Jagannatha Puri Dharma -- The Kingdom of Lord Jagannatha

Jagannath Puri, literally the city of Lord Jagannath. Here Lord Jagannath rules. Everything revolves around the temple great amounts of food are cooked for the deities thousands of pilgrims come here to take darshan of lord jagannath sri dham jagannath puri is also known as purushottam nilachal or sri chitra a brindavan is radhe radhe mayapur is hari hari puri is definitely Jai Jagannath As Chaitanya Mahaprabhu Is the most merciful avatar Jagannath Is the most merciful deity In all four yugas Here Jagannath's love And blissful energy Are contagious The Gurudstamba Is the pillar of Garuda This pillar was brought From Konark To Jagannath Puri You can see this massive pillar at the Simha Dwara that people worship and throw donations at and tie ribbons on. The main entrance of the Jagannath temple is flanked by two stone lions.

This is the Lion Gate or the Simha Dwara. By looking just inside the door to the right, one can received Lord Jagannath's darshan by seeing the deity known as Patitapavana or Deliverer of the Fallen. Many of Sri Chaitanya's pastimes took place in this area around the Lion Gate. The yearly Rathayatra and the Hera Panchyami festival also come through this gate.

At the time of the Rathayatra festival Lord Jagannath goes to the Gundicha temple and stays for one week after one week he returns to his original temple unfortunately photography or videography is prohibited in the temple. This is the ISKCON temple located right next to the Haridas Thakur Samadhi right next to the beach. The deities over here are called Sri Sri Radha Giridhari. This place used to also be Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakur's old house.

ISKCON has two temples in the Jagannath Puri area one is this one and the other one is next to the Dandabhanga River. Haidas Thakur's body was brought here in procession from Siddha Bakul where he left his body to the beach. Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu personally bathed the body of Haidas Thakur and declared from this day on the sea has become a great pilgrim in sight. Haidas's body was placed in a hole in the sand along with Lord Jagannath's remnants, silken rope, sandalwood pulp, food and cloth.

Lord Chaitanya covered the body with sand chanting Hari Hari. A platform was constructed and a fence erected to protect the site. Lord Chaitanya and the devotees filled the whole universe with tumultuous chanting and danced all around the platform. Sri Chaitanya gave this benediction saying anyone who has chanted and danced here at Haidas Thakur Samadhi will achieve the favor of Krishna very soon.

The temple road is the main or a grand road of Jagannath Puri which runs east-west in front of the Lion Gate which is the main gate of the temple and is used by Lord Jagannath for his yearly rathiyatra festival flag on top of the Jagannath temple is changed daily two times the people who change the flag have been doing this service for generations their fathers and forefathers have been doing the same service at the Jagannath temple there There are about 6,000 devotees of Lord Jagannath who are doing the daily services at the temple. From the cleaning to the cooking to the details such as putting the flag on top of the temple are all done by families who have been doing these services for many hundreds of generations. flag is a very big flag actually but because it's very high it doesn't look so big so therefore it's not an easy task to take this flag on top of the temple and tie it down and but these people have become experts at it the father to son father to son tradition and people can sponsor the flag like devotees with the heart they come and give a donation and the flag is put up in their name and they and they get the old flag that was on top of the temple to take home as Prasad the flag is actually non different from Hanuman and in the middle of the flag you can see the sign of the half moon and the dot as on top of the home this half moon and the dot is officially the sign of Lord Jagannath in Puri everything is surrounded around Jagannath and made many places you can see this as a tilak the half moon in the dot and this represents Jagannath the Tota Gopinath temple is situated in a remote area on the Chataka Parvat sand dunes near the beach.

It is a 15-minute walk from the Samadhi tomb of Haridas Thakur. The Gaudiya Vaishnavas accept that Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu ended his manifest transcendental pastimes in Jagannath Puri by entering to this Deity of Dota Gopinath. Lord Chaitanya ordered Gadadhar Pandit to take care of Tota Gopinath Deity and remain in Jagannath Puri as a Kshetra Sanyasi. However due to intense affection of Lord Chaitanya, Gadadhar Pandit wanted to give up his life's vow to serve Sri Tota Gopinath.

Finally he accepted Chaitanya's order and returned to his Deity service in Jagannath Puri. Konark generally known as Arkotirtha is a temple of Lord Surya the Sun God it is situated on the seashore 19 miles north of Jagannath Puri accessible by one-hour public bus from the temple it was constructed of black stone in the beginning of the 13th century of the Saka era and it shows expert craftsmanship and and architecture one full moon night in autumn lord chaitanya walked along the beach near aitota mistaking the sea to be the yamuna he jumped in hoping to see the transcendental leelas of krishna and the gopis sri chaitanya was washed by the ocean's waves 19 miles north to konar where an astonished fisherman caught him in his net from touching lord chaitanya the fisherman became mad in ecstatic love for Krishna, but he thought he had become ghostly haunted.

