JUGGERNAUT, a cult-title of the Hindu god Vishnu at Puri in Orissa (Sanskrit, Jagannatha, "Lord of the World"). Legend says that a Savara hillman worshipped a blue-stone idol in the wilds, and that Indradyumna, King of Malwa, who was conquered by Krishna, sent Brahmans to find it. Removed to Puri, a temple was set up in its honour at a cost of some i5oo,000, on a site long associated with Buddhism. Indeed the famous festi val of the god's car may be the Buddha's Tooth festival, but the celebration merely consists in the thousands of pilgrims taking several days to drag the god's car through deep sand to his country-house, less than a mile from Puri, in the rains. Begun in 1174 and completed 14 years later, the temple is pyramidal in form, 192ft. high, and crowned with Vishnu's wheel and flag. The main enclosure, 400 by 3ooft., contains several smaller shrines, besides that of Vishnu (8oft. square). The chief images,
roughly hewn in wood, are those of Vishnu and his brother and sister. The god's attendants form 36 orders and 97 classes; and special servants put the god to bed, dress and bathe him. The rent-roll is about L68,000 ; but to this sum must be added the pil grims' offerings, estimated at oo,000 a year. To Jagannath the Koh-i-Nur is said to have been bequeathed by Ranjit Singh on his death-bed, despite the fact that he was a Sikh—but apparently the bequest was revoked. Being sacred to Vishnu, a death within the temple would defile it, and the tales of pilgrims being crushed to death during the procession in vast numbers are untrue, though accidents are frequent and occasionally a frenzied pilgrim will throw himself under the car.
See Tavernier, Travels in India, II., London, 1925.