Kalapahada

The traditional account of Kalapahad, a Hindu renegade and an iconoclast has influenced the Odia social and literary space. According to some historical documents, his original name was Rajiv Lochan Ray or Kalachand Roy Bhadury, a Bengali (Barendra Brahmin) who fell in love with Dulari, the beautiful and charming daughter of Sulaiman Karrani, the Nawab of Bengal. He married her after his conversion to Islam.But he repented of his deed as he faced boycott in the society. Therefore, he wanted to return to Hinduism.

But the Hindu society refused to accept him as a Hindu. At last, he came to the Temple of Lord Jagannath at Puri to perform expiation to convert himself to Hinduism. But the priests scornfully turned down his prayer for conversion. He got enraged and assumed the name of Kalapahad and vowed to ruin Hindu religion, images and temples.Madalapanji, the temple chronicle holds that Kalapahad desecrated the Jagannath temple. According to this tradition, “when the servitors of the temple heard of Kalapahad’s design on the temple, they took the images out of the temple and hid them at a place named Hatipada near Chilka lake. But Kalapahad learnt of this and brought the images from that place on elephants. He carried them to the bank of river Ganges and set fire to them. Just at that time a miracle happened. His body got cracked into pieces. Being perplexed by this, he brought out the gods from the fire and dumped them in the Ganges. Holy Ganga carried the Brahma (or Brahma Pinda) downstream where a Vaishnava devotee Bishar Mohanty extracted the immortal part (Brahma). Later he consecrated the Brahma at Garh Kujanga temple. The ‘Brahma’ was worshipped there for seven years, (1568A.D to 1575 A.D). In 1575 A.D during the rule of Ramachandra Dev, the first king of the Bhoi dynasty, ‘Brahma’ was brought from Garh Kujang and kept at Khordha Garh by him. Next year in 1576 A.D, the construction of new images, their entry in to the temple along with the installation of ‘Brahma’ in them were performed. This account of Kalapahad has been mentioned by Dr.Sarat Chandra Biswal in his article, “Sri Jagannath and Kalapahad” published in Odisha Review.