Puri Rath Yatra

Once a year the deities of the Jagannath temple leave it: three chariots are built from scratch in the weeks before, the largest about thirteen metres high on sixteen wheels, using timber allotted by tradition and no metal in the structure, and the images are carried out and installed on them. Hundreds of thousands of people then pull the chariots by rope along the Grand Road to the Gundicha temple, about three kilometres, over one or more days. English observers of this in the colonial period produced the word juggernaut, from Jagannath, for an unstoppable force. The chariots are dismantled after and their wood used in the temple kitchen.

What you actually see

• The three chariots - built new each year without metal, the largest on sixteen wheels.
• The pulling - hundreds of thousands hauling on ropes along the Grand Road.
• The Grand Road - the three-kilometre processional route.
• The dismantling - chariot timber going afterwards to the temple kitchen.

When to go

June or July, on the date set by the lunar calendar; the return journey follows about a week later. Puri accommodation books out months ahead and the town fills entirely.

Honest expectations

Crowds are enormous and have caused deaths in crushes; the authorities manage barriers tightly. The chariots move slowly and may take more than a day. Heat and humidity in the season are severe.

Nearby

The Jagannath temple is the starting point; Konark lies northeast.