Legends of Lord Jagannath Temple
Lord Jagannath was the God of Viswavasu, the Savara King (Tribal Chief). But that is not the beginning, Viswavasu was the Jara Savara of the Dwapara age. The Jara Savara was also Angada in the Treteya age, and the son of the Banara King Bali, who was a disciple of Sri Rama, and an excellent military chief.
When Sri Rama wanted to give boons to his military chief and followers, Angada said “My Lord, if you have to give me a boon, may I take revenge of my father’s murder and yet remain your disciple?”. This same Angada, as Jara Savara, was waiting as ordained, on the sea shore of Dwaraka. After the destruction of Jadu Dynasty, when Sri Krishna was lying down side by side with an acharya creeper when the iron-textured arrow from Jara Savara was on His blood-red feet, which looked like deer ears and thus the departure of the great avatar of Vishnu from earth.
The moral body of Lord Krishna did not burn. A piece of bone tied to the branch of a tree was tossed into the ocean and thousands of years later it washed ashore in the east. This piece of bone was taken by Viswavasu and was revered as Nilamadhava. The Aryans tried to take possession of this Savara God, and the symbol of their Aryan effort is King Indradyumna. Who is Indradyumna? He doesn’t surface in history. The Skanda Purana records that he was the Malava King and son of Bharata and Sunanda.
Archaeologists have uncovered an ancient fort built up on a hill near Monghyr in Bihar, and the fort is known as Indradyumna Fort. It is said that King Indradyumna was situated there and reigned from that location. Whoever he was, he sent Vidyapati, who was a brahmin priest, to search out Nilamadhava. Vidyapati got Viswavasu but not Nilamadhava.
Indradyumna attacked the Savara settlement with his army. Viswavasu was defeated, but the of the suffering devotee vanished. Indradyumna was overcome with sorrow and lay on the floor for twenty-one days. He was then given a dream “Go and get the Daru (log of wood) that is lying on the shores of Puri. Carve it into an idol; and then worship it.” He got another dream which told him that it would not be possible to lift the Daru, without the assistance of Viswavasu.
Jagannath was in fact, the Deity of the Savaras and even today, the Daita, who is among his sevakas, is still from Savara origin. The daitas are entrusted with the deities from the day of Snana Purnima to the day of Ratha Yatra. The Aryans could not deny the right of the Savaras to serve as devotees of the God. So the God Jagannath transformed into Patitapabana, the God of Viswavasu, the tribal, and the God of Dasia Bauri (Dasia the low-caste man).
