The Sand Chariot
Balarama Das, sixteenth century, is the eldest of the Panchasakha, the five friends, who between them made Odia a devotional language, and the story everybody in Odisha knows about him happened on a beach.
Where he started
Erabanga, near Puri, and the accounts place his family at the Gajapati court: his father Somanath Mahapatra held office, and Balarama Das had a position and gave it up.
And he was called Matta Balaram.
Mad Balarama, and it was not a compliment when it was first used. He behaved in ways the temple establishment found embarrassing: shouting, weeping, singing, and not observing the distinctions that a man of his standing was supposed to observe.
What happened at the Rath Yatra
The Rath Yatra at Puri is the festival at which Jagannath, Balabhadra and Subhadra come out of the temