The Cosmic Dance in Odisha

                                                     Shri Jagannath Temple, Puri, Odisha

Puri, Jagannath, Odissi Dance, Konark Sun Temple & Hinduism 101

Don’t critique me on this post. There’s a reason I have comments disabled. I can’t take criticism. This is my best stab at understanding what I’ve been wandering through here in India. Puri and Konark are rich in history, legend and tradition. I’ll try to bring this together for you as cohesively as I can.

In case you are new to this blog, this is where I am now: I have had a long and varied life. Definitely interesting. I did not enter this world with a silver spoon waiting, and when one has been set before me, it has disappeared from the table the first moment I looked away. I have however been blessed with good health and rich experiences. I am presently sixty-nine and grateful to have simply made it this far. As you probably have too, I’ve lost many dear ones along the way. I celebrate my birthdays as significant achievements coupled with good luck.

Recently, I sold my cherished home, a cathedral ceiling log cabin deep in the Appalachian mountains where it was so quiet I could hear the birds flying overhead, and the skies were so dark that the brilliant shimmering of the stars sometimes woke me. I gave away nearly everything I owned.

I’d always wanted to see more of the world and hadn’t had an opportunity, when I realized if I was going to do it, I’d better get going. The resources I still have are good health, fierce determination and an expansive sense of humor. So I took off in May 2025. In the US, I have a car. I’m small and can camp comfortably in it when the weather requires. I usually set up a lovely campsite, easy to put up and take down in a jiffy if necessary. I have cooking utensils for one and insist on kahlua and cream for my morning coffee. Everything else is negotiable and I view as lovely surprises. I am overseas now and have only a backpack. I travel on a shoestring budget but live a priceless life. I am ever conscious of my carbon footprint. Dark skies, clean air and clean water are priorities, but much of the world does not offer these and so in the interest of understanding more of this mystery and how others navigate through it, I endure.

The lure of India to me was its depth of spirituality. My itinerary was centered around this. Too, I love nature (huge on biodiversity) and dance, so I sprinkled in what might yield experiential opportunities. Only a week after returning to the US from Ireland, I flew into New Delhi. I decided to begin the adventure with traveling to Rajahstan, a region I felt drawn to for its inexplicable familiarity deep within me. DNA? Reincarnation? I can’t say. Read my post Who and What We Are, inspired by a revelation in Ireland. All I can do at this point is compile clues. 

From left to right: Subadrha, his younger sister, Lord Balabhadra, his older brother & Lord Jagannath.

When I first encountered the murti of the god Jagannath in Udaipur, I was confused. It just didn’t feel right. I was in this 900 year old temple renowned for its association with Lord Vishnu and by all accounts a crazy active temple. My lodging was nearby and so I was privy to the activity, the jubilant chanting in the early mornings and evenings, the steady stream of visitors, not simply tourists but sincere devotees who wanted to be there for every aarti they could, to bathe the murtis and feed them, change their clothes and make offerings and supplications. (The aarti is a devotional ritual where incense is lit and the puja circles a lamp around the murti while ringing bells and chanting hymns. People often join in the singing and often times cry out in ecstasy. It is an act of reverence welcoming the Divine presence and acknowledging that it is the source of all life and light.) Imagine for a minute this being a typical experience in your day, likely a couple times and you’ll begin to grasp the culture in India. It’s a positive feedback loop. The more invested in a god one is, the more real and integral they become to your world. You feel seen and heard and you come to see the world through the lens of that understanding. You have an ongoing dialogue with your favored deity and realize that the occurrences around you are related to that conversation. And when others are experiencing the same thing, it becomes a shared and treasured reality.

I hadn’t been long in India at that point but I was familiar with the appearances of a few different gods. Everyone knows Ganesh, the lord with the blue elephant head, the necklaces, and the floral garlands. I had visited a hilltop Ganesha temple in Jaipur where he was stroked, garlanded, smeared with oil, and lovingly whispered to. I whispered in one of his ears and I felt like he heard me. Most have seen images of Kali, with her many arms, often looking mildly terrifying wearing a long necklace of heads she’s chopped off, and despite the grueling work she’s been up to, she is otherwise bejeweled from head to toe, her dress much like the contemporary Indian woman’s, colorful, glittering. And then there is the popular beautiful goddess Lakshmi. I was in Udaipur for Diwali, the Festival of Lights and the beginning of a new year. This was her time to shine with everyone was offering supplications to her to visit their homes and bestow wealth and abundance. Pictures of her were everywhere. And everyone knows Krishna, even as a cowherd his appearance is resplendent. 

