Puri Rebuilds Three Chariots of 16, 14 and 12 Wheels Every Year, and the 2026 Rath Yatra Began on 16 July in Heavy Rain

On Thursday 16 July 2026 the Gajapati of Puri, Dibyasingha Deb, was carried in a silver-plated palanquin to the Jagannath temple. He climbed onto each of three wooden chariots in turn and swept its floor with a gold broom, and devotees then began to pull the chariots along the Grand Road toward the Gundicha temple, 2.6 km away. Puri had had 143.8 mm of rain the day before, PTI reported.

Pulling stopped at about 7 pm because the light was failing, Orissa Post reported, and the chariots stood overnight on the road. It resumed at about 9.30 the next morning. On Friday all three reached Saradhabali, the sand patch in front of the Gundicha temple, which ended the first phase of a nine-day festival.

The halt followed a written rule. Sarmistha Barik’s account of the temple’s festivals in the Government of Odisha’s Orissa Review says that by tradition the chariots are not pulled after sunset, and a chariot that has not reached its destination is pulled the next day.

Pahandi, the golden broom and the ropes

The day begins inside the temple. Jagannath, his elder brother Balabhadra, his sister Subhadra and the discus Sudarshana are carried out to the chariots in the Pahandi, a swaying, step-by-step procession to the sound of gongs, cymbals and conches, Odisha Tourism says. In Barik’s account Sudarshana comes out first, then Balabhadra, Subhadra and Jagannath. PTI’s report on the eve of the 2026 festival put the seating of the deities between 9 am and 1 pm.

Then comes Chhera Pahanra, the sweeping. The Gajapati, the king of Puri and the foremost servitor of Jagannath, sweeps the platform of each chariot while priests chant and flowers and scented water are sprinkled, PTI reported on 16 July. Barik writes that the rite signifies that “even the highest sovereign power of the state is only a sevaka (servant) before the Almighty.”

After the sweep the wooden charioteers are seated and four wooden horses are tied to each chariot. Usually four ropes are fitted, and a huge log serves as the brake, worked by hand. The public may then pull, and Barik records that this is open to all irrespective of caste, creed, sect, religion and sex. Balabhadra’s chariot goes first, then Subhadra’s, then Jagannath’s.

In 2026 the pulling was scheduled for 4 pm. Arabinda Padhee, the temple administration’s chief administrator, told Orissa Post that the tahia, the crown the deities wear, had been taken off because the rain had made it wet and heavy.

Nine days from the Srimandir to Gundicha and back

Rath Yatra falls on the second day of the bright fortnight of Ashadha, Barik writes. The weeks before it have their own rites. On Snana Purnima the deities are bathed with 108 pitchers of water from the temple’s Golden Well, which is used only once a year. The Ministry of Tourism’s event page says the deities are said to fall mildly ill after the bath, and Barik records that they stay out of public view for 15 days in the Anasara. A last darshan, the Nabajaubana, is held the day before the chariots roll.

The Gundicha temple stands at the end of the Grand Road. Barik records the tradition that Gundicha was the queen of King Indradyumna, who is said to have built the first temple, and that she began the festival, which is why it is also called Gundicha Yatra. The tradition also holds that the temple is the place where the Lord first appeared in his present form, so it is counted as his birthplace.

The deities stay there about a week. On the fifth day, Hera Panchami, Goddess Lakshmi goes to Gundicha to see her Lord. The return, the Bahuda Yatra, falls on the tenth day of the fortnight and follows the same order of chariots. The Odisha Reference Annual says Jagannath stops on the way at the Ardhasani temple, called the Mausi Maa temple or the Temple of the Aunt, and accepts his favourite rice cake, poda pitha.

Back at the Singha Dwara, the lion gate, the deities are dressed in gold ornaments on the chariots. This is the Suna Besha, and Odisha Tourism says the ornaments weigh over 200 kilograms. A sweet drink, the Adharapana, is offered the next day, and on Niladri Bije the deities return to the sanctum, and the Annual says they go back to the Ratna Singhasana. ANI’s report of 28 July 2026 gives the temple’s account of the day. Lakshmi was angry at being left behind and had the Jaya Vijaya gate closed. Jagannath promised not to repeat it and offered her rasagola, and she opened the doors. Odisha says the temple has offered rasagola as prasad during the Rath Yatra, a point in its dispute with West Bengal over the sweet.

The 2025 dates are from the Ministry of Tourism’s event page, prepared by the Odisha Department of Tourism, and the 2026 dates from Odisha Tourism’s own page. ANI’s report of 28 July 2026 puts the Suna Besha of that year on 26 July rather than 25 July.

Three chariots, rebuilt every year

The Odisha Reference Annual, a Government of Odisha publication, lists the three chariots as follows. Nandighosha, also called Garudadhwaja, is Jagannath’s. It has 16 wheels, 832 pieces of wood, a height of 13.5 metres, a base of 34 feet 6 inches on each side and red and yellow cloth. Taladhwaja, Balabhadra’s, has 14 wheels, 763 pieces, 13.2 metres, 33 feet a side, and red and bluish-green cloth. Darpadalana, also called Padmadhwaja, is Subhadra’s, with 12 wheels, 593 pieces, 12.9 metres, 31 feet 6 inches a side, and red and black cloth. The pieces add up to 2,188. Odisha Tourism’s 2026 page says each chariot rises nearly 45 feet, so the heights differ a little by source and year.

Each chariot carries nine subsidiary deities, two door-keepers and a charioteer, all of wood, according to the Annual. The Annual says the three chariots are built anew every year, and Barik adds that they are dismantled once the festival ends.

