History of Orissa from the Earliest Times to the British Period v2.c46.130

v2.c46.130

It is not connected either with the legend of Rāma, Kṛṣṇa or Śiva and its great sanctity is entirely due to very active propaganda. Originally the shrine may have been either Buddhist, or Jaina or Animistic. There is a certain non-Aryan element even now which admits of Śudra servitors, named Daitas, into the sacredmost enclosure. Jaina images were discovered by the writer on the right jamb of the Jagamohana in 1910 and 1911. But for the form of the gods there is not the slightest trace of Buddhism anywhere inside this great temple. Just at present Purī is equal in sanctity to Dwāraka, Mathurā, Brindāban, and Kāñchi as well as Benares and Rāmeśvara. This sanctity of Purī is due entirely to very active propaganda, which seems to have begun with the conquest of Northern Orissa by the Eastern Gaṅgas. Originally the shrine was a local holy-place, just as the great Kiñchakeśvarī-Chāmuṇḍā of Khiching is to the people of the country for fifty miles around it. It is also possible that it was originally a shrine of Orissan aboriginals, whose worship was taken up by the Eastern Gaṅgas. According to orthodox Hindu canons the form of Jagannātha is allied to the Dwarf (Vāmana) incarnation of Viṣṇu, but the black colour of Jagannātha and his association with Kṛṣṇa's sister Subhadrā and his brother Balarāma, connects Jagannātha with the cult of Kṛṣṇa (Pūrṇa-avatāra), and according to strict Hindu orthodoxy the intermixture of the cult of Vāmana with that of Kṛṣṇa is not permissible. All the ten Avatāras may be worshipped jointly or severally but there is no authority to enable a Hindu to mix up the worship of the fifth with the eighth. With this important conclusion before us, we must proceed to study the architecture of this temple.