Shree Jagannath Temple, Puri

Puri, known in early texts as Purushottama Kshetra, Shrikshetra and Nilachala, was a sacred place long before the present temple was built. The Purushottama Kshetra Mahatmya of the Skanda Purana is devoted to it, and the Narada and Matsya Puranas also name it as a holy place of Vishnu. The 11th-century play Prabodha Chandrodaya mentions a shrine of Purushottama here, and tradition holds that Adi Shankaracharya came to Puri and founded the Govardhan Math, one of his four monasteries.

According to the Shree Jagannatha Temple Administration (SJTA), the present temple was built by Anantavarman Chodaganga Deva, founder of the Eastern Ganga dynasty, in the first part of the 12th century. Historians date the start of construction to after his conquest of the region around 1112, and an inscription of 1134–35 records his gift to the temple. The SJTA says it was completed in 1230 by Anangabhima Deva III, who installed the deities. Anangabhima dedicated his kingdom to Jagannath and called himself the deity's servant (rauta), and under his successors the name 'Jagannatha' came into popular use.

Under the Suryavamsi Gajapati kings from 1435, beginning with Kapilendra Deva, the temple became the centre of Odisha's state and culture. Purushottama Deva wrote the 'Niladrinatha Puja Vidhi' on its worship, and during the reign of Prataparudra Deva (1497–1540) Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu came to Puri and lived here for 24 years, making it a centre of Gaudiya Vaishnavism. Ramanujacharya, Madhvacharya, Nimbarkacharya, Vallabhacharya and Guru Nanak are among the many teachers and saints associated with Puri.

The temple suffered repeated attacks. According to the Madala Panji, the temple chronicle, and later historians, in 1568 the Bengal Sultanate general Kalapahar invaded Puri after the fall of the last independent Gajapati, looted the treasury and burned the wooden images. Temple tradition holds that the devotee Bisara Mohanty saved the sacred 'Brahma' essence of Jagannath, and Ramachandra Deva I of Khurda reinstalled new images in 1575. The Madala Panji records eighteen invasions in all, during which the servitors often hid the deities around Chilika and in the hills. Under Maratha rule in the 18th century the temple was again patronised; the Aruna Stambha that stands at the Lion Gate was brought here from the Konark Sun Temple in that period.

After the British took Odisha in 1803, the East India Company managed the temple and continued the pilgrim tax, until missionary protests led to its abolition in 1840 and management passed to the Raja of Khurda (Puri). After independence, the Puri Shri Jagannath Temple (Administration) Act, 1952 recorded the rights and duties of the servitors, and the Shri Jagannath Temple Act, 1955, in force from 1960, placed the temple under a managing committee headed by the Gajapati Maharaja of Puri. The SJTA says the temple was declared a national monument in 1975 and its conservation was entrusted to the Archaeological Survey of India in 1979.

In recent years the 75-metre-wide Shree Jagannath Heritage Corridor (Srimandir Parikrama) around the Meghanada Pacheri was opened in January 2024. On 14 July 2024 the inner Ratna Bhandar (treasury), last opened in 1978, was reopened under a state-appointed committee for repairs and an inventory of the temple's valuables.

The Jagannath Temple is the tallest temple in Odisha and a classic example of the Kalinga style. It stands on a raised platform in the centre of a walled complex of more than 37,000 square metres, which holds over a hundred smaller temples and shrines. The outer wall, the Meghanada Pacheri, is about 6 m high, and an inner wall, the Kurma Bedha, encloses the main temple. Four gates open in the outer wall: the Singhadwara (Lion Gate) on the east, facing the Bada Danda, and the Hathi (elephant), Vyaghra (tiger) and Ashwa (horse) gates on the north, south and west.

The SJTA describes four main parts on an east–west axis: the Vimana or Bada Deula (sanctum), the Jagamohana (assembly hall), the Natamandapa (dance hall) and the Bhogamandapa (offering hall). The Vimana is a curvilinear Rekha Deula on a pancharatha (five-projection) plan, rising about 65 m according to Wikipedia; the Jagamohana is a Pidha Deula with stepped pyramidal roofs. On the outer walls are friezes of elephants, horses and warriors, miniature temples, graceful female figures and the twenty-four forms of Vishnu, with chlorite images of Varaha, Trivikrama and Narasimha in the main niches.

Atop the spire is the Nila Chakra, an eight-spoked wheel of ashtadhatu (an alloy of eight metals) about 3.5 m high, on which the Patita Pavana flag is changed every day. Inside the sanctum the deities sit on the Ratna Simhasana (jewelled throne). In front of the Lion Gate stands the sixteen-sided monolithic Aruna Stambha, and the Baisi Pahacha, a flight of 22 steps, leads up into the temple. The complex also includes the Vimala temple, the Lakshmi temple, the Mukti Mandapa where learned Brahmins assemble, and the huge kitchen (rosaghara), where the Mahaprasad is cooked in earthen pots over wood fires.