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| The giant chariot or "Rath" of Jagannath at Mahesh |
One of the earliest mentions of the village of Mahesh
(pronounced Maa-hesh), now part of the town of Serampore in the Hooghly
district of West Bengal, occurs in the works of 15th century poet
Bipradas Pipilai. Bipradas is known as one of the contributors to the
“Manasamangal” genre, and for having written many of the stories of “Chand
Saudagar”. His descriptions of Mahesh are probably from around 1495. But the
cult of Jagannath in Mahesh is much older than that. The area was probably
under the rule of Oriya Kings, and as Lord Jagannath (Anglicized to Juggernaut)
was the royal family’s deity of choice, it found acceptance among subjects
here. Mahesh today, remains a centre of Jagannath worship, and is home to the
second oldest “Rath Yatra” or car festival in India, after Puri. The story goes that Dhrubananda Brahmachari, a devout man
of Mahesh had travelled to Puri to worship Lord Jagannath. It was his desire to
give the deity “bhog” with his own hands, but this was prevented by the temple
authorities. But right after this debacle, Lord Jagannath himself appeared to
the heartbroken Dhrubananda in his dreams, commanding him to return to Mahesh,
where he would appear to his devotee. Dhrubananda followed the instruction,
returned to Mahesh, and by one account found an idol of Lord Jagannath trapped
in the sands of the Ganges’ bank. An alternative version says Lord Jagannath
had promised to provide to Dhrubananda, a Daru-Bramha, or the trunk of a Neem
tree, out of which Dhrubananda had the idols carved out. These idols were that
of Lord Jagannath, his brother Balarama, and sister, Subhadra. They were
installed in the original Mahesh temple which dates back to 1397. But this
temple is no longer in existence.
What happened to the original temple, I have been unable
to discover. What I do know is that the present temple in Mahesh was built in
1755 and cost around Rs. 20,000. This money was donated by Nayanchand Mallik of
Pathuriaghata of Calcutta. The original three idols were left by Dhrubananda
Brahmachari to his disciple, Kamalkar Pipilai. The “shebaits” of the temple
came to be known as “Adhikari”. When they gave shelter to a Nawab of Bengal in
a severe storm, the grateful Nawab gifted them a piece of revenue-free land in
Mahesh.
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| The present Mahesh temple |
The Rath Yatra or car festival of Mahesh continues to
this day. Every year devotees throng to Mahesh to pull the ropes of the Lord’s
chariot. They pull the chariot to the Lord’s garden house to the North of Mahesh,
and eight days later, return it to its original location. The idols are then
carried out of the chariot, and placed back within the temple. A huge fair is
held on the occasion. The chariot itself has been changing constantly since
1397. 400 years after the festival began, in 1797, Shri Ramkrishna Dev’s
renowned disciple Balaram Basu’s grandfather Shri Krishnaram Basu donated a
chariot to the temple. His son Guruprasad Basu renewed the chariot in 1835. But
that chariot was destroyed by fire. Kalachand Basu built another chariot in the
year 1852 but it was abandoned when someone committed suicide inside it.
Bishwambhar Basu made another chariot in 1857, but that also got burnt down.
The present chariot is probably the one ordered by the then Dewan Krishnachandra
Basu from Martin Burn Co. Being made of iron, it has still survived. It is 45
feet tall and is built in Bengal’s traditional “Navaratna” style, that is, it
has nine spires. While some would point to the repeated accidents as evidence
of the chariot being cursed, to a rational mind, the explanation is a simple
one. The combination of copious amounts of wood, used for the chariot’s
construction, and oil lamps, traditionally lit for Hindu worship, can have only
one inevitable end.
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| From right to left, the idols of Jagannath, Subhadra and Balaram in the temple |
Unfortunately there was a theft at the Mahesh temple in
the early hours of the 22nd of January 2014, and the gold ornaments
of the idols, along with silver utensils in which bhog was served, were stolen.
In recent times, there have been a series of thefts in Serampore. The Madan
Mohan temple, the Chatra Hari sabha Temple and Kali Temple at Mahesh Colony in
Serampore have all been victims of theft. Some security measures, such as
installation of gates etc. have now been taken. As the Bengali saying goes,
“intelligence dawns when the thief has fled”.
- by Deepanjan Ghosh
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am grateful to Supratim Chowdhury for being my guide
around Serampore
SOURCES
Temples and Legends of Bengal – P.C. Roy Chowdhury
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