PURI JAGANNATH : NAVAKALEVARA

Puri Jagannath Navakalevara

The deities of temple of PURI are made out of the Margosa tree. As it is wood, it is natural that the wood would decay some day and hence needs to be replaced with new ones. This cermony of replacing the decayed old deities with the new ones is called as the NAVAKALEVARA. This ceremony is conducted only when there is a ADHIKA ASHADA, i.e there will be two ASHADA months in the Telugu calendar.

The process is very huge and starts with the praying to the godess of the Mangala Temple situated at Kakatapur village by the special Diatas chosen by the Puri temple to seek her blessings so that their search for a suitable Margosa tree for carving the God should be successful. There are lot of points that need to be satisfied before the tree is being selected for the carving few of them are the environment where they find the tree, the height, age etc . Only when these terms and conditions are met the tree is marked for carving.

Before cutting the tree, the traditional rituals are performed along with a Homa

(offering to the fire god). Then the tree is cut to the prescribed size and brought to the temple. In the temple there is a separate place called KOILI VAIKUNTHA, where under the guidance of the Daitas, the images of the lords are carved by carpenters who are known as VISHWAKARMAs. During the process of carving the images, sacrifices are made to invoke the God Narsimha.

After the carving is completed, the idols are taken inside the temple and the BRAHMA ( THE MYSTERIOUS OBJECT INSIDE THE DEITIES) is transferred from old images to the new ones. The old wooden idols are then buried in the KOILI VAIKUNTHA. Then the new images are painted and they are made ready for darshan and worshipping.