(7) Jagannath Manifesting Himself

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Deities' Manifestation Anniversary festival, Siliguri, 1 May 2019, morning, part 7
Translated from Bengali

The three pieces of wood that Visvavasu, Vidyapati and King Indradyumna had brought did not look like Deities – they had to make the Deities out of it. The king wondered, 'Who is going to make Them?' He called many masters who specialised in making Deities, but every time any of them tried to carve the Deities, their tools all broke. They could not even touch the wood – as soon as their tools touched the wood, the tools broke. Nobody could do anything. 'What a great problem now! What play of the Lord is this?' the king thought. Then, one day the Lord came to him again in a dream and said, 'O King, I will send My own man. You will not be able to make Me. My man will come, then the Deities will be made. He will come tomorrow – he is a very old man, but do not send him away. He will do it.' That man's name is Visvakarma.

The next day, an old man came to the king and said,

'I have heard that nobody can make Deities for you. I am very old, but would you like me to try?'

'Of course, try and see. No problem!' the king replied.

'But I have one condition.'

'What is your condition?'

'I will go inside and lock the door from inside, and you must lock it from outside. It will take me twenty-one day to make the Deities, so I will come out of the room after twenty-one days. You do not need to feed me or worry about anything. If you have any doubts, then you can come to the door and hear the woodwork sounds.'

They did so. After that, as soon as the king woke up in the morning, he would first come to the temple door and put his ear to the door to hear what was happening in the temple. During the day, the queen also came to check. They would come a few times a day to check on the worker.

Fifteen days had passed like that, but after that suddenly nobody could hear any sound coming from the temple. Everybody was disturbed, 'What has happened?' Some scholars also came and suggested, 'What if that old man died inside? He was very old. It is necessary to wash the whole temple now and make a fire sacrifice to purify it; otherwise it is not possible to install Deities there!' The king agreed, 'Yes, you are right.' They broke the door and entered inside. They saw that Jagannath, Baladev and Subhadra were all half-complete. You can see now too that They have no legs, no arms. And there was nobody inside. Visvakarma had left.

Later, the Lord again told the king in a dream, 'O King! I will stay as I am now. You must offer Me bhoga fifty-six times, and I will eat it in this form. I will stay as I am.' Then, they cleaned the temple and installed the Deities of Lord Jagannath, Lord Baladev and Lady Subhadra.

These Deities came from Nilmadhav. We do not go to that original temple of Nilmadhav (where Vidyapati first found the Lord) every year – not so much because it is far but because the local priests create some trouble. We have been there a few times.

This is how the Lord comes...

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