When Saturn met Jagan

By David Martin (Bluesky: @davidmartin8293.bsky.social)

“They form the great Juggernaut saturnalia, so widely celebrated. Tens of thousands of persons, of all classes and ages flock to attend them… In former times many were in the habit of increasing the general happiness by throwing themselves under the wheels of the Juggernaut car.”¹

So wrote an unnamed London Times Correspondent about the Rath Yatra, a centuries-old festival celebrated all over South Asia. This particular instance took place on 8 June, 1864 in Calcutta (it happened to be a Wednesday, as is Christmas this year), where, the author notes with a touch of relief, the celebrants were ‘forbidden’ from throwing themselves under the wheels of the colossus — the statue of the god Jagannath (from whom we get the word ‘Juggernaut’ as it happens). The wild frenzy that surrounded the chariot undoubtedly produced some deaths at some point, given its size and the absence of any rigorous health and safety audits. But to call it the deep desire of the hoi polloi to be crushed to death on a Wednesday, seems to stretch credibility.

As does appending the name ‘Saturnalia’ to Jagannath.

Saturnalia has been an object of Christian angst for some time now, and has been used to signify debauchery and as a harbinger of the end of Empire (or at least a rather uncomfortable Wednesday afternoon). It stems from a rather puritanical rejection of pleasure, even the ‘pleasure’ of gift-giving! (something which the actual puritans actually did in the actual sixteenth century). So, as the wheels of Empire rolled into India, a rather joyous Rath Yathra would have looked like trouble, trouble of a Saturnian kind.

As Yuletide rolls round, much like the chariot of Jagannath, it is well to remember that Wednesday is a bad day to die, but a good day to celebrate. In the words of St. Paul, ‘take a little wine for they stomach’s sake’, as Advent rolls on.

Illustration: H.W. Bates, ‘The Jagannath Festival’, https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O20152/the-jagannath-festival-painting-unknown/?carousel-image=2013GK3331

1. Unkown Author, ‘AFFAIRS IN INDIA.; The Great Juggernaut Saturnalia. The Sacrifice of Human Victims.’ New York Times Archives, https://www.nytimes.com/1864/08/31/archives/affairs-in-india-the-great-juggernaut-saturnalia-the-sacrifice-of.html ↩︎