RIJSS Volume 3, Issue 11 (November.

2014) ISSN: 2250 – 3994

A Journal of Radix International Educational and

Research Consortium
RIJSS
RADIX INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF
RESEARCH IN SOCIAL SCIENCE

PURI: AN OVERVIEW ON THE SPACE, POTENTIAL AND POSSIBILITIES FOR SOCIAL RESEARCH

PINAKI DEY MULLICK

Part-Time Teacher (West Bengal Govt. Approved)
Department of Anthropology, Bangabasi College, Kolkata
Guest faculty, Department of Anthropology, University of Calcutta

DR. ARNAB DAS

Associate Professor
Department of Anthropology
University of Calcutta

ABSTRACT

Being one of the most popular abodes of four religious places (Char-Dhama) in India, Puri is allied with
mythical and mystical identities of lord Jagannatha, attracts a number of devotees, business persons,
tourists and researchers to a common referential space. Further, the geographical location and beauty of
Puri is another significant aspect to absorb the attention to the tourists. The blending of different interest
groups within this geo-cultural setting offers the greater possibilities of social researches in open ended
frames. Contrastingly, the numbers of significant social researches at Puri are not convincing. We have
tried to outline and brief the major researches at Puri not to just jot them down but to indicate the
potential of the space for multidimensional social research.

Keywords: Space, Possibility, Research, Art, Sevayat, Tourism, Disaster

INTRODUCTION

The origin of the district of Puri of Orissa is not free from debate and is still controversial, but the centrality
of the district is always been accentuated with lord Jagannatha (Choudhury, 2008). Puri being a
geographical, cultural, economic and political space is associated with lord Jagannatha, has been multiply

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RIJSS Volume 3, Issue 11 (November. 2014) ISSN: 2250 – 3994

viewed and scrutinized through epigraphic, iconographic and spiritual inscription based literatures
(Tripathy, 2012; Choudhury, 2009).

Puri is alternatively termed as Purusottama Kshetra- the space of the supreme deity, holds its popularity
and glamour through Jagannatha –who has had a long controversial stand regarding his origin and
continuity over the place. Opinions and arguments vary in a large scale-from its Buddhist origin to tribal
ideological absorption in Hindu mode of spirituality (Tripathy, 2012). The controversies lead a point that
Jagannatha as a cult promotes a rich synthesis of multiple periodical belief, influences and interpretations
based on religious inscriptions (Panda, 2011). Though the scope of exploring dimensions of historical
identity of Puri might be rich and interesting, but we are not intended to continue dealing with the debates
over the issue to point out some concrete and logical interpretations of our own, rather will try to indicate
the potential of the space (Puri) for social research.

THE DIMENSIONS OF ART, CRAFT AND GLOBAL MARKET

Indian folk art and craft are on tremendous demand among the consumers of different parts of the world
(Jena, 2010). The theme of Indian handicrafts reflects the cosmographic myths and legends of Indian
culture and civilization (Dash, 2011). Globalization and liberalized market accelerates major changes in
traditional crafts of India-the handicrafts of India in general and Orissa in particular faces a crisis to
maintain its tradition of local crafts by the intervention of middle man and a great demand of the products
in a global market (Jena, 2007; Dash, 2011). Pottery, cotton woven fabrics, stone-works and basketry are
the major traditional art forms of India (Dash, 2011). In Orissa, pottery and stone-works holds the key as
traditions (Zealey, 1954).

Pattapainting (patachitra) as major traditional art of Orissa especially in Puri is closely related with
Jagannatha culture and it depicts the stories of popular Indian myths through a special and unique style of
painting (Das, 2013). Apart from the stories of the religious myths, the artisans reflect their own views of
life and culture into their paintings (Tripathy, 1998). Pattapaintings or Patachitra is a traditional caste
occupation for the Chitrakars and they have maintained it for a long era (Samantaray, 2005; Tripathy,
1998; Das, 2013). The demand of modern global market and the advent of modern technology shifted the
traditional format of pattapainting (Das, 2011). The service of the chitrakars is no more restricted within
the Jagannatha temple and the ideology of service (seva) now coinciding with professional and market
based attitudes (Jena, 2007; Samantaray, 2005)

The local art and craft items are in increasing demand to the national and international consumers;
simultaneously, the changing dimensions in production strategies, advertising, marketing and selling of the
handicrafts, the growth of opportunities for employment to the local populace, the changes in living of the
traditional artisan class and their everyday interactive strategies to the larger market and consumers
concern claims an attention to the social research from multiple corners and interdisciplinary mode. The
most unfortunate scenario is that the detailed researches on artisans and their integration to the global

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market are scanty (Scrase, 2005), calls for a deep focus on this issues centring Puri and the adjacent areas
of Orissa.

RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATIONS: THE SEVAYATS AND MATHAS OF PURI

The current trends on organizational research focus on how the identities, values, faith and attitudes of the
persons of religious functionaries affect the common people in broader socio-cultural spectrum and on the
issues of well being (Zuckerman, 2009; Anand, 2004). Using the historical account of religious or faith-
based organizations present studies should concern about how the faith-based organizations actually
operate its issio to ser e the greater hu a itaria assista e i the prese t era of globalization and
rapid industrializations (Ferris, 2005). In case of Puri, we want to discuss on two major themes in this area
of research-the Sevayats and the Mathas of Puri. This attempt is not for that- there are limited chances to
conduct organizational research on faith based institutions at Puri; rather, we want to outline the aspects
of such research by exemplifying these two domains.

The ritual functionaries of Jagannatha temple of Puri, are called as Sevayats -the original inhabitants of
Puri and they are connected to the service to the lord Jagannatha and the temple (Ganguly, 2013). There
are three kinds of Sevayats in the temple- Brahmin, Daita, and Sudra Sevayats and all of them are engaged
with their specific duties in the temple (Dash, 2013). The sevayats’ performances and attitudes to their
respective responsibilities are changing day by day with the advent and emergence of global competitive
needs and forces (Ganguly, 2013). At this juncture, it is an wide opportunity to the researches to look micro
and macro level studies on the values, present form of stratifications, class completion and contests in
political decision making, maintenance of traditional form of authority and its changing dimensions,
marriage alliances, pilgrim-tourists-Sevayts relational dynamics and the contribution of these organizations
to the greater societies in reference to Puri temple and the Puri city respectively.

Another reference point of our paper includes the Mathas of Puri as religious organizations. The Mathas of
Puri encircled the temple of Jagannatha, minly established to train the disciples (Chelas) to offer services
to the temple and common man (Pattnaik, 2005). There are almost 81 Mathas at Puri, directly or indirectly
related to the Jagannatha temple and promotes their services at the assistance of the devotees of the
temple (Devi and Achrya, 2008). The most unfortunate is that there is a lack of detailed research
documentary on such faith based organizations that directly link the organizations to their effective
initiations, the teaching learning processes, and their contribution to the humanitarian assistance in the
face of the ever changing milieu at Puri.

PURI AND TOURISM

Religion and spirituality is one of the major themes of Indian culture (Patnaik, 2007) that motivates people
towards religious places in one hand and is a significant area of social research in the banner of tourism is
mostly a thrust in India since few years (Al Mamun and Mitra, 2012). The functioning of spirituality has
recently become an important subject of research in social and business area in the name of spiritual

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touris Phukan, Rahman and Devdutt, 2012). The economic impacts of tourism, economic growth,
tourists per eptio a d hoi es a d so io-economic development are the key issues of current spiritual or
pilgrimage tourism researches (Vijayanand, 2012).

The entity of Puri is wider than just a religious centre- the spiritual arena of Puri is extended enough to call
it as Kshetra (Devi and Achrya, 2008)1. A sound number of international, national and local tourists visit
Puri either once in a lifetime or repeatedly with the aim of salvation (Patnaik, 2007). Coming together of
different people to a common space not only extends the value of the space as rich, simultaneously it
accelerates the growth of economy (Vijayanand, 2012). The concept of pilgrimage tourism is not like a
focus on the short term religiously supposed migration, but it is a form of geographically significant
religious behaviour (Vijayanand, 2011).

The chances and opportunities for conducting researches at Puri on spiritual behaviour of the tourists,
their view and motivations, constrains, conflicts and management of the concerned authorities of the place
are of elevating demand. Apart from the issues of spirituality and tourism, many can be found at Puri as
the issues of leisure studies, heritage tourism, ethnic tourism, and so on, that indicates the potential of Puri
as a field of tourism study is rich and wide.

