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11 November 2024

The Gitagovinda and the Jagannatha temple at Puri

The first part of this blog post on the Gitagovinda, a 12th-century Sanskrit poem by Jayadeva devoted to the Hindu god Krishna, explored the contents of the poem and its allegorical interpretations. This post will focus on the region in eastern India which gave birth to the Gitagovinda, and the role of the Gitagovinda in the ritual of the Jagannatha temple at Puri.

The region known as Orissa (now Odisha) in eastern India has been the cradle of various traditions and religions. In the 6th century BCE, it had associations with Buddhism and Jainism. For centuries, both these traditions received patronage from the rulers of the region. From the accounts of the 3rd and 4th centuries CE it can be inferred that as the result of contact between the royal families in Odisha and Sri Lanka, there were mutual influences on religion through the local tribes who worshipped their own deities. The new settlers Sanskritised the names of these deities and worshipped the local gods, but did not change their iconographic features, as a sign of respect to the religious sentiment of the local dwellers. Even Mahayana Buddhists incorporated some aspects of the local pantheon into their belief system during the 5th and 6th centuries CE.

Avatars of Vishnu
Avatars of Vishnu. Gitagovinda, Sanskrit in Oriya script, with black ink illustrations, 18th century. Or. 13502, fols. 4v, 5r Noc

Throughout the 4th-7th centuries CE different dynasties in the region worshipped Vishnu in various forms, like Narayana or Madhava, and certain royals, although claiming to be devout worshippers of Gokarneshvara (Shiva), granted charters in favor of the god Narayana, or even a village to the god Vishnu (Mishra 1971: 7, 8). Such grants of land were made by the rulers to Brahmins or to temples. Compared to royal families, elite groups such as merchants, military chiefs and nobles were more influential in activities such as temple building between the 6th and the 12th centuries (Singh 1994: 6, 296). It was in such an environment that the cult of Jagannatha emerged and developed.

In the 12th century, Vishishtadvaita vada, the Vaishnava devotional sect from South India, was influential in Odisha. According to Vaishnava traditional accounts, Ramanuja, the great Vedanta philosopher and one of the most important exponents of the Vaishnava tradition, visited Puri in Odisha in the early 12th century and established a school in the city. Having met and influenced the king of Puri, Ramanuja introduced the ritual of Vaishnavism to the Jagannatha temple. Consequently, Jagannatha has since been worshipped as the supreme form of Vishnu (Stoller Miller 1977: 5). As a result of this neo-Vaishnavism being merged with the remnants of other traditions in the region, Vaishnavite deities were worshipped in a Buddhist Tantric way, with an admixture of Brahmanical ritualism.

Deities on the first folio of the manuscript, Gitagovinda in Sanskrit in Oriya script
Deities on the first folio of the manuscript, Gitagovinda, Sanskrit in Oriya script, with black ink illustrations, 18th century. Or. 13502, f. 3r Noc

Originating in eastern India in the 12th century, the Gitagovinda soon spread across the whole of the Indian subcontinent. By the 15th century, the Gitagovinda had already become part of the ritual of the Jagannatha temple at Puri, whose construction started in the 10th century and was completed in the 12th century. Because of their role in the nightly worship of Krishna, the songs of the Gitagovinda have been chanted in the Jagannatha temple for more than seven hundred years and are revered throughout Odisha. A key aspect of Odissi, a classical dance originating from Odisha, is the performance of these songs as the art form was developed through the religious art of temple dancers who dance Gitagovinda songs in praise of Jagannatha.

The Jagannatha temple with the three deities
The Jagannatha temple with the three deities, depicted across all 12 folios of palmleaf, in a manuscript of Gitagovinda, with Sanskrit text in minute Oriya script. British Library, Or. 14110. Noc

A unique manuscript of the Gitagovinda (Or. 14110), a copy of unknown date, was acquired by the British Library in 1982. It is a stitched palm-leaf folding book consisting of 12 leaves altogether with the text and illustrations only on the obverse. The poem’s Sanskrit verses are written in minute Oriya script, and there are also Sanskrit mantras written in Oriya script throughout the text.

This manuscript stands out for its format, layout, and artwork, because the text and accompanying illustrations are arranged in the shape of the façade of the Jagannatha temple at Puri in Odisha. There are three figures in the center, the deities Jagannatha, Subhadra (the younger sister of gods Krishna and Balarama also known as Balabhadra) and Balabhadra (the elder brother of Krishna). This trio of deities is worshipped at the Jagannatha temple.

Detail of the three deities in a manuscript of Gitagovinda
Detail of the three deities in the Jagannatha temple, in a manuscript of Gitagovinda, with Sanskrit text in minute Oriya script. British Library, Or. 14110. Noc

As mentioned, the history of the Jagannatha temple shows an amalgam of various influences and traditions. According to the 15th-century poet and scholar, Saraladasa, the cult of Jagannatha was identified with the cult of the Trimurti, the three supreme Hindu deities: Brahma (the creator), Vishnu (the preserver) and Shiva (the destroyer). Saraladasa equates Subhadra with Brahma. But since the Jagannatha temple is still dedicated to the cult of Hari-Hara (Vishnu-Shiva) and the worship of Sri Vidya (the Goddess), Subhadra is suggested to stand for Shakti (Hindu paramount goddess and consort of Shiva) who was worshipped in the form of Ekanamsa. The name Ekanamsa was changed to Subhadra, and consequently the goddess lost her position as the principal deity (Starza 1993: 63, 64). Balabhadra is sometimes considered as Shiva and sometimes as Ananta or the serpent, therefore representing the Naga cult, i.e. snake worship. But in essence, he is one of the deities in the Puranas (sacred literature of the Hindus which serves as a popular encyclopedic collection of myths, legends and genealogy) (Mishra 1971: 157).

Avatars of Vishnu, Gitagovinda, Sanskrit in Oriya script, with coloured illustrations
Avatars of Vishnu, Gitagovinda, Sanskrit in Oriya script, with coloured illustrations, 18th century. IO San 3508, f. 5r Noc

Most Vaishnavites, particularly Krishnaites, consider Jagannatha to be an abstract representation or avatar of Krishna or Vishnu. It has been suggested that Jagannatha may have originally been a local deity of an unknown tribe, whose worship was later incorporated into Brahmanism. When this new god was introduced, he was regarded as another manifestation of Vishnu.

Further reading:

Mishra, Kanhu Charan. The Cult of Jagannātha. [1st ed.]. Calcutta: Firma K.L. Mukhopadhyay, 1971.
Mukherjee, Prabhat. 1981. The History of Medieval Vaishnavism in Orissa. New Delhi: Asian Educational Services.
Singh, Upinder. Kings, Brāhmaṇas, and Temples in Orissa: An Epigraphic Study AD 300-1147. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers, 1994.
Starza, Olgierd Maria Ludwik. The Jagannatha Temple at Puri: Its Architecture, Art and Cult. Studies in South Asian Culture. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1993. 
Stoler Miller, Barbara. Love Song of the Dark Lord: Jayadeva’s Gitagovinda. UNESCO Collection of Representative Works. New York: Columbia University Press, 1977.

Azadeh Shokouhi, Sanskrit cataloguer Ccownwork

Acknowledgment: Special thanks to Dr Arani Ilankuberan, the Head of South Asia collections, and to Pasquale Manzo, Lead Curator South Asia Collections and Curator of the Sanskrit collections, for their comments and suggestions.