The Antiquities of Orissa v2.c17.s1.343

v2.c17.s1.343

15. *Kāliya-damana.* According to the *Bhāgavata Purāṇa*, there dwelt in a bay-pond of the Yamunā near Vṛndāvana a large serpent, called Kāliya or ‘the black one’. It was the dread of the whole village and much mischief was caused by it to unwary bathers. Kṛṣṇa, in the course of one of his frolics, killed it, and the memory of this deed is preserved by an anniversary festival on the eleventh of the wane in the month of Śrāvaṇa. The service consists of a procession to the Mārkaṇḍa tank, to which Madanamohana, as the proxy of Jagannātha, is carried, and made to enact emblematically the destruction of the dragon, amidst music, singing, and a great crowd of visitors. A special ritual is also performed in the temple in the morning and another in the evening, when the body of Jagannātha is twined round with an imitation serpent of black and white cloth wound round a piece of cane. Dr. Hunter takes this to be the anniversary of a victory over the aboriginal Nāgas by the Aryans in their advance towards the centre of India and much may be said in favour of this theory.