Jagannath

About Jagannath

Jagannath stands apart from every other Hindu image: a wooden figure with a huge round face, enormous circular eyes, and stumps where arms and legs should be. Legend in the Skanda Purana says the sculptor Vishwakarma was disturbed mid-carving and left the idols unfinished. He sits at Puri's Nilachala shrine in Odisha with his elder brother Balabhadra and sister Subhadra — the only major Hindu triad including a goddess sibling. Every 12 to 19 years his wooden body is replaced in the Nabakalebara rite. During Rath Yatra, three giant chariots carry the three deities to the Gundicha Temple.