55. Lalita Jagannath – The Meticulous Dresser

Lalita Jagannath – The Meticulous Dresser:

Maintaining the busy schedule day after day, month after month, year after year, generation to generation, requires an enormous temple staff and extremely efficient administration. The most popular of all activities is seeing the deities in the temple, called darsana, which means "to see face to face." Thousands of devotees visit the temple every single day of the year to see the Lord.

An attentive look at the puja schedule reveals that the deities' clothing is changed several times each day. As we have the natural tendency to dress in a particular way for various occasions, our creator must also have this same inclination. A person who is very fond of dressing himself is called “Lalita”, or a “meticulous dresser”. He is known to be a meticulous dresser and enjoys being decorated by His devotees.

Lord Jagannath has two particular types of servants who dress Him. Those who dress Him on a daily basis are known as "pushpalaka" and those who decorate Them in special dresses on festival occasions are known as "srngari". Pure silk or cotton cloth and natural flowers are always used, never any polyester or plastic. Other than the normal daily dress, on festival days the deities wear special outfits.

The unique way Lord Jagannath is worshipped in Puri is in His variety of dress. The pandas or priests of Lord Jagannath decorate Him in ways that are not seen in any other tradition in India. This unique worship of Lord Krsna as practiced in Puri does not find its origin in Gaudiya Vaishnavism, but devotees coming in the line of Lord Caitanya eagerly go to see the Lord enjoying different pastimes in His deity form.

Devotees in and around Puri are attentive to these special occasions, and it's quite common to hear someone ask, for example. "Did you see Lord Jagannath in His Nagarjuna-vesa?"

The history of each individual vesa is impossible to trace, but here are a partial list below in order to note a few unique vesas worn by Lord Jagannath, along with the date on which they are worn:

1. Kaliya-damana-vesa - Bhadra Krsna Ekadasi

2. Raja-vesa - Asvina Sukla Dasami

3. Radha-Damodara-vesa - from Asvina Šukla Ekadasi to Kārttika sukla Dasami 

4. Laksmi-Nrsimha-vesa - Kärttika Sukla Caturdasi

5. Nagarjuna-veja or Parasurama-vesa - The last days of Karttika when, according to astrology, there are 6 tithis rather than 5 between Ekadasi and Purnima.

(Note: on Nov. 26, 1993, Lord Jagannath wore this vesa for the first time in 25 years. An estimated 500,000 pilgrims took darsana on that day.)

6. Padma-vesa - Magha-sukla-dvitiya

7. Hati-vesa - Jyestha Purnima

8. Suna-vesa - Asadha-sukla Ekadasi, Kärttika Purnima

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