A Festival to Cherish

Every summer in dozens of cities across the earth, Ratha-yatra-the Festival of the Chariots-blossoms like a multicolored lotus flower. Red, yellow, and green silk canopies tower above the chariots and sway serenely. Their silver decorations glitter in the sunlight. Colossal wooden wheels creak on their axles as singing celebrants haul the ancient vehicles along the parade route, tugging on thick hawsers. By their spirited service they invoke the mercy of Jagannatha, the Lord of the Universe. He is Krsna Himself, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and He has come along for the ride, sitting on the lead cart in His form as Daru-brahman (God manifested through wood). His big round eyes and blissful smile shower benedictions upon everyone. In the next two chariots sit the Lord's brother and sister, Balarama and Subhadra. The three vehicles are flower-decked boats rocking on an ocean of friends and devotees, thousands strong, waves of lovers of God singing and dancing. At the parade's end (a park or a beach) the crowd enjoys a vegetarian feast and entertainment by musicians and dramatists until sunset, and everyone goes home saturated with transcendental peace and joy.

How ancient is the Festival of the Chariots? It's hard to say exactly, but Ratha-yatra is one of the world's oldest religious festivals. At the 1976 New York Ratha-yatra, His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada explained its origins:

"Five thousand years ago Krsna, Balarama, and Subhadra visited Kuruksetra in Their chariot on the occasion of a solar eclipse. One king, Indradyumna, there became very anxious to establish a temple of Krsna, Balarama, and Subhadra. Therefore he got a sculptor to carve the Deities.

"But there was a contract between the sculptor and the king that the sculptor would work behind closed doors and the king could not disturb him. When many days had passed the king thought, 'What is this worker doing?' So he forcibly opened the door, and he saw that the forms were unfinished. But after that the sculptor would not finish carving the Deities. Therefore the king said, 'Never mind; I shall worship this unfinished Deity.'

"So you see Jagannatha in this form because King Indradyumna wanted to worship Him in this form. And the king started the temple of Jagannatha in Orissa, at Puri. It is a very old temple-according to modern calculation not less than two thousand years old. The Jagannatha Deity is there. So Krsna and Balarama and Subhadra went to Kuruksetra for the festival, and at Ratha-yatra we also are observing this festival."

Until very recently, Ratha-yatra was a strictly Indian celebration. It made its way indirectly into Western culture when the British first watched it in Puri and coined the term juggernaut, after the chariots of Jagannatha, to indicate an overwhelming, irresistible force. They felt moved by the immensity of the canopies and wheels, and by the fervor of the devotees' exultant chanting of the holy names of the Lord. However, the name Jagannatha does not directly mean what juggernaut means. Jagannatha indicates "the Lord of the Universe"-the Lord not just of India and Indians but of the whole universe and all living beings. Therefore, a hundred years ago a devotee of Jagannatha known as Bhaktivinoda Thakura started writing books about Krsna consciousness in English and sending the books to libraries in the West. His son, Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Goswami, carried on the international educational program. The fruition came in 1966, when the Goswami's most dedicated disciple, His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, founded the International Society for Krishna Consciousness in New York City.

In the summer of 1967, the city of San Francisco saw the Western world's first Ratha-yatra. Although earlier many other swamis and yogis had journeyed to the West, none of them had brought the purity and devotion of Srila Prabhupada. And none of them had had the vision of Srila Prabhupada: to establish ancient India's Krsna conscious culture around the world on its own terms-not watered down, but as it is. Thus, Srila Prabhupada introduced Lord Jagannatha as He is, in the original format of the ancient and glorious Festival of the Chariots. Before, no one had dared think it possible, but Srila Prabhupada dared and was triumphant.

Jayananda dasa, one of Srila Prabhupada's early disciples, took part in every San Francisco Ratha-yatra since the first one back in 1967-and an unusually active part at that. In fact, his expert engineering of the huge chariots used in the San Francisco festivals earned him the nickname "Mr. Ratha-yatra." For each of the first four Ratha-yatras, Jayananda built the chariots from the ground up. And although in the last few festivals the same vehicles were used each year, still he continued to improve them. To find out the inside story on Ratha-yatra past, present, and future, BACK TO GODHEAD interviewed Jayananda.