Lord Jannath rath yatra at Puri?

Question

Can any one of my hindu friend give me the information about rath yatra. When it has started this year and when it is going to end. Where Lord goes and for how many day. I mean full information.

Answer 1

Rath Yatra in 2007 is on Monday, the 16th of July

Ratha Yatra or Car Festival



Of all the festivals of the year the greatest is the Rath yatra or Car Festival, which commemorates the journey of Krishna from Gokul to Mathura. According to Hindu mythology, Krishna, the ninth incarnation of Vishnu, was the eight son of Basudeva and his wife Devaki. It had been predicted that a son of theirs would kill Kansa, the demon King of Mathura, who typifies the principal of evil. Kansa, therefore, imprisoned Basudeva and his wife, and slew their first six sons; Balarama, the seventh, was abstracted from Devaki’s womb, transferred to that of Rohini, another wife of Basudeva, and so saved.


On the birth of Krishna, the father escaped from Mathura with the child and, crossing the Jamuna, entrusted the infant Krishna to the care of the herdsman king, Nanda of Vraja. In Gokul or Vraja Krishna grew up to manhood. At length, Kansa heard of him and sent a messenger to bring him and his brother to Mathura. The brothers drove in their chariot victoriously to Mathura, where Krishna killed Kansa and ruled in his stead.


This episode in the life of Krishna is commemorated by the Rath yatra, which takes place in June or July every year. On this occasion the images of Jagannath, Balabhadra and Subhadra are removed from the temple and taken in great chariots to the garden house (Gundicha-bari) along the Bara Danda road, which is about a mile and a half long. Here the gods remain in the car at night, and are taken out next morning and placed in the shrine. They remain there for a week and are then again put in to the cars taken back to the temple, thus commemorating the return journey of Krishna. The rule is that the whole festival should last 9 days, allowing a day the journey to the Gundicha- bari, a day for the return journey, and 7days for the stay there; but in practice it lasts much longer, the return journey sometimes taking many days. The cars are large structures of considerable height, resembling lofty towers bedecked with tinsel, paintings and wooden statuary. The largest is the car of Jagannath, which is 45 feet in height and 35 feet square, and is supported on 16 wheels with a diameter of 7 feet.

The brother and sister of Jagannath have separated cars a few feet smaller. The images are brought out from the temple through the Lion Gate and placed on the cars, this being known as the pahandi, a sacred moment when the assembled pilgrims fall on their knees and bow their foreheads in the dust. They then seize the ropes, and drag the cars down the Bara Danda road to the garden house of Jagannath. The distance is only about 1.5 mile, but as the heavy structures have no contrivance to guide them, and the wheels sink deep into the sand, which are some places covers the road; the journey has been known to take several days.

Once arrived at the garden house, the enthusiasm subsides. By the third day most of the pilgrims have left, and but for professional car-pullers, Jagannath would often be left there. The cars are dragged from the temple by the assembled pilgrims and by a number of villagers, who hold revenue-free lands granted to them as remuneration for the work; when the pilgrims are insufficient to drag the cars back, coolies are engaged from the neighboring villages. In 1904, the pilgrims alone pulled the cars to the country house in 4 hours and brought them back again to the temple without such assistance; in 1907, when 75,000 pilgrims attended the ceremony, the journey was performed in 4.5 hours.

Answer 2

Ratha Jatra, the Festival of Chariots of Lord Jagannatha is celebrated every year at Puri, the temple town in Orissa, on the east coast of India. The presiding deities of the main temple, Sri Mandira, Lord Jagannatha, Lord Balabhadra and Goddess Subhadra, with the celestial wheel Sudarshana are taken out from the temple precincts in an elaborate ritual procession to their respective chariots. The huge, colourfully decorated chariots, are drawn by hundreds and thousands of devotees on the bada danda, the grand avenue to the Gundicha temple, some two miles away to the North. After a stay for seven days, the deities return to their abode in Srimandira.

Ratha Jatra is perhaps the grandest festival on earth. Everything is on a scale befitting the great Lord. Full of spectacle, drama and colour, the festival is a typical Indian fair of huge proportions. It is also the living embodiment of the synthesis of the tribal, the folk, and the autochthonous with the classical, the elaborately formal and the sophisticated elements of the socio-cultural-religious ethos of the Indian civilization.

Sanctity and Significance of Ratha Jatra

The festival is also known as Gundicha Jatra, Ghosa Jatra, Navadina Jatra, Dasavatara Jatra and by a variety of other names. For the devoted and believers, it is considered the most auspicious occasion. Rathe tu vamanam drishtwa punarjanmam na vidyate A glimpse of the Vamana, the dwarf form, an incarnation of Lord Jagannatha, is sure to ensure emancipation, release from the cycle of birth and death.
Jatra is an essential part of the ritual of the Hindu system of worship. Jatra literally means travel or journey. Normally, it is the representative deities of temples more popularly known as Utsava Murti in south and Chalanti Pratima or Bije Pratima in Orissa, partake in these journeys. It is rarely that the presiding deities come out of the sanctum for such ritual journeys. The Jatra for the Ritual Journey take two forms – one involving the short circumbulation around the temple and other involving a longer journey from the temple to some other destination. The Jatra is considered as an important part of festivities and ceremonies of each temple and is considered as a special and sacred occasion.
Rath Jatra being unique among all Jatras is the grandest festival of the supreme divinity who has manifested himself in the Kali Yuga to emancipate humanity and to relieve them from their sufferings. Lord Jagannatha is identified fully with Vishnu and Krishna. In his original manifestation as Nilamadhaba, he was worshipped in a sacred Nyagrodha Briksha or banyan tree. The branches of the tree had spread for several miles and any one entering this area was instantly emancipated and was relieved of the travails of the birth and re-birth. In fact, the influence of Yama, the God of Death, is supposed to have been curtailed in the sacred city of Puri – Srikshetra on account of the presence of Lord Jagannatha and therefore it is also called the Yamanika Tirtha.

A glimpse of Lord Jagannatha on the chariot is considered to be very auspicious and saints, poets and scriptures have repeatedly glorified the sanctity of this special festival.
The sanctity of the festival is such that even a touch of the chariot or even the ropes with which these are pulled is considered enough to confer the results of several pious deeds or penance for ages. In fact, there is a famous Oriya song which says that on this occasion, the chariot, the wheels, the grand avenue all become one with Lord Jagannatha himself.

The concept of the chariot has been explained in the Kathopanishada in the following words-

Atmanam rathinam viddhi sareeram rathamevatu
Buddhim tu saarathim viddhi marah pragrahameva cha.
The body is the Chariot and the soul is the deity installed in the chariot. The wisdom acts as the charioteer to control the mind and thoughts.

The Skanda Purana glorifies the sanctity of the Rath Jatra in the following words-

Gundicha mandapam namam yatrahamajanam pura
Ashwamedha sahasrasya mahabedi tadadvabat.

Those who are fortunate to see the deities of the Srimandira in the Gundicha Temple, the final destination of the procession of the chariots, derive the benefits of a thousand horse sacrifices, an immensely pious deed. Kabi Samrat Upendra Bhanja in his famous Vaidehisa Vilasa mentions that the Lord comes out from his sanctum for participating in the Gundicha Jatra, another name of the Festival of Chariots, only for redeeming the fallen, the patita jana who get the opportunity to behold their dearest god at close quarters on this occasion. Similarly, saint poet Salabega waxes eloquent in praise of his dearest dark darling and says that the Lord swaying and moving like a wild elephant arrives at the Grand Avenue and rides his chariot and destroys in a flash all the sins of his devotees, even if these may be grave or unpardonable.