So I didn’t get why there was this round primal black face looking directly at me with huge eyes from inside his glass shrine at the top of the stairs I mounted to kneel before him. He looked like one of those primitive totem pole faces that are carved from a log, big wide eyes staring out at you, a few smears of paint for a nose and mouth and very little more. No arms. No formed body. But I felt a connection. If I had to articulate it, I would say that it was from my root chakra, which makes sense now that I understand his origin more clearly. The root chakra connects the spiritual body to the earth. Jagannath is at heart a primeval forest deity. The only deity carved from wood. His connection with his tribal followers was strong. Vital. 

To me, his survival story is akin to that of Brigitte, the nature goddess worshipped by the Celts before the Romans invaded. The Roman church needed buy-in from the populace to entrench their power scheme, but try as they might, they couldn’t erase her from the people’s hearts. They had to integrate her into Catholicism if they hoped to successfully peddle their religion and its power structure to the Irish. At some point along the way, they even incarnated her into a nun and canonized her. Still, that wasn’t enough. Brigid, as she is better known now, is still alive and flourishing. The Pope finally acquiesced recently to naming her co-patron of Ireland along with Patrick, the beloved egoist who created his own religion and then played diplomat with church and state, parceling out shares of power to make it work favorably for everyone in the patriarchy. Brigid played the long game and won. She is still here. Her voice will not be silenced. One can feel her cult of women in the hills dancing creation into being. When I was walking in these hills of her homeland above Montmellick, she told me that the men are messing things up, uh, no kidding, look at the world and that it is time for women to take back their power. We are needed in the political realm and the men will be grateful. It’s really not their natural skill set. If you think about it, they can be okay, but they are easily derailed by glee for power and money and few shine as statesmen, let alone the visionaries we need to get us focused in a forward direction. Most become corrupt at the first opportunity. I address this a couple times in this blog. Not because I’m sexist. But because hearing her so clearly blew my mind. This was not a thought I’d had. But upon examination, it rung true. And it’s not a kindness to the contentment or spiritual evolution of men that they have assumed this role. We all know the statistics on heart attacks. And when do these relentless workers get the opportunity to meditate upon the sublime? 

But back to the reason for the analogy of Brigitte with Jagannath. It is that the Hindus could not convert the tribal people if they erased their favorite protective god, and so they let Jagannath stay. 

Over time, the story became that he is a form of Vishnu and/or Krishna. This is where things get a little tricky for the western mind to comprehend. Us with our logic of “It either is or is not.” Easterners with more options in their reality ~ “It both is and is not. It neither is or is not.” So you know, maybe Krishna was an incarnation of Vishnu or maybe Vishnu is an expression of Krishna. You’ve got followers of both notions. As for Jagganath, you’ll just have to simply trust me on this one: he’s in their camp and they are frequently worshipped together. The line of reasoning is that each of them can be both the source and the manifestation. 

The Shri Jagannath Temple in Puri draws a staggering number of pilgrims. It is one of the highlights of the city and what most Indians think of when they hear of Puri. It’s one of the Char Dam pilgrimage sites of Hinduism and center of the famous Rath Yatra, the chariot festival. 

Let me back up with a bit of context on Vishnu so you can understand why this temple is shared with Jagannath and Ganesh.

There are basically three big guys. I’ve mentioned this before, but there is so much to unpack in the Hindu religion, that it is easy for a neophyte to confuse entities.

So here are The Big Three. The first is Brahma, the Creator who brings the universe into existence. Often shown as having four faces, looking in each direction. He’s the least worshipped today for a couple of reasons. The universe is in existence, so there’s not much to do. And while he’s also associated with knowledge and could be idealized and sought after for that, he was involved in a couple scandals which left his integrity in question. Let’s just leave it at that as there are more important concepts to explore. 

The second is Vishnu and he is wildly popular, worshipped through “Vaishnavism.” He’s the preserver of the cosmos, that is maintaining order so that it survives. He’s pure consciousness so he only has a form when balance is threatened and it’s necessary to appear and intervene. To do this he appears as an avatar in the human world, divinity entering form without being bound by it, like Krishna. He can still do amazing godlike things as ann anvatar even though he appears a mere mortal. Lists of avatars vary according to local traditions. Some include 16, some 24, some countless. For example, the Bhagavata Purana says, “The incarnations of Vishnu are innumerable, like rivers from an inexhaustible lake.” But to give you a feel for the possibilities, here is how Vishnu has appeared. 

