Expanding into Diaspora and Home: The Myriad Dimensions of Devotion to Jagannath in the SF Bay Area

This paper addresses the creative expansions of the god Jagannath as he travels from his origins in the state of Odisha into the US Hindu diaspora. Despite the popularity of Jagannath’s Ratha Yatra festival, far less attention has been paid to his other travels and his continuous material re-creations. De-centering Puri and its more orthodox Hinduism, this paper confronts some lesser-known movements and dwellings of the god in the San Francisco Bay area. These more imaginative adaptations of the god address the concerns and very lives of the devotees who live there. As a result, the god has moved and transformed—including in his material forms—into American Hindu communities and the homes of everyday devotees. Relying on material culture studies and ethnography, this study delves into more marginal aspects of the god’s transformative reality that allow him to be present to devotees across time, place, and culture.