Bisara Mohanty

Bisara Mohanty (Odia: ବିସର ମହାନ୍ତି) was a devotee and historical figure of Jagannath culture, who rescued Brahma Padartha(A mysterious thing) of Lord Jagannath from the river Ganga. He was a contemporary of Gajapati Ramachandra Deva I of Bhoi dynasty.^[1][2]

Bisara's story

There was a time when the Bengal Sultan's general Kalapahad invaded the Jagannath Temple of Puri, during this time the chief temple superintendent or Royal Priest of Jagannath temple was Parichha Dibyasingh Pattanaik, he made an attempt to hide the idols of Lord Jagannath near Chilika Lake however his efforts were futile and Kalapahad was able to determine the location of the deities with the help of a traitor named Danpahanta Singh thus Kalapahad took the idol of Lord Jagannath to destroy it.^[3] When he tried to burn the idol, he found a part of the idol, called Brahma Padartha (A mysterious thing believed to be Heart of Lord Krishna), difficult to burn. He threw the remaining part into the river of Ganga. Bisara Mohanty a Vaishnav Karan,^[4] followed Kalapahad with the idol from Orissa to Bengal,^[5][6] floated down the stream and rescued the Brahma Padartha. He put it inside a mridangam (drum) and secretly brought it to his village Kujang. There he continued worshipping the Brahma Padartha with simple offerings. Gajapati Ramachandra Deva of Bhoi dynasty, a new ruler, received a directive from Lord Jagannath in his dream and sent his eldest son Padmanava Pattanaik to Kujang to claim the remains, Padmanav Pattanaik fabricated the new idols of the gods in which the Daru Brahma could reside and performed Nabakalebara in Khordha and carried the newly formed idols to Puri as per the directive of his father.^[4] After the renovation of the Jagannath Temple, Puri, Ramachandra Deva placed the idols in the temple. He acknowledged Bisara Mohanty's role and gave him the position of Nayaka (chief) of the Purushottama Kshetra (Puri).^[7][8]

See also

• Nabakalebara
• Ramachandra Deva I