1. Matsya - the Fish. Saved cosmic knowledge from the flood. A massive flood can bring about the end of a cycle. Like praying for a good medicine death, it helps to take gained knowledge along with you to the next cycle. Matsya is the instinct to preserve meaning and can be seen on a personal level as the mandala, the cohesive device Jung discovered appearing to his patients on the brink of mental disassociation, or on a civilizational level, when the culture is facing collapse through war, climate change, migration, or loss of language. It can better its chances of survival if it carries its wisdom forward, not by losing it with the form it once had.

2. Kurma - the Tortoise. Supports the churning of the ocean. Here he is omnipresent. This is a key concept in spiritual evolution. Growth requires opposing forces. Suppressing the shadow prevents transformation. You cannot extract the highest truth without first confronting what can destroy you.

3. Varaha - the Boar. If you are a scientist, you might be noticing the analogy to the species evolution of humans. You are not wrong and you can follow that path sequentially through the sixteen I will enumerate. Hindu cosmology is layered with meaning, like the Qaballah, the Jewish traditional tree of life categorizing the spirituality of the cosmos. It is at heart, like all mystical beliefs, an empowering system of organization. Varaha rescued Earth from the abyss. This salvation is unfortunately highly relevant. The world was plunged into chaos when a selfish and arrogant demon became too powerful and dragged it below the ocean. The name of the demon is Hiranyaksa, whose name literally means ‘fixated on wealth.’ Read: selfish entrepreneurs treating the earth as an inert resource to be used for short-term gain rather than as a living biosphere supporting all of life. Our planet will soon be uninhabitable. No amount of philosophizing is going to save it. It’s going to take hard work to restore the ecosystems and re-establish ecological balance. This is why Vishnu assumes the incarnation as a boar. He dove into the cosmic waters and battled the demon 1,000 years until he was finally able to slay him. Then Varaha lifts the earth goddess gently out of the ocean with his tusks. 

4. Narasimha - the Man-Lion. Destroys tyranny which has gone beyond rules. Timeless messages. Or if you are reading this now, timely messages. What is needed? How can we re-establish equilibrium? The evolutionary sequence continues. The world must first exist and it has been saved. Next the world must be safe from absolute power. Hiranyakashipu assumed a position of power and was ostensibly protected by over-the-top boons, making him aw a practical matter, nearly invincible, which Hiranyakashipu interprets as total immunity. I do try not to get into politics in this blog, but the analogy here is too clear to ignore. The leader of the US has already been convicted of fraud, yet his cronies continue to protect him from even the most blatant transgressions of presidential power. He exploits loopholes, uses logic to justify the cruelty his psychological disorder craves, demands obedience, not truth. Insulating him is a corrupt Supreme Court whose positions are protected by legislation and the US Constitution, and a corrupt Congress who refuses to promote beneficial changes in legislation or rail in the US President from flagrant overstepping for reasons of their own self-interests, that is aggrandizement of their power and personal wealth. Hiranyakashipu cuts a similar figure. He of course wants his ego assuaged, to be idolized for the powerful figure he has become and can hardly believe that his very own son places the order of the universe, Vishnu above him. Mocking him, he taunts, “If Vishnu is everywhere, is he in this pillar?” “Yes.” Arrogantly, Hiranyakashipu strikes the pillar to show that he is more powerful. This was too much for Vishnu. It’s a bit complicated to explain the restraints in place awarded Hiranyakashipu, but suffice it to say that Vishnu figured out a way around them which allowed him to emerge from the pillar as half-lion and half-man and tear Hiranyakashipu apart with his claws. The moral being that when rules or men protect injustice, Narasimha, the most ferocious of Vishnu’s avatars enters. Precise, brief and purposeful, his righteous fury is unbound. Will this happen? One can easily point to several instances where people are suffering from tyranny. Will Narasimha appear? One can argue that he does indeed. Repression invites violence. We see authoritarian regimes overturned all of the time. Despite well-intentioned efforts to effectuate change peacefully, there often comes a point when it’s not enough fast enough. A flash point when Narasimha breaks forth. And the result is not pretty.

