Puri (pop. 200,564) is a seaside resort and Hindu pilgrimage site on the east coast of India, in the state of Odisha (formerly Orissa). It lies on the Bay of Bengal. The temple of Jagannath is in Puri, and the annual Rath Yatra festival attracts thousands of pilgrims.
Every year in June or July, Hindus celebrate the Rath Yatra, or Car festival, in Puri. Rath Yatra commemorates the journey of the god Krishna from Gokul to Mathura. The temple’s enormous idols of Jagannath (an image of Krishna), his brother Balarama, and his sister Subhadra, are dragged through the streets of Puri on very large wagons from the Jagannath Temple to the Gundicha Mandir, or Garden House. The following week, the images are dragged back to the Jagannath Temple. The images are replaced every 12 years. The English word juggernaut is derived from the word Jagannath.
Puri became a religious center with the founding of a monastery in the 700’s by the Hindu philosopher Shankaracharya. This monastery is one of the four great monasteries he established at the four extremities of India: Badrinath in the north, Dwarka in the west, Shringeri in the south, and Puri in the east. Puri is significant mainly to Vaishnavite Hindus (those who worship the god Vishnu), especially devotees of Krishna.
See also Hinduism; Juggernaut; Krishna; Vishnu.
