India celebrates Rath Yatra with grandeur
This Chariot Festival is an annual ritual of states like Odisha and Jharkhand which involve a public procession with a wooden chariot having deities Jagannath (Vishnu avatar), Balabhadra (his brother), Subhadra (his sister) and Sudarshana Chakra (his weapon).
Thousands of people flock to Odisha during this time to join the procession at Puri and get a glimpse of the chariot of Jagannath.
The Rathas are huge wheeled wooden structures, which are built anew every year and are pulled by the devotees.
In Puri, the chariot for Jagannath is approximately 45 feet high and 35 feet square and takes about two months to construct.
The artists and painters of Puri decorate the cars and paint flower petals and other designs on the wheels, the wood-carved charioteer and horses, and the inverted lotuses on the wall behind the throne.
The huge chariots of Jagannath pulled during Rath Yatra is the etymological origin of the English word Juggernaut. The Ratha-Yatra is also termed as the Shri Gundicha yatra.
The festival is also celebrated in a grand way in Bengal where ISCON brings out one of the biggest chariots in the streets of Kolkata.
Kids in Bengal also take part in the celebration by bringing small chariots in their locality.
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