Most Probably, the earliest literary evidence for the existence of the car festival at Puri occurs in the period of Somavamsi rule over Orissa. This was the first dynasty to be connected by the legendary accounts of the temple chronicle of Puri with the Jagannatha cult. A drama of the 10th or 11th century mentions the festival (yatra) of the god Purusottama ( = Jagannatha) at the sea shore.11 Although no final proof is possible, scholars agree that this description most likely refers to the Puri car festival, also at the sea shore.The oldest iconographical evidence of the festival and its temple cars (ratha) comes from the later Ganga period (13/14th centuries). A frieze of a dilapidated temple at Dhanmandal in Northern Orissa depicts a sequence of three temple cars, each drawn by a large number of devotees.13 The best preserved relief contains a number of interesting iconographical details. It depicts a car with 12 wheels (6 visible) without spokes. On the platform of the car rises a mandapa adorned with a typical Orissan arched doorway (torana) which forms the frame for the deity. The roof of the ratha has a very clear pyramidal shape with four horizontal cornices and a typical ribbed finial (amalaka) crowned by a pot-shaped kalasa stone. This frieze thus clearly shows that the early rathas of Puri were modelled after- the pidha temple type known mainly from the jagamohan man-dapas or frontal halls of the Orissan temples. Their characteristic . pyramidal roof made its first full appearance at the Muktesvara temple in the early 10th century and found its classical design in the Lihgaraja temple at Bhubaneswar (late 11th century). The frieze also depicts, before and behind the ratha, two umbrellas (chatra) and two standards (trasa) which are carried to indicate the royal status of the deity on the car. These symobls of royalty are still carried before the Raja" of Puri when he approaches the rathas.
Today, the rathas of the three deities are distinguished by size, colour and number of wheels. Jagannatha's ratha (Nandighosa) is 13.5m. high and is supported by 16 wheels, it is covered by red and yellow cloth-; Balabhadra's ratha (Taladhvaja). adorned by red and green cloth, stands on 14 wheels and has a height of 13.2 m (Fig 3) ; Subhadra's car (Darpadalana or deviratha) in red and black is supported by 12 wheels, and is 12.9 m. high.15 The wheels of all the three cars have 16 spokes like their stone counterparts at the sun temple of Konarka. Other temple cars in Orissa, e.g. the chariot of Lord Lingaraja in Bhubaneswar, usually have wheels of solid wood like rathas depicted in the early reliefs at Dhanmandal. It is likely, therefore that wheels with spokes are a later invention in Puri, imitating Konarka.
One characteristic of the rathas of Puri and elsewhere in Orissa is their decoration with large pieces of differently coloured cloth. In Puri the changeable sea-wind modifies the contours of the cars. At times they are puffed up, or the cloth may be heavily pressed against the inner wooden framework ; at noon, the cover may hang down slackly.
Contrary to the earliest depiction on the Dhanmandal frieze, the present rathas of Puri appear to resemble the rekha temple type of Orissan architecture.16 This type is characterised by the grand design of the curvilinear spire (gandi or sikhara) of the main temple tower "greatly enhanced by the vertical lines of strongly emphasised ribs" (e. g. the Lingaraja or Jagannatha temples). The resemblance is most evident on pictures which show the rathas in front of the Jagannatha temple, but it is mainly due to the coloured cloth covering with its distinct vertical lines. The wooden framework, which is visible only during the time of construction, reveals in the upper portions of the rathas clear horizontal cornices characterising the pidha temple. For an architectural model of the rathas we have to go to Bhubaneswar, to the 14th century Bhaskaresvara temple which encloses an alleged Asokan pillar. However, ft is still not clear whetherthe Bhaskaresvara temple was constructed after the model of a ratha or vice versa. It is worth noting that the roof of the Bhaskares'vara temple seems to combine the pidha and rekha types of Orissan temple architecture : the clearly discernible cornices, characteristic of the pidha temples, recede on the Bhaskaresvara temple not, as in the case of the usual pfdha roof, uniformly to a pyramidal roof but progressively to create the charac¬teristic curvilinear shape of the rekha temple tower. The shape of the "roof" of the Puri rathas combines both the architectural models similarly and thus unifies by architectural means the main temple of the deity and the three mandapas meant for priests and devotees. During the ratha yatra when" the lord of the U niverse' leaves his "jewelled lion throne" (ratnasimhasana) in order to appear to his devotees, even the most humble, the ratha thus transforms the separate temple build¬ings of the "divine palace" into one, drawn by devotees from all social strata and pilgrims from all quarters of the Hindu world.
|
| |