5. Vamana - the Dwarf. What? What can a dwarf do in a pinch? Well, he can restore cosmic balance through humility. Okay. The only way I can think to explain this is through an explanation of why antitrust rules are necessary to break up a monopoly. In this scenario, absolute power has not been arrived at through nefarious means, but rather through fair play. But unchecked power is seldom a good thing and must be reigned in. It can’t be absolute. Danger to the community needs to be pointed out. Consider the argument that gossip can be beneficial versus the Buddhist ideal of not speaking I’ll, but of using only “right words.” Sure, you don’t want to just talk shit about people, but if you’ve got a dishonest player in the community, it’s a good idea to place your finger on the problem and spread the news before others are harmed, right? So let’s say that you’ve got a business in alignment with all of the sustainable development goals providing a necessary product, like affordable housing but due to demand, its market share has become so large there is no room or opportunity for small innovative start-ups. It’s got to divest to make room for the mom and pops. To restore balance. This is analogous to the Vamana scenario. In this story, a good king became an absolute ruler and Vishnu appeared as a dwarf to ask the king for the means to reduce his power. At first the king didn’t get what was being asked of him and happily granted the dwarf’s three wishes, but then he realized after the first two what was going on. Being a good fellow, the king bowed respectfully to the dwarf, relinquishing his absolute hold over civilization. Sort of like a leader relinquishing power when he sees it’s better for the country. It happens. Not often. But it does. On a more personal level, it can simply be a lesson in setting boundaries. For example you start out always being available for work, A team player, but the 24/7 communication leads to serious inroads into your personal life, soon compromising your personal relationships and your mental and physical health. Setting a small, dwarf-sized boundary like no emails or texts after 7 pm can restore balance.

I recognize that this is getting a bit dense for a primer. So left me just provide a few liners for the next four, just so that I know you’ve got the general picture. And you can research more deeply if it strikes your fancy.

6. Parashurama - the Warrior-Sage. Ends corrupt power cycles. He represents that moment when force is used to reset a system that won’t accept gentle limits. He is a figure who then steps back rather than holding on the power to illustrate that acquiescence is a necessary safeguard against reformers turning into the next generation of oppressors.

7. Rama - the Ideal King. The incarnation of ethical order who shows how to live rightly within law, to be dutiful and exercise restraint, even when it is at great personal cost.

8. Krishna - the full manifestation of Vishnu.The incarnation of divine wisdom and love, who teaches that truth must be applied with insight, compassion and awareness of context.

9. Buddha -  Buddha’s message is internal liberation through understanding suffering and mental discipline. He redirects beings from ritual excess. He’s not on all of the Hindu lists, but from the number of beady-eyed self-righteous women tattooed with tilaka shoving their way through the temple queues touching everything they could get their grubby hands to paw, I vote that he should be.

…Along with more clarity over the connection of mindful behavior to sustaining the primary Mother Earth goddess, Bhudevi. There is a disconnect in the Indian consciousness when it comes to ecological sensitivity which is seriously adversely affecting the entire planet.

10. Kalki - Appears when society is past the possibility of saving itself. He is born in a wretched time in a small village to a righteous family as a human. He mounts a white horse, carries a flaming horse, destroys entrenched corruption and false power. And the current age ends and the cycle resets.

What value do these stories of the avatars of Vishnu hold? 

They are about training perception to realize what human behavior is capable of and to recognize ways to effectively handle the unbalances wrought. There is a solid argument that civilizations collapse because they lose narratives that teach restraint.

You are right. You didn’t see Jagannath mentioned. He is not an avatar. He doesn’t descend in to the world and fix it at a critical time. He  is considered Vishnu, lord of the universe, before story, before form. And Jagannath will remain when the stories end. He sees it all and just watches it unfold. He is a refreshing god because he knows you already, everything about you. He maintains a watch over you and accepts you as you are. He doesn’t judge. He just IS. And you can trust that he’s always got your back.

So that is what Puri, Odisha, India is to many. Jagannath.

To me it was even more about being the birthplace of the Odissi dance, a classical dance form you are probably familiar with from poses sculpted into temple walls. It is known best for its fluid torso movement and expressive use of soft hand gestures to tell stories. But also for its upright frontal poses, its wide, grounded stance. Odissi is the stillness behind the warrior’s stance, the stillness behind love and divine intimacy. A pregnant stillness, on the verge of coming to life. We know this dance has been performed for at least two thousand years in its present form. We have found Odissi dance postures sculpted into the walls of nearby Jain monastic caves in the second century BC. Worship of Jagannath solidified between the 6th and 12 centuries CE, blending tribal worship, Vaishnavism (Krishna) and local Odissi traditions. We know that Odissi was performed as a temple dance dedicated to Jagannath inside the Jagannath Temple and other Shiava-Vaishnava temples. It became explicitly devotional, an offering, and many of the dances reenact Hindu mythology.  In early Indian aesthetics, dance represents rhythm, auspiciousness, cosmic order, celebration of life energy, not ipso facto, sexuality. And although the movements are fluid and sensual, one must bear in mind that sexuality is not threatening in the Indian culture. And it is certainly not considered profane. Even in the Jain monk caves, a place where celibacy is the ideal for ascetics, it was only represented as a part of life they were vowing to leave behind, not as a moral condemnation. Unfortunately, the Victorian era British missionaries had ugly minds. Rather than embracing the procreative force as a divine inspiration to encourage life and the continuation of the species, the British colonialists attempted to further repress their sexual desires by labeling and defaming these postures which could lead to seduction of the senses. Beginning in the 1800s they went on a rampage, reframing the temple dances as immoral. Looking at the stone sculptures in relief was evidently enough to set their loins on fire. The vituperation, one might fairly call it self-loathing, heated up among the repressed missionaries and the 1850s found them actively campaigning against “degenerate” temple dancers. Marginalizing them wasn’t enough. From the 1890s-1920s (the anti-Nautch movement) the British administration took control of the temple finances and eliminated the Maharis (the female servants of the deity who danced) from the budget.  While this effectively moved Odissi dance out of the temples, the dance continued in public sector performances. In the 1950s, the Indian government formally recognized the Odissi dance as a classic Indian dance form, revitalizing it globally. It is a beautiful dance, most of it enacting scenes from Hindu mythology and the movement feels good because as I will explain, it readily adapts to the physics of the universe and entrains one’s body into the cosmic rhythm which defines our sense of unity with the universe. It not only benefits the dancer, but the viewer picks up on its flow and anticipates the movements which will bring order from chaos, delight from the heavens.

