Ananta Vasudeva: The One Great Vishnu Temple in Bhubaneswar's City of Shiva

The deities at Ananta Vasudeva follow the Puri arrangement, and this connects the temple to the state's central tradition.

• Vasudeva, Krishna, in the centre
• Balabhadra, the elder brother
• Subhadra, the sister

This triad is the defining configuration of Odia Vaishnavism. At Puri the three appear as Jagannath, Balabhadra and Subhadra in their distinctive wooden forms. At Ananta Vasudeva they appear in stone, in conventional iconography, but the grouping is the same.

What this tells you about Odia Vaishnavism:

• The family group rather than the single deity is the norm
• Balabhadra is central, not a supporting figure, which is unusual in Vaishnava practice elsewhere
• Subhadra as a worshipped deity in her own right is distinctive to this tradition
• The mahaprasad system, food offered and shared, is a defining feature

Odisha's Vaishnavism has its own history, running through the Panchasakha poets of the sixteenth century, the Jagannath cult's institutional development, and the state's absorption of Chaitanya's Gaudiya movement, which entered Odisha through Puri and left a permanent mark.

Ananta Vasudeva sits within that whole tradition, at its Bhubaneswar end.

Ananta Vasudeva is known in Bhubaneswar as much for its food as for its architecture.

How it works:

• The temple maintains a kitchen in which food is cooked for offering to the deities
• Cooking is done in earthen pots, stacked over wood fires, in the manner of the Puri temple kitchen
• The offered food becomes prasad and is sold and distributed to devotees
• The temple's khichdi, dalma, rice and sweets are locally famous, and people come specifically for them

The practice follows the model of Puri, whose kitchen is the largest of its kind in the world and where the mahaprasad system is the temple's central institution.

Why food matters so much in Odia temple practice:

• Food offered to Jagannath becomes mahaprasad, which in Odia understanding removes distinctions of caste and status among those who share it
• It is eaten together, and the sharing is the point
• The Ananda Bazaar at Puri, where mahaprasad is sold, is one of the most significant spaces in the tradition
• The system has a genuine social history, and it is not merely a devotional metaphor

At Ananta Vasudeva, on any given day, a substantial part of what is happening is people buying food that has been offered, sitting down and eating it. That is a form of worship, and in Odisha it is the central one.

Ananta Vasudeva is a complete Kalinga style temple, which makes it a good place to learn the vocabulary.

The elements, in order from the sanctum outward:

• Deul or rekha deul, the sanctum with its curved tower, where the deity is
• Jagamohana, the assembly hall in front of it, with a stepped pyramidal roof
• Natamandira, the dancing hall, added in later temples
• Bhogamandapa, the hall of offerings, the outermost

The three tower forms of the style:

• Rekha deul, the curved tower over a sanctum, used for the principal shrine
• Pidha deul, the stepped pyramidal roof, used for the halls
• Khakhara deul, the barrel vaulted roof, used particularly for Devi shrines, of which Vaital Deul in Bhubaneswar is the classic example

Other terms worth knowing:

• Amalaka, the ribbed disc at the top of the rekha tower
• Kalasa, the finial above it
• Bada, gandi, mastaka, the vertical divisions of the tower, corresponding roughly to the body, trunk and head

Once you can identify these, the whole temple city becomes readable. Lingaraj, Mukteswar, Rajarani, Parasurameswar and Ananta Vasudeva are all the same grammar at different scales and periods, and the differences between them start to mean something.

Old Bhubaneswar is organised around Bindusagar, and the arrangement repays understanding.

How it works:

• Bindusagar is the tank at the centre, held in tradition to contain water from every sacred river
• Lingaraj stands to its south, the great temple of Tribhuvaneswar, the presiding deity
• Ananta Vasudeva on the eastern bank
• Vaital Deul, the khakhara temple with its Chamunda shrine, on the western side
• Dozens of smaller temples through the surrounding lanes, of many periods
• The Ekamra kshetra, as the old city is called in tradition, with its own puranic account

The city's traditional name, Ekamra, refers to a single mango tree under which Shiva is held to have dwelt, and the Ekamra Purana is a text devoted to the site.

What is worth understanding about the old city is that it is not an archaeological zone. Lingaraj is one of the most heavily used temples in eastern India, Ananta Vasudeva runs a kitchen, Bindusagar is used for bathing and immersion, and the lanes are lived in.

A visitor can walk the whole old city in a day, and doing it on foot rather than by vehicle is the only way the arrangement becomes clear.

Practical notes.

Getting there

• The temple is on the eastern bank of Bindusagar in old Bhubaneswar, close to Lingaraj
• Bhubaneswar has an airport and a major railway station
• Autos run throughout the city and the old temple quarter is walkable

When to go

• Ekadashi and the Vaishnava tithis
• Kartik, the Vaishnava month, when observance is heaviest
• Janmashtami and Rath Yatra, kept in the Odia manner
• Mornings, for the temple at its most active and for prasad

At the temple

• Try the prasad, which is the temple's best known feature, cooked in earthen pots and sold to devotees
• Dress modestly and remove footwear at the designated place
• Photography restrictions apply in the sanctum area
• Note that entry restrictions for non Hindus may apply here as at Lingaraj, so check locally

Combining the visit

• Lingaraj, the city's great temple, a short walk away
• Mukteswar, Rajarani, Parasurameswar and the smaller temples of the old city
• Vaital Deul across Bindusagar
• Chausathi Jogini at Hirapur, 15 km out
• Udayagiri and Khandagiri caves
• Dhauli, Konark and Puri, for a full Odisha circuit

A closing suggestion. Do the old city on foot and finish at Ananta Vasudeva around midday. You get the architecture in the morning, and you get lunch out of a temple kitchen that has been running since the thirteenth century.