At Sri Jagannath Mandir

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Sri Nabadwip Dham Parikrama, Day One
Simantadwip, 23 March 2021, part 12
Translated from Bengali

We have come to the temple of Sri Jagannath, Baladev, Subhadra Mayi. Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur wrote about this place in Sri Nabadwip Dham Mahatmya. You also know that when we go to Sri Puri Dham, I tell you about the glory of Sri Jagannathdev and how Jagannathdev came.

Many years ago, the Lord lived with sabaras, an ancient caste of hunters. Do you remember where they lived? At the temple of Nil-Madhav in Odisha. When an atheist king called Rakhabahu harassed them too much, sabaras came here and settled here with the Lord. This place is non-different from Sri Purushottam Ksetra.

[His Divine Grace reads from Sri Nabadwip Dham Mahatmya Mukta-Mala:]

Here in Bengal, we always welcome Phalguni Purnima, but it is up to the learned to discern how much of this welcome is selfish and how much unselfish (causeless). May the youthful spring, the king of seasons, increase our passions; may the calls of cuckoos, the messengers of spring, shower our ears with the heavenly ambrosia; may Laksmi, the spring's intrinsic nature, create new gifts for our mundane literature or bring abundance and great crops to Mother Earth, letting us enjoy even more — cherishing these dreams and hopes, we welcome Phalguni Purnima; or noticing the banner of the tidings of the coming Phalguni festival celebrated in the society by young boys and girls and sweethearts, we congratulate each other and invite everyone to celebrate Phalguni Purnima; otherwise, instead of worshipping (commemorating) the birth day of a powerful hero or a leader who provided us with some sort of illusory gift of social or practical opportunism that is common for the world of mundane realism, we consider this day very special as we are inspired to worship our own opportunism. However, the peculiarity of Sri Phalguni Paurnamasi is that she does not pamper one with the universal illusion of mundane realism or philanthropic envy-driven opportunism. Phalguni Paurnamasi has devised a golden opportunity to expel universal unconsciousness. Phalguni Purnima reveals the beauty coming from the toenails of the holy lotus feet of the full moon Sri Chaitanya. A great Bengali poet sang:

"chaitanyera janma-yatra—phalguni purnima
brahma adi e-tithira kare aradhana
parama pavitra tithi bhakti-svarupini
yanhi avatirna hailena dvija-mani"

"Beginning from Brahma, everyone is worshipping Phalguni Purnima, the holy appearance day of Sri Chaitanya. This supremely pure holy day, the personification of Devotion, is the day when the jewel of the twice-born descended to this world"'.

(Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata, 1.3.43–44)

It is in honour of this auspicious Phalguni Purnima that we are doing this Nabadwip Dham parikrama, and we have today come to this temple of Lord Jagannath, which is non-different from Lord Jagannath's temple.

There is also one more narrative describing the glory of this place. There was one devotee called Jagadish Chakravarti. He was a very good Vaishnav. One time, he decided to go to Puri Dham on foot, but before he could set off, he was stricken with leprosy—his legs and hands were covered with sores. Moreover, he became blind—he completely lost his sight. Finding himself in this state, he thought, "What will I go to Puri for? What will I do there? I will not be able to have the darshan of Jagannath, Baladev, Subhadra, and Chaitanyadev. My eyes have become blind. How will I go to Puri for the parikrama now?" Feeling miserable, Jagadish stayed in Nabadwip. He always cried and lamented, and one day he thought, "What will I do with this life? I had better commit suicide!" Then, one night, Lord Jagannath appeared to Jagadish in a dream and said, "You are here in Nabadwip—you must wake up every morning and come to bathe in the Ganges. When you dip yourself into the Ganges, a piece of wood floating nearby will touch your head. By the touch of that wood, your eyesight will return." Jagadish did what the Lord had told him to do, and his eyesight came back. Seeing that piece of wood, he thought, "This wood is not ordinary, I will take it with me and carve a Deity out of it." Then, the Lord again appeared to Jagadish, saying, "You will not be able to do it yourself." There was one carpenter who lived nearby, so the Lord said, "Why do you reject him just because he was born in the family of sudras? Even though he is a leper and his hands are deformed, you must ask him to make the Deities." Finally, Jagannath assured him, "When you do this work, you will be relieved from your leprosy." In the morning, when Jagadish woke up, he marvelled at the wondrous dream he had had and went to bathe in the Ganges, and taking the log with him, he went to the carpenter to ask him to make the Deity. Jagadish showed the carpenter his hands and told him that his hands were affected by leprosy and he did not know how to carve wood, "Is it possible for me to make a Deity with these hands?" Then, he explained to the carpenter that only he could make a Deity, and the carpenter finally agreed. Jagadish's leprosy then was gone, and he saw how the carpenter was making the Deity—he saw that this poor low-born man was suffering very much because of his deformed hands. Suddenly, the carpenter's fingers fell off—the flesh was oozing pus, and blood started to fall from the wound. Seeing this, Jagadish tried to encourage him, saying, "You must forget your pain until the Deity is finished." Finally, the Deity was completed, and the carpenter's leprosy was completely cured! In this way, Jagadish started worshipping the Deities of Jagannath, Baladev, and Subhadra in a nearby village. Many years later, the Deities were kept in a very unhappy way—they were not worshipped anymore at the temple, so the Deities concealed Themselves. They were discovered in some snake-filled jungle. Later, Gaudiya devotees came and rescued the Deities, resuming Their worship.

Jay Baladev, Subhadra, Jagannath jiu ki jay
Harinam sankirtan ki jay
Nitai Gaura premanande Hari bol

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