I was honored to train under Guru Bhim Sir, Khumar Bimsen of Puri, Odisha. Each session, the other dancers painted an ornate tilak on my forehead, bound my hair with fresh flowers, coated my fingers and thumbs with red dye for the expressive hand mudras, wrapped my ankles in bells, and garlanded me with necklaces. Most importantly, they showed me the mudras and practiced the stances and movements ever so patiently with me. The mudras are not just gestures. They are cosmic signs representing the unfolding consciousness, the time, sun, Jagganath, dharma, the surrender of ego, grace, poetry, peacocks, warriors, play, adoration. The Chowka is the foundational square stance with feet wide, knees bent, pelvis dropped, spine vertical, chest open, weight centered. The dancer in the sun temple mirrors the wheel beginning to turn with controlled torque when she moves into the tribhangi pose with its three bends: the neck, the torso, and the hip. The breath spirals rather than expanding evenly, the inhale favoring the open side, the exhale the compressed side. The dancer becomes a wheel in motion. Same geometry. The sun moves across the sky.

The photos below are of Odissi dance poses sculpted into the walls of the Sun Temple in Konark. One can feel the contained movement.

The sun temple is just north of Puri in Konark, Odisha. It is a colossal stone chariot for the sun god Surya, whose charioteer Aruna (the reddish glow of dawn) guides seven horses to help pull the sun across the sky each morning. 

Here is a sand sculpture of Surya at a sand art museum between Puri and Konark.

The sun temple (a UNESCO World Heritage site for good reason) was built by King Narasimhadeva I around 1250 CE. It rests on 24 intricately carved wheels, each wheel a sundial and measuring around three meters in diameter. The seven horses represent the seven days of the week, the twenty-four wheels, hours in the day; the first rays of the sun pour into the main sanctum.

I couldn’t resist photographing her although she was posing for someone else. I like people who are “all in” to their experiences. 

The ritual sequence during the centuries the temple was active began just before dawn down by the nearby Chandrabhaga River, where its mouth emptied into the sea. Morning sun salutations had been taking place there long before the temple was built. 

Let’s back up a minute and talk about sun salutations. The sun rises from the water there as the Bay of Bengal is to the east so it’s a moving place to revere the rising sun. Chandi is a fierce goddess of Shakti, the feminine divine energy. The name of the river is linked both to Shakti, a water and earth goddess and to Surya, the sun god. The strong winds from the bay sweep along the coast there too. So truly, all five elements are in full force. Water has always been considered a form of purification and so even when the ritual moved in to the temple, the devotees continued to begin their morning worship at the water’s edge. Aruna has been interpreted as the breath and nervous system preparing the body for Surya, the awakened consciousness. Everyone familiar with the sun salutation, a popular morning yoga routine, knows how it prepares the body to greet the day, stretching the muscles awake while opening the chest, the heart, and the third eye to embrace the illumination the sun will bring. It is a quiet, graceful full-body homage to the sun and an expression of openness to what the day will hold. This ritual is thousands of years old, as is the Gaayatri Mantra, often chanted with it. The Gaayatri Mantra first appears in the Rig Veda and is attributed to the sage Visvamitra who lived sometime between 1500 - 1200 BCE. This anthem to the sun is three lines of eight syllables each. This meter is believes to shape consciousness and to protect the one who sings it. If you’d like to hear it and get a more immersive feel of India, the Sun Temple and Odissi dance, press the button below to hear it performed by Ravi Shankar (on Spotify). If the entire performance does not play, just open it on Spotify.