Work starts on Akshaya Tritiya, which fell on 30 April in 2025 and 20 April in 2026. The Annual’s account says about 1,072 logs come from the Daspalla and Ranapur forests and that roughly 125 temple carpenters work for 58 days at the Mahakhala, in front of the palace, on the 2,188 pieces. About 1,090 metres of cloth cover the three. Barik says the Forest Department of Odisha supplies the timber, from a range about 200 km from Puri.

The wood does not vanish after the festival. On 4 August 2026, PTI reported, Padhee met President Droupadi Murmu at Lok Bhavan in Bhubaneswar and proposed that the wheels of the three chariots be installed in New Delhi, and said the President agreed. Four sandstone replicas of wheels from the Konark Sun Temple had been put up at Rashtrapati Bhavan on 29 October 2024.

What officials reported about the crowds

The temple administration expected about 13 lakh (1.3 million) people for the 2025 festival, All India Radio said on 27 June 2025. Between 4 and 5 am on Sunday 29 June, a crush near the Gundicha temple killed three people and injured about 50, Scroll reported. Witnesses told the paper that two trucks carrying wooden logs had tried to enter the crowded area, and the report gave no official cause. Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi apologised on behalf of the government and called the incident unpardonable. He transferred the Puri Collector, Siddharth S Swain, and the Superintendent of Police, Binit Agarwal, suspended a deputy commissioner of police and a police commandant, and announced Rs 25 lakh for each family. An administrative inquiry under the Development Commissioner, Anu Garg, was to report within 30 days.

For 2026 PTI listed the arrangements on 15 July. The Additional Director General of Police for law and order, Sanjay Kumar, said 13,000 police personnel, 15 companies of central armed forces, NSG commandos and 500 lifeguards on the beach were in place. The report added that Indian Railways would run over 300 trains to Puri and the state had engaged about 800 buses, and that pumps were set up to clear rainwater from the Grand Road.

Two figures came out afterward. The Chief Minister’s Office put the turnout at the Rath Yatra at about 8 to 9 lakh devotees, from Odisha, the rest of India and abroad. On 28 July Padhee told ANI, “As per our preliminary estimation, about 50 lakh devotees visited the Yatra.” The reports do not say whether the 50 lakh counts people or visits, or how either estimate was made, a problem that also runs through the headcounts at the Kumbh Mela.

Deaths were reported on 16 July. The Chief Minister’s Office said two devotees died: a man over 60 whose cause was still to be determined and a man who suffered a cardiac arrest, and that neither death was linked to a stampede or to crowd management. Scroll, citing ANI, quoted Health Minister Mukesh Mahaling as saying there was no stampede, and the Inspector General for Fire and Emergency Services, Umashankar Dash, as saying about 100 people were rescued after being pressed in the crowd. On 24 July, during the Bahuda Yatra, Abhiram Das, 57, of Cuttack collapsed while pulling Darpadalana and died. Police told PTI it was suffocation and that there was no rush near the chariot, and the Director of Health Services said the man had hypertension and was on medication. Majhi announced Rs 10 lakh for each family of those who died.

Who built the temple the chariots leave from

The Government of Odisha’s annual credits the present temple to Anantavarman Chodaganga Deva of the Ganga dynasty, who ruled until 1147, and Patel’s account in the Orissa Review places it in the 12th century. The Skanda Purana’s Purushottama Kshetra Mahatmya, which Manorama Tripathy says was apparently written in the 14th century, names King Indradyumna of Avanti as the builder of the first temple and describes the carpenter who carves the images as Narayana himself in disguise.

The Madala Panji, the chronicle preserved at the temple as a sacred record of its history, tells it differently. Tripathy calls it the most important temple chronicle of Puri. It credits the Ganga king Anangabhima with the existing temple and with setting up the temple’s 36 services, and it names the Somavamsi king Yayati Kesari as founder of an earlier one. Tripathy writes that the surviving text dates only to the 17th century, while Rabi Ray says the Madala Panjis are believed to have been edited in the 16th century under Ramachandradeva I. Ray adds that the chronicle has the temple built in three years, which he says historians and archaeologists cannot credit for a structure of that size.

The copper plate grants point to Chodaganga. The Dasagoba copper plate grant of Rajaraja III, dated 1198, says the king’s grandfather Chodaganga built the temple, and Ray notes that most historians since M. M. Chakravarti have accepted it. Tripathy takes it to be early 12th century work and suggests the Madala Panji confused two kings named Anangabhima. Ray dissents. He argues that the verse was composed long after Chodaganga’s death, that a grant of his son Kamarnava from 1147 or 1148 does not mention the temple, and that inscriptions at the neighbouring Narasimha temple from 1113 to 1150 show no large construction under way. He says the builder cannot be named on present evidence and places the construction in Somavamsi rule.

The temple has also needed repair in recent decades. Patel records that after water leaks the state asked the Archaeological Survey of India to take up conservation in 1972, and that an expert committee formed in 1973 proposed removing the 45 cm of lime plaster that covered the walls. In 1990 a six-ton amalaka stone, the ribbed disc at the top of the tower, fell during the work.

The three deities appear together later than the temple. Tripathy dates the first inscription to name the trinity to 1237, at the Patalesvara temple in Puri, and the first to call the deity Jagannatha to 1309, at Srikurmam. Hermann Kulke argued in 1981 that Anangabhima III dedicated his kingdom to Purushottama-Jagannatha in 1230 and most likely brought Balabhadra into the group of three around then.