2010/07/11 by Albertina Nugteren · 1 citation
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · Engineering · #Indian History and Philosophy #South Asian Studies and Conflicts #Cambodian History and Society #Altar #Mythology #Weaving #Narrative #Art #Relation (database) #History #Ancient history #Visual arts #Art history #Literature #Engineering #Computer science
paper · doi:10.1558/jsrnc.v4i2.159
openalex publication_date 2010/07/11 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
At Puri, every twelve years or so, the wooden statues of the deities in the great Jagannath Temple have to be ritually renewed. In a carefully scripted and partly secret procedure that may take as much as ninety days, four sacred trees are selected, cut, transported, and sculpted into images for the main altar. After a description of the factors that may have determined the tradition of continuing the wooden images, a detour is made by introducing a newly built temple in Bhadrak district which claims to follow exactly the same procedure. This finally leads me to some remarks on the uneasy relation between religion, nature, and violence.