The festival of ‘Rath Yatra’ of Puri in Odisha is dedicated to which deity?
- (a)Lord Jagannath
- (b)Lord Shiva
- (c)Lord Ganesha
- (d)Lord Hanuman
Answer
Why
Correct — A. The Rath Yatra of Puri is the annual chariot journey of Lord Jagannath, presiding deity of the Jagannath Temple and worshipped as a form of Vishnu.
Three deities ride, each on a chariot of its own: Jagannath, his elder brother Balabhadra and their sister Subhadra.
They are drawn along the Grand Road from the main temple to the Gundicha Temple, stay some days and return. The festival takes its name from the deity in option (a).
Why the others are wrong
- (b)Lord Shiva — Lord Shiva is not the deity of the Puri temple. Odisha's great Shiva shrine is the Lingaraj temple at Bhubaneswar, while Puri's Rath Yatra is a Vaishnava festival.
- (c)Lord Ganesha — Lord Ganesha is carried in procession at Ganesh Chaturthi, chiefly in Maharashtra, where the festival ends in immersion rather than in a chariot journey to a second temple.
- (d)Lord Hanuman — Lord Hanuman is honoured at Hanuman Jayanti and in temple worship through the year. He is not one of the three deities of the Puri chariot festival.
Concept
The Jagannath Temple at Puri is one of the four Char Dham shrines, and its deity is worshipped as a form of Vishnu.
Once a year, in the month of Ashadha, the three images leave the sanctum and are pulled on wooden chariots to the Gundicha Temple, returning after a stay of several days.
The images at Puri are made of wood, not stone or metal, and are ritually replaced in the ceremony called Nabakalebara, held at long intervals of years.
SSC asks the Puri complex from several angles — the deity of the festival, the three idols in the temple, the missing name in the triad. Keep the temple and the triad stored together and every version is one recall.
Key facts
- The Rath Yatra of Puri is dedicated to Lord Jagannath, a form of Vishnu.
- Three deities take part: Jagannath, Balabhadra and Subhadra.
- The chariots travel from the Jagannath Temple to the Gundicha Temple and back.
- Puri is one of the four Char Dham pilgrimage centres.
Study next
Common traps
- Answering with a deity you associate with large processions, such as Ganesha, instead of reading the word Puri.
- Dropping Balabhadra when a question asks for all three names.
The same temple is asked from the idols side on 11 Sep 2024, 12:30, GA Q.20, which wants all three names, and from the chariot side on 18 Sep 2024, 12:30, GA Q.5, which leaves Balabhadra as the blank.
One fact, three question shapes.
Related PYQs
No directly related past PYQ was found.