DISASTER STUDIES

The coastal regions of Orissa of Indian peninsula, including the tourist places, fishing villages, towns, hotels
and resorts are vulnerable in the face of frequent cyclones and floods (Kumar et. al., 2010). A number of
disaster researches are there in Orissa, posited from the perspectives of management and administration
that intends to show the numbers and statistics of loss of lives, relief funds, and potential of government to
rescue the victims (Khanna and Khanna, 2013; Bahera, 2013). Disasters in the contemporary fast and
changing world are more complex and severe (Cutter, 2005). As a social phenomenon, disaster calls for a
serious, systematic and theoretical social science perspectives (Reddy, 2011). The threat of disaster affects
differently to individuals is a serious consequence of vulnerability to produce multiple facets of crisis and
egati e e otio al e perie es O Keefe, Westgate a d Wis er, 9 ; Pro se, .

Puri is populous and costal region of the state of Orissa and is disaster prone region geographically and
geologically. Contrastingly, the city is under threat of environmental pollution and degradation due to the
huge use of underground water sources in hotels and restaurants 2 and the smoke from the open
Swargadwara cremation ground3. At this juncture, there is a need of microscopic and interdisciplinary
disaster researches that will reflect the voices, perceptions, awareness, and preparedness of the
inhabitants and tourists of Puri in one hand, and a clear account on the means or devices of the city (from

1
The Sanskrit names used to describe the holy place of Puri and pilgrimage places in general are dhama,kshetra, and
tirtha..... When a dhama is particularly large, it is called a kshetra field , 58.
2
The Anandabazar Patrika, February, 20, 2014, 5
3
The Anandabazar Patrika, February, 21, 2014, 5

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the perspectives of the stakeholders, administrators and management personals) to resist the impacts of
disaster.

CONCLUSION

We are not concluding, rather are interested to cite our experiences of knowing Puri from existing research
literature in this entry. When we started to review the literatures about Puri, expected that there are a
sound number of researches to depict the possibilities of social researches in the area. Knowing about Puri
from the conclusive and data based research efforts are not convincing enough to us, and honestly a bit
frustrating. Being one of the most famous, popular, and gorgeous pilgrimage centres of India, Puri is
undergoing through major changes si e ears, sho i g fle i ilities a d ersatilities i its so ial,
economic, political and cultural domain centring Jagannatha culture. We have severely visited Puri, not
with an intention for research, rather to spent weekends. Since the visit to Puri, we have noticed that Puri
is a city which never slept for a while- is always busy and reveals its stories in each and every corner of the
space. Contrastingly, the stories are not open and wide in case of researches. We are not claiming that we
have undergone all the literatures available from the perspectives of Puri, but, we have identified some
major dimensions of existing literatures about the place-

(a) A sound number of researches have been conducted on the iconographic and epigraphic sources to
find out the origin of the lord Jagannatha and the city-Puri. These works focussed the temple
architecture, norm and rites of the temple, the impacts of religious ideologies and empires on the icon
of the cult Jagannatha and the aspects that are not conclusive and still under debate and
controversies.
(b) A few studies on the organizational aspects on Mathas, Sevayats, and Muktimandapa as religious
organizations. The studies are more interested to the descriptions of the organizations as the serving
agents of the temple and their traditional histories, but less as the social functionaries and to show
how the organizations actually manage and maintain their views and efforts to serve the humanity and
in the context of well being. The versions of major agencies of the organizations and public experiences
are not taken for considerations as the major sour es to u dersta d the o ept of orga izatio s i
a tio .
(c) The studies on traditional crafts of Puri and its position in the present day situation have not been
incorporated with a deep focus. The versions of the major participants (sailors, consumers, producer,
middle-man, brokers, and networks) are missing in the studies.
(d) The researches on tourism are not concrete and are numerically weak in reference to Puri. There is a
great eed to i orporate the a ou t of the tourists perspe ti e, their e periences and opinions in to
the resear h for etter poli aki g that ill e effe ti e fro the tourist s poi t of ie a d for
socio-economic growth of the city concerned.
(e) Studies on disaster majorly reflected the statistical dimensions of loss (mainly lives) from the point of
view of management to address the crisis of people during flood, cyclone and other natural
emergencies at Orissa, not Puri in proper. The dimensions of vulnerability from everyday life, the issues
of poverty, gender discriminations and considerations, individual potentials and resilience to resist a

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disaster, the perception of preparedness of disaster and the negative experiences in the post disaster
period from the perspectives of direct and conscious human stories of their lives have not yet
incorporated in disaster studies in Orissa, can be explored referring Puri being one of the important
coastal and populous place of Orissa.

The observations mentioned above not only reflects our critical attitude to the existing literature, not we
have the motto to judge the conducted researches, we rather are very optimistic to indicate the potential
of Puri as a space for multidimensional social researches that deliberately calling collaborative research
initiatives to the area.

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