Jagannath Rath Yatra Festival The day the three deities of Puri, Jagannath, Balabhadra and Subhadra, leave the temple and are drawn on three wooden chariots down the Bada Danda to the Gundicha temple, where they stay nine days before the return journey.
The name
The same day, written in each of the six scripts this app keeps
- English
- Jagannath Rath Yatra
- हिन्दी
- जगन्नाथ रथ यात्रा
- বাংলা
- রথযাত্রা
Only the names actually in use are listed. A blank script is not an omission: the day may simply not be kept there, or be kept under a different festival's name.
UTC+5:30
The date of a festival depends on the place: a tithi that ends at dusk in Chennai can still be running at dusk a thousand kilometres west, which moves the day. Sunrise and sunset here are computed for the place above.
When it falls next
Looking for the calendar this day belongs to
This day does not fall again in the next three years at this place. A few days are tied to the solar month rather than to the civil year, so a year can hold two of them or none.
What the day is
The day the three deities of Puri, Jagannath, Balabhadra and Subhadra, leave the temple and are drawn on three wooden chariots down the Bada Danda to the Gundicha temple, where they stay nine days before the return journey. The chariots are built new each year from wood cut after Akshaya Tritiya, and the Gajapati king sweeps the road before them.
- Deity
- Jagannath, Balabhadra, Subhadra
- Kind
- Festival Days of celebration: the house is decorated, a feast is cooked and the temple is visited.
The hour
The rule in words
Ashadha Shukla Dwitiya at sunrise; the pahandi procession begins in the morning and the ropes are pulled in the afternoon.
The fast
No fast. The day is one of the few on which the deities are seen outside the temple by anyone at all, which is the heart of it.
Where the regions differ
Puri is the original; Ahmedabad, Kolkata and the ISKCON temples abroad keep the same day with their own chariots. Bengal keeps it at Mahesh in Serampore, the second oldest rath in the country, and puts out the jilipi stalls and the papad and the clay toys of the rath mela; the ulto rath, the return journey, is eight days later. The south does not keep it, though Tamil temples hold their own ther festivals on other days.
Every date here is computed from the Sun and Moon for the place entered, by the rule printed beside it. A printed panchangam can differ by a day where an almanac reads a tithi at a different instant, and a family's own custom always comes first. Where the practice genuinely varies, the text says so rather than choosing for you.