https://p.krishnatube.com/videos/watch/d086ec9b-446f-49b6-a341-d3ca9899bfb3 Narrated documentary footage from Jagannath Puri, a holy town on the Bay of Bengal in the Indian state of Orissa, about 500 kilometers south of Kolkata. It follows preparations for Rathayatra, the festival of chariots: the town's 150,000 residents prepare to welcome about a million pilgrims while three gigantic wooden chariots are built for the deities Jagannath, Baladeva, and Subhadra, who for centuries have enjoyed the distinction of state deity in Orissa. Two weeks before the festival the deities are bathed in a public ceremony and then humorously retired to a sick room with a 'cold' for a fortnight, Rathayatra being the celebration of their recovery. On the day itself, hundreds of thousands gather along three kilometers of grand road as the deities are carried out: first Lord Jagannath's scepter Sudarshan, then Baladeva and Subhadra, and finally the Lord himself, hoisted onto his sixteen-wheeled chariot Nandi Bhoja by scores of devotees. The Sankaracharya, one of four living representatives of the Vedantist school, climbs each chariot in homage, and the Gajapati Maharaja, the traditional king of Puri, sweeps the chariots with a golden-handled broomstick and sprinkles sandalwood water before an elephant-headed procession sets out. Without any steering, the chariots are pulled by ropes held by hundreds of men, women, and children, maneuvered through sharp curves, and after camping overnight they resume toward Gundicha Temple, described as Puri's spiritual equivalent of Vrindavan, the childhood village of Lord Krishna. The narration also describes Puri's Maha Prasad, the food prepared daily for the deities in a kitchen said to be the world's largest, feeding up to 100,000 people with 56 dishes on ordinary days and nearly 100 on special days, all strictly vegetarian and free of chili, garlic, and onion. It explains the inner meaning of the festival: the Vrindavan devotees are pulling the kingly Lord Krishna back to his idyllic playground for a symbolic week's holiday before the trinity returns to the main temple. The film recalls that five hundred years ago, during this same Rathayatra, Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and Nityananda, described as incarnations of Krsna and Baladeva, danced in ecstatic transformations recorded in the Chaitanya Charitamrita, at which moments Jagannath's chariot would mysteriously stop. It notes that inspired by Lord Chaitanya and especially His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the Rathayatra festival has been exported worldwide since 1971, now held in cities from Los Angeles and New York to Sydney, London, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, and Moscow. The closing words affirm that devotees 'live in India or England or America, but we are all his children,' united as brothers in this one festival. Sat, 14 Nov 2026 09:55:27 GMT https://validator.w3.org/feed/docs/rss2.html PeerTube - https://p.krishnatube.com https://p.krishnatube.com/client/assets/images/icons/icon-1500x1500.png https://p.krishnatube.com/videos/watch/d086ec9b-446f-49b6-a341-d3ca9899bfb3 All rights reserved, unless otherwise specified in the terms specified at https://p.krishnatube.com/about and potential licenses granted by each content's rightholder.