First, it was the Great Rasagola-Roshogolla Spat. Now it’s the ‘Goddamn, there’s another Jagannath Dham!’ tussle. The two sparring parties are the same – Odisha and West Bengal. As is wont with legacy institutions not taking kindly to upstart crows, this time, too, Odisha, where the Jagannath Temple has been standing in the coastal town of Puri since the 12th c., is miffed after Bengal’s new Jagannath Temple has come up at the seaside resort of Digha since April 30, 2025. One would have thought that Odisha would have been chuffed that Bengal turned to Puri for inspiration to spread the lord’s word. But it turns out now that quite like rasagola-roshogolla, the epithet of ‘dham’ (abode) can be applied only to four sacred places: Badrinath, Dwarka, Rameswaram and Puri. Somehow, Delhi’s Akshardham missed the memo.
The quarrel, of course, is over more mortal things: religious tourists. It’s as if when a Wendy’s outlet opens in the ‘hood, legacy McDonald’s is supposed to get riled up. But guys, guys, guys. Places of worship are also part of competitive capitalism. One more branch of Jagannath Dham® should be good news, no? After all, if Big J is, as divinity, omnipresent, it should stand to reason that he has many dhams. In fact, setting up a Jagannath St-Tropez and a Jagannath KwaZulu-Natal should be the next logical step in J-walking.
