Jagannath—the wide-eyed wooden image of mercy and manifestation of the Hindu deity Kṛṣṇa—simultaneously represents both a universal form of divinity and a god of great variety. Though he originates in Odisha, India, and is a popular cultural symbol of that region, his devotees know him as “Lord of the Universe.” Indeed, his appeal is expansive, and his influence and devotion extend far beyond his devotional center in Puri. This paper takes up some of his particular expansions as found in the Bay Area of California.
Before engaging in ethnography with two major groups there, this paper establishes a theological foundation emanating from two key ritual celebrations, and uses that basis for understanding Jagannath as a god who travels and transforms along with his devotees. First, his popular Ratha Yatra, or summer cart festival, speaks of a god of mobility and even pilgrimage. For our purposes, this means that Jagannath travels along with his devotees from his home in Odisha to their new homes in diaspora. Secondly, Jagannath’s Nabakalebara, or “New Bodies” ritual celebrations reveal Jagannath’s malleability and the way his image transforms in order to make himself present to devotees across time and space. Such rituals of renewal are centered on the death of the deity’s wooden body and its eventual re-creation out of new trees. Nabakalebara, then, inaugurates and sanctions the repetition and re-creation of the deity’s image, presenting us with a god that moves across materials, inhabiting new forms and bodies, and inspired by the same intention behind Ratha Yatra: accompanying and being present to his devotees.
While Jagannath remains popular among Oriya communities both at home and abroad, he was also the first mūrti (ritual image) installed by the fledgling movement of the International Society of Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) in the late 1960s in San Francisco. That very image now occupies the Berkeley ISKCON temple—New Jagannath Puri—and has inspired some small Jagannath home temples and altars around the Bay area for devotees of Krishna Consciousness. Only about 40 miles from the East Bay, however, another set of Jagannath images resides in the temples and home shrines of the mostly Oriya devotees living aournd Silicon Valley. This very different group of Hindus—unified largely by their common heritage, language, and culture—maintain great devotion to the deity, both through their communal worship and in their homes.
Despite being united by their common devotion to Jagannath, these different groups maintain their own unique traditions, theologies, and practices. In each group, however, we may observe other patterns and parallels at work. Above all, once removed from their respective temples and community centers, the more personal expressions of Jagannath and the intimacies he shares with devotees within the confines of their homes adds greater texture, specificity, and reality to the god and his meanings. In particular, we see this in the way that Jagannath is re-made—whether artistically re-created, creatively arranged, or simply decorated and displayed—within these more intimate spaces. Of course, those re-creations are dependent upon place, time, and culture, only adding additional dynamism and life to these expressions of divinity in the lived experience of devotees.
In the Hindu diaspora of the Bay Area, Jagannath makes himself present again and again, to accompany disparate groups of devotees through distinctive or altogether new versions of the deity. Thus, Odiya representations may highlight home-making in a far-away place, while those of the ISKCON off-shoot provide new connections for a mixed community of both Americans and recent immigrants from India, as well for a group with significant representation among LGBTQ devotees. At the heart of both are particular, localized representations of Jagannath—both in small temples and in homes.
This research intends to make several new departures for scholarship on Hinduism and diaspora alike. For one, this study moves away from scholarship that too frequently and too heavily relies on temples and texts alone to depict Hinduism, its stories, and its practices. Instead, a focus on the temple alone—and the way Jagannath has moved from Odisha into the temples of the Bay Area—is complemented here by the deity’s parallel transformations and moves into the homes of the same groups of devotees. As a result, this paper will contribute to the relatively under-studied field of domestic worship. In looking at those more intimate, homey spaces, this work hopes to further expand meanings of Hinduism, especially in terms of the everyday practices of lived religion.
This more complex narrative is meant to muddy our understanding of Hinduism in diaspora. This is especially true in terms of the two major groups that serve as the primary subject matter of this study. While one group represents Hindu immigrants mostly from Odisha, the other consists of followers of a particular form of Hinduism that was itself developed in diaspora and by the diaspora experiences of its founder, Prabhupad.
With its particular emphasis on Jagannath’s embrace of materiality, this paper addresses other related questions: how do we make sense of this and other gods’ multiplicity and ability to transform to meet the needs of diverse groups of devotees? How does such an expansive multi-form presence hold together? What does the materiality of Jagannath’s body mean for devotees in particular times and places, and for the god himself? How do devotees and scholars alike make sense of “originals” and “replicas”, especially as reproductions proliferate in creative diasporic forms?
In response to all of the above questions, this project draws on 1) Jagannath’s theology and rituals based in Puri, Odisha; 2) a host of interdisciplinary research (including art history, history, material culture, and sociology of religion) on the deity and his associated devotions; and 3) my own ethnography. This ethnographic focus includes both interviews with devotees in each of the communities mentioned above, as well as closely observing the material forms of Jagannath as he has been reconstituted far away from his own home in Puri.
Jagannath is best known for his Ratha Yatra festival that carries the deity out of the temple and into the world, extending his presence even into diaspora. Another important but lesser-known festival, Nabakalebara (“New Bodies”), highlights how Jagannath's image transforms to make him available to devotees across both time and space. This paper explores how Jagannath travels and transforms with and through diaspora communities, particularly in the Bay Area and its particular images of the deity as they have been re-created by devotees there. Relying on my own ethnographic studies and close analyses of images, I examine the different manifestations of the deity and how they take up each group’s unique circumstances and experiences. The paper focuses on the personal, intimate experiences of devotion, especially in the home. The study also emphasizes the material embodiment of Jagannath and his connection with devotees.