322- ■ ON ORISSA PROPER 



gone through within the temple, the four images are brought from their 

 throne to the outside of the Lion gate — not with decency and reverence, 

 seated on a litter or vehicle adapted to such an occasion — but a common 

 cord being fastened round their necks, certain priests to whom the duty 

 appertains, drag them down the steps and through the mud, whilst others 

 keep the figures erect and help their movements by shoving them from be- 

 hind, in the most indifferent and unceremonious manner, as if they thought 

 the whole business a good joke. In this way the monstrous idols go 

 rocking and pitching along through the crowd, until they reach the cars 

 which they are made to ascend by a similar process up an inclined plat- 

 form reaching from the stage of the machine to the ground. On the other 

 hand, a powerful sentiment of religious enthusiasm pervades the admiring 

 multitude of pilgrims assembled without, when the beloved images first 

 make their appearance through the gate. They welcome them with the 

 loudest shouts of joyful recognition and stunning cries of Jye Jagannath, 

 victory to Jagannath*, and when the monster Jagannath himself, the most 

 hideous of all the figures, is dragged forth the last in order, the air is rent 

 with plaudits and acclamations. These celebrated idols are nothing more 

 than wooden busts about six feet in height, fashioned into a rude resem- 

 blance of the human head resting on a sort of pedestal. They are painted 

 white, yellow, and black respectively, with frightfully grim and distorted 

 countenances, and are decorated with a head dress of different colored 

 cloths shaped something like a helmet. The two brothers have arms pro- 

 jecting horizontally forward from the ears. The sister is entirely devoid 

 of even that approximation to the human form. Their Raths* or cars 

 have an imposing air from their size and loftiness, but every part of the 

 ornament is of the most mean and paltry description, save only the cover- 

 ing of striped and spangled broad cloth furnished from the Export Ware- 



* Jagannafh's Rath, called Nandi Ghos, measures forty-three and a half feet high. It has sixteen 

 wheels of six and a half feet diameter each and a platform thirty-four and a half feet square. The 

 Rath of Baldeo, called Thala Dhaj, is about forty-one feet high and has fourteen wheels. The Devi or 

 Subhadra Rath called Padma Dhaj is forty feet high, the platform thirty- one square and fourteen, 

 wheels of six and a half feet diameter. 



