Post # 100
When a Hindu God waits for his Muslim devotee...
Every year, around June-July, the world witnesses the Ratha Yatra - the Chariot Festival, also called Car Festival. Though Ratha Yatras are celebrated throughout the world, the biggest and grandest of these happens in a small, coastal, temple town in Odisha - Puri.
The word Juggernaut - meaning "a large, moving, unstoppable object or force" - has its origin in the Odiya word Jagannath, meaning "Lord of the World". I can't imagine how much the sight of Gods' statuettes being pulled by an ocean of humans must have influenced British that they coined an English word around it!
As a part of tradition, when the chariots or Rathas of Lords Jagannath, brother Balabhadra and sister Subhadra are pulled from their home - The Jagannath temple, to their aunt's home - The Gundecha temple, they stop for a while at the Samadhi (final resting place) of one of their devotees - Salabega.
What is astounding is - Salabega was a Muslim, and his Samadhi contains his cremated remains, not his buried remains!
So, who was Salabega and what was his story?
Salabega was a Muslim, who lived in the early 17th century. His father was a Muslim subedar, while his mother was a Hindu woman. There in lies a mini-tale.
Those were the days of muslim domination over large parts of India. Subedar Lalabeg came to Kalinga (as Odisha was called then) from Bihar with territorial ambitions. One day, he saw a young Hindu widow taking bath in a pond. So enthralled was he by her beauty that he abducted her and made her his wife. The young widow must have been some woman, because Lalabeg never married again and some reports say, did not attack another Hindu temple again. Whatever! Salabeg was their only child.
Salabeg followed his father's footsteps and joined the army. One day, he was critically injured in one of his fights. Almost on his deathbed, he heeded to his mother's advice and prayed to Lord Jagannath. He recovered and became an ardent devotee.
Because he was a Muslim, he was not allowed to enter Jagannath Temple. Disappointed, he left for Vrindavan and spent many years there. After all, were Jagannath and Krishna not one and the same!
One day, someone suggested that he should visit Ratha Yatra. So he set out. On the way, he fell ill and could not move. So he pleaded to his Lord not to leave till he came.
It is said that at that very same time, Lord Jagannath's chariot Nandighosha stopped on it's way from Jagannath Temple to Gundecha Temple. No one and nothing could make it move, until Salabega came. Only then did it move on.
Salabega spent the rest of his life singing the Lord's praise at the very spot Nandighosha stopped. When he died, his Samadhi was built at that very spot.
As a tribute to the devotee to whose plea the Lord yielded, as a tradition, every year, Lord Jagannath's Rath stops for a while at Salabega's Samadhi and then proceeds to Gundecha Temple.
Hmm! Maybe God doesn't care too much for religion!
