Place · Vishnu temple · India
Alarnath, Puri
Also known as Alarnath, Alarnath — Brahmagiri, Brahmagiri, Puri
The 'Anavasara Vishnu' Alarnath temple at Brahmagiri village in Puri district, Odisha, 25 kilometres from Puri — the temple where Jagannath is said to hide during the 15-day Anavasara (seclusion) period between the June Snana Yatra (ritual bath that is said to leave the deity feverish) and the Rath Yatra. During the Anavasara the main Jagannath temple at Puri is closed to pilgrims; devotees travel the 25 kilometres to Alarnath to see Jagannath in his hidden Vishnu form. The temple is a Chaitanya Mahaprabhu sub-shrine (the Gaudiya saint spent some time here during his 24 years at Puri 1510-1534). The current temple structure is 11-century Eastern Ganga foundation with major 16-century additions. The temple is managed by the Alarnath Devasthan. The annual Anavasara darshan each June-July draws over 500,000 pilgrims who temporarily shift from Puri. The temple is a canonical Jagannath Vaishnava pilgrimage.
- Function
- Sacred site & pilgrimage
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 19.810, 85.747
Connections (2)
- Mythic displacement toJagannātha Temple, Puri
For the fortnight of Anavasara, when the Jagannātha images are withdrawn from view after the bathing festival, Purī's pilgrims go to Alarnāth at Brahmagiri instead, on the understanding that the god is there. One temple's closed season is another temple's crowd. Chaitanya is said to have stayed at Alarnāth during one such fortnight and left the impression of his body in the stone, which is shown there.
- Site withinPurī / Jagannātha Purī
Alarnath, Puri sits inside Purī / Jagannātha Purī and forms one piece of its layered sacred, royal or civic landscape. The city carries this entry as one of the sites that make its urban fabric legible — a shrine, monument, institution or craft tradition specifically anchored at this location — and the city's broader history reads better when the stop is seen in its context rather than in isolation. The surrounding streets, markets and other heritage ensembles around it belong to the same single city.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, “Brahmagiri”. The Nālāyira Divya Prabandham and the standard Divya Desam concordances.
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