Ratha Yatra
Rath Yatra,, is any public procession in a chariot. They are held annually during festivals in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. The term also refers to the popular annual Ratha Yatra of Puri that involves a public procession with a chariot with deities Jagannath, Balabhadra, Subhadra, and Sudarshana Chakra on a ratha, which is a wooden deula-shaped chariot.
Ratha Yatra processions have been historically common in Vishnu-related traditions of Hinduism—such as those dedicated to Jagannath, Rama, and Krishna—across India, particularly in the city of Puri in the state of Odisha, as well as in Shiva-related traditions, in honor of saints and goddesses in Nepal, with Tirthankaras in Jainism, and among tribal folk religions in the eastern states of India. Notable Ratha Yatras in India include the Ratha Yatra of Puri, the Dhamrai Ratha Yatra in Bangladesh and the Ratha Yatra of Mahesh. Hindu communities outside India, such as in Singapore, celebrate Ratha Yatra such as those associated with Jagannath, Krishna, Shiva and Mariamman. According to Knut Jacobsen, a Ratha Yatra has religious origins and meaning, but the events have a major community heritage, social sharing and cultural significance to the organizers and participants.
Western impressions of the Jagannath Ratha Yatra in Puri as a display of unstoppable force are the origin of the English word juggernaut.
Etymology
Ratha Yatra is derived from two Sanskrit words, Ratha, which means chariot or carriage, and Yatra which means journey or pilgrimage.Description
Ratha Yatra is a journey in a chariot accompanied by the public. It typically refers to a procession of deities, people dressed like deities, or simply religious saints and political leaders. The term appears in medieval texts of India such as the Puranas, which mention the Ratha Yatra of Surya, of Devi, and of Vishnu. These chariot journeys have elaborate celebrations where the individuals or the deities come out of a temple accompanied by the public journeying with them through the Ksetra to another temple or to the river or the sea. Sometimes the festivities include returning to the sacrosanctum of the temple.Traveler Fa-Hien who visited India during 400 CE notes the way temple car festivals were celebrated in India.
The first European description of this festival is found in a thirteenth-century account by the Late Medieval Franciscan friar and missionary Odoric of Pordenone, who describes Hindus, as a religious sacrifice, casting themselves under the wheels of these huge chariots and being crushed to death. Odoric's description was later taken up and elaborated upon in the popular fourteenth-century Travels of John Mandeville.
There are records of Hindu devotees intentionally casting themselves under the wheels of the chariot and being crushed, as they considered it a holy act. Contemporaneous reports from colonial Kolkata allude to this, describing intentional suicides at the processions which were either tacitly allowed or else ignored by clerics, despite the practice being prohibited by government policy.
Ratha Yatra by location
India
- Ratha-Jatra, Puri, at Puri in the state of Odisha, is the largest and most visited Ratha Yatra in the world.
- Rath Yatra is the third largest in the world.
- Dhamrai Rathayatra is at Dhamrai in Bangladesh.
- People of Bastar region observe Ratha Yatra during Dussehara.
- Radha Rani Ratha Yatra, held at the Radha Madhav Dham temple near Austin, Texas, U.S.A.
Dhamrai Jagannath Rathayatra