After frantically searching everywhere for Lord Chaitanya, the devotees came to Konark and met the fishermen. Swarup Damodar posed as an exorcist and pacified the fishermen. Seeing Sri Chaitanya covered with sand and unconscious, the devotees loudly chanted Hare Krishna, which brought him to external consciousness. Then the devotees took Lord Chaitanya back home to Puri.

Sri Chaitanya recited many verses about Krishna's intimate water sporting in the Yamuna with all his gopi friends. Alannath is also known as Brahmagiri. This place is about 14 miles from Jagannath Puri. There is a large temple of Lord Jagannath here and a very large stone slab containing the imprint of Lord Chaitanya's transcendental body.

The stone melted while the Lord lay there in ecstasy. Lord Chaitanya would often come here during the fortnight when Lord Jagannath remained in seclusion before the Rathayatra festival. Later in his Antilila, Lord Chaitanya would threaten the devotees that if they kept involving him in material affairs, he would leave Jagannath Puri and go alone to stay at Alana. Siddha Bakul, or the Liberated Bakul Tree, is where Thakur Haridas lived and chanted 300,000 holy names of God every day.

It is located one-fourth mile up from the Lion Gate on the left side While walking towards the ocean When Haidas Thakur went to Jagannath Puri He lived outside the temple On the beach by the sea A monastery has now been erected there Known as Siddha Bakul Mat Located off the temple road Near the Jagannath Vallabh Gardens Is the Narendra Sarovar Lake This is a small lake where the Chandaniyatra sandalwood festival takes place. Up to the present date, all the Bengali devotees who visit the Jagannath temple first take their bath in this lake before entering the temple. During Lord Jagannath's stay at the Gundicha, Sri Chaitanya enjoyed many sporting pastimes in the Narendra lake. Boarding a boat, Lord Govinda, the functional deity of Jagannath, Enjoyed in the water with all his devotees On the shore of Narendra Lake There was great jubilation of music, singing, chanting and tumultuous crying After concluding his pastimes in the water Lord Govinda returned to his residence The present day temple of Jagannath Puri Was constructed by King Anangabhima Historians say this temple must have been constructed at least 2,000 years ago.

During the time of Sri Chaitanya, the small buildings surrounding the original temple had not been constructed. The Sudarshan disk atop the Jagannath temple dome indicates the temple houses, deities of Krishna or Vishnu. Sri Chaitanya instructed Haridasa, remain here and look at the chakra on top of the temple and offer obeisances. If one is not allowed to enter into the temple, or if he thinks himself unfit to enter, he can look at the chakra, wheel, from outside, and that is as good as seeing the deity himself.

Lord Kapateshwar Mahadev remains present over here as the eternal custodian of the great dhamma since time immemorial. In Sri Chaitanya Charita Amrita, we can find a description where Sriman Mahaprabhu, after bathing in the sacred Bhargi Nadi, had visited a shrine of Lord Shiva known as Kapateshwar. A clear-cut narration about Lord Kapateshwar has been given in the Skanda Purana. We can also find a concise narration of the same given in Valmiki's Ramayana.

It is said that during the age of Treta, when Lord Ramachandra with his wife Sita Devi and younger brother Lakshman were travelling through the forest on their way to Sri Purushottam Dham, they came across a wonderful scene. In that scene they saw a beautiful sacred pond where Lord Shiva and Devi Parvati were engaged in water sport activities. When Lord Shiva and Parvati realized that their activities were being noticed by Lord Ram, out of shyness they transformed into the shape of two doves and hid themselves in the forest. This is the place known as Kapateshwar temple.

The breaking of the staff. This is the place where Nithyananda broke Chaitanya's sanyas danda. In the Chaitanya Charita Amrita, this story is described as such. When Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu went to the temple of Lord Shiva, known as Kapateshwara, Nityananda Prabhu, who was keeping his sannyas staff in custody, broke the staff into three parts and threw it into the river Bhargavi.

Later, this river became known as the river Dandabhanga. What is being represented by this Dandabhanga pastor? Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, in one of the only shlokas he has written, Na ham varani na chagrihapati na pi vaishyo na sudro is describing that he is neither a sanyasi, nor a brahmachari, nor a grihasta, or a brahmana, or a vaishya, or a sudra. He is only the das of the das of Krishna's devotees.

So by breaking this danda He is representing That he is sacrificing This sannyas order of life And taking Full shelter of Krishna