest monster of iniquity', 'the mighty Pagoda or Pagod, the mirror of all wickedness and idolatry'. It is this which made a Calcutta Reviewer exclaim—'There you may picture to yourself Christianity shuddering ; there morality weeping. Momus is not to be found there—the god of mirth has slunk away trembling ; as for intellect she slumbers in silence, awaiting the dawn of a better day'⁷³. But from what has been said above, it will be obvious to the unprejudiced reader that, however puerile may be the idea of giving the godhead an evening airing in a car, there is nothing iniquitous, cruel or sanguinary in the ceremony. That in dragging such ill-constructed unwieldy cars amidst dense masses of men, women and children excited to the utmost by religious enthusiasm, accidents do, and did, happen, is not to be denied. There have been self-sacrifices too. But neither the one nor the other can be attributed to Jagannātha, as an inseparable or inherent part of his cult, nor it is so frequent as in any way to justify the denunciations. Three hundred years ago Abul Fazl, a keen observer and, if anything, hostile critic, noticed nothing of the kind. A century later, Bernier, who indulges in a great deal of perfervid eloquence on the subject, did not certainly find the instances of self-immolation by any means too numerous. He says, ‘There elapses not a year, but some of those poor miserable pilgrims, who come from a distance, weary and fatigued, are suffocated to death; everybody conferring their benedictions on their having been so fotunate as to have died on so holy an occasion. And when this car of infernal triumph is in motion, (believe me, this is no fiction) there are persons so besotted with false hopes and superstitious notions, as to prostrate themselves on the ground under its large and huge wheels, which crush them to death'⁷⁴. Mr. Stirling, in 1822 wrote: ‘During four years that I have witnessed the ceremony, three cases only of this revolting species of immolation have occurred, one of which I may observe, is doubtful, and should probably be ascribed to accident; in the other two instances the victims had long been suffering from some excruciating complaints and chose this method of ridding themselves of the burthen of life, in preference to other modes of suicide so prevalent with the lower orders under similar circumstances’⁷⁵. Mr. Mansbach, who was at Puri for some years, has copied this, unfortunately without acknowledgment, and added, ‘that excess of fanaticism which is stated in several Missionary accounts to prompt pilgrims to court death by throwing themselves in crowds under the wheels of the car of Jagannātha has never existed, or has long ceased to actuate the present worshippers of that idol’⁷⁶. Mr. Fergusson visited Puri in 1838, and at the Car Festival found so little to excite his horror that he scouted the idea of the traditional enormity. He said: