Beaufort Republican. [volume] (Beaufort, S.C.) 1871-1873, 1873-02-20
The Festival Of Jagannath.

OF the twenty-four high feasts which
enliven the religious year in India, the
Car Festival of Jagannath is the great
est. A writer describing this festival
says that for weeks before the Car Fes-
tival pilgrims come trooping into Puri
by thousands every day. The whole
district is in ferment. By the time
the great car has risen to the orthodox
height of forty-five feet, the temple
cooks make their calculations for feed
ing ninety thousand mouths. The vast
edifce is supported on sixteen wheels
of seven feet diameter, and is thirty-fve
feet square. The brother and sister of
Jagannath have separate cars few feet
smaller. When the sacred images are
at length brought forward and placed
upon their chariots, thousands fall on
their knees, and bow their foreheads in
the dust. The vast multitude shouts
as with one throat, and, surging back
ward and forward, drags the wheeled
edifice down the broad street towards
the country-house of Lord Jagnnnath.
Music strikes up before and behind,
drums beat, cymbals clash, the priests
harangue from the cars, or shout sort
of medley enlivened with broad allu-
sions and coarse gestures, which are
received with roars of laughter by the
crowd.
And so the dense mass struggles for
ward by convulsive jerks, tugging,
sweating, shouting, jumping, singing,
praying, and swearing. The distance
from the temple to the country-houseis is
less than q mile, but the wheels sink
deep into the sand, and the journey
takes several days. After hours of Sc
we're toll and wild excitement in the
July tropical sun, reaction necessarily
follows. The zeal of the pilgrims flags
before the garden-house is reached; and
the cars, deserted by the devotees, are
dragged along by the professional pull
ers with deep-drawn grunts and groans.
These men, four thousand and two hum
dred in number, are peasants from the
neighboring fiscal divisions, who gen.
orally manage to live at free quarters
in Puri during the festival. Arrived at
the country-house, the enthusiasm sub
sides. The pilgrims drop exhausted
upon the burning sand of the sacred
street, or block up the lanes with their
PROSTATE bodies. When they have
slept off their excitement, they rise re-
freshed, and ready for another of the
strong religious stimulants of the seas
on. Lord Jagannath is left to get back
to his temple as best he can; and, but
for the professional car-pullers, would
infallibly stick at his country-house. In
closely-packed throng of hundred
thousand men and women, many Of
them unaccustomed to exposure orhard
labor, and all of them tugging and
straining to the uttermost, under q
blazing tropical sun, deaths must occa-
sionally occur. There have doubtless
been instances of pilgrims throwing
themselves under the wheels in n frenzy
of religious excitement; but such in
stances were always rare, and are now
unknown. At one time, several unhap-
py people were killed or injured every
year, but they were almost invariably
cases of accidental trampling. The few
suicides that did occur were for the
most part cases of diseased and miser-
able objects, who took this means to
put themselves out of pain. The Off
cial returns now place this beyond
| doubt