The Chariot of Jagannath: Auroville in the making

Jagannath, as the name implies, indeed is the “Lord of the Universe,” harmoniously uniting the rich cultural diversity that characterises India. The three idols of Jagannath and his siblings are made of sacred daru wood, and the trinity is set on an intricately carved base. The depiction of the Lord, united at the base with his siblings and not with his consorts, and the unusual colours, black, white, and yellow with which the idols are painted, all symbolise the unity of the world and the differently coloured human races. Indeed, the phrase Vasudev Kutumba (“the whole world is my family”) is strongly associated with the Jagannath tradition.

But why are the idols so crudely depicted — humanoid but lacking specific anthropomorphic features, with stumps for arms and absence of ears, legs and necks? Compared, for instance, to the exquisite dancer poses of Nataraja, beautifully cast in bronze, or intricately carved in stone, Jagannath puts up a poor show, as per the evaluation of my critical adolescent mind. I was aware of theories that suggested the deity's origin stemmed from the early animistic worship of an indigenous tribe, which later, through syncretism, was absorbed into mainstream Hinduism. I was aware of the mythology, which suggested that the idols were unfinished, as the divine carpenter, Viswakarma, against his express wishes, was disturbed in his labour and vanished, leaving his work incomplete. But still a satisfactory explanation for the iconography eluded me till I came across essays from Sri Aurobindo, part of his Bengali writings, which explained the deep symbolism of both the iconography and the significance of the Ratha Yatra, which is regarded as the oldest and largest Hindu chariot festival.

For Sri Aurobindo, Jagannath is a singular symbolic depiction of the Divine in both the attributes of the Form and Formless. Most cultures depict the Divine as a “Form.”Sri Aurobindo recognizes the importance of the Divine as a Form, for it allows for a personal relationship of an individual with the Godhead. The many gods and goddesses of the Hindu pantheon depict the infinite attributes of the Divine, allowing individuals to relate to one or more deities according to their nature.. But Sri Aurobindo also emphasizes the fact that the Divine is also Formless — beyond all forms and human concepts — and Integral Yoga seeks to synthesize these two aspects of the Divine, the Form and the Formless. This synthesis of the Form and Formless is captured in the unique iconography of Jagannath.

Moreover, Sri Aurobindo’s central thesis is that of an evolving and dynamic reality – an eternal play of the Form and Formless – that works on transforming human consciousness. Such a profound integral understanding of the nature of, and the pathways to, the Divine should guide us in our collective life in Auroville. For me, the Form of Auroville, the “city”, was to always be an unfinished project till the promised Supramental transformation of the human species. The city as an ideal “Form” allowed for the praxis, for individuals, united as a collective, to strive towards perfection as they participated in the building of the city. The city, as an ideal, acts as a guiding image that eternally shapes our individual and collective actions.

Contrary to this, the concept of building the city to house 50,000 inhabitants defeats the very purpose of Auroville. A fossilisation of the Form, a merely intellectual conceptualisation of the city, robs humanity of the opportunity to participate in the Becoming — the unfolding of Divinity in the world, in and through the messy processes of an evolving society.

An essay by Sri Aurobindo, titled “The Chariot of Jagannath,” is worth reading for its relevance to Auroville, and I share some excerpts here:

“The ideal society is the vehicle of the indwelling Godhead of a human aggregate, the chariot for the journey of Jagannath. Unity, Freedom, Knowledge and Power constitute the four wheels of this chariot.

The society, created by human intellect or by the play of the impure life-impulses of Nature, belongs to a different order: here it is not the chariot of God who directs the destiny of the collectivity, but a masquerading deity who deforms the divine intuition by covering up the God within; it is rather the vehicle of the collective ego. It wanders aimlessly along the path heaped with numerous pleasures, pulled by the immature and incomplete resolutions of the intellect, and the old and new dull urges of the lower nature.

The real name of the chariot of Jagannath is not society but commune . . . There have been a number of partial and unsuccessful attempts to establish a commune in a limited field . . . But before long all the defects, imperfections and normal tendencies of society infiltrated into the spiritual commune and brought it down to ordinary society . . . A spiritual commune is by its very nature a field for the play of work and mutuality.”

In the past two years the city and the society of Auroville has changed energetically and physically as a juggernaut, imposed upon us, hurtles down our streets. Change is, of course, the eternal reality. And Auroville, as a society, never was and never will be perfect as long as human consciousness does not change. Sadly, however, the four wheels of the chariot of Jagannath, “Unity, Freedom, Knowledge and Power” feel more unbalanced than before. Auroville as a chariot was always unbalanced. Earlier, we had a lot of freedom and a semblance of unity. Power, as is common in all societies, was unevenly distributed, was often closely linked with individuals’ economic power, and there was a constant jousting for power between different groups and, I daresay, even different races.

Today, however, Power is even more centralized and concentrated in the hands of few. If this Power were to be enlightened by Knowledge, then, yes, we would be in the upswing of the evolutionary spiral. But sadly, this is not so, for there is less of Unity and Freedom. In this current phase of Auroville, the spaces for the free “play of work and mutuality” are closing down. Most are left estranged, unable to participate in freedom and joy in the building of Auroville — the city and the society. And without this, certain avenues of individual and collective growth are blocked, with resulting stagnation.

Just as much the Rana Khala community work together in fashioning the wheels of Jagannath’s chariot, similarly all Aurovilians need to be involved in the building of Auroville. The terms of their involvement and their lives do not need to be dictated to by power but, yes, guided by the Knowledge. Freedom is the base of the differentiated unity of a gnostic society, and the Power that should govern Auroville should be the enlightened “power of self-knowledge and divine knowledge.” “Unity, Freedom, Knowledge, and Power,” as Sri Aurobindo says elsewhere, “are our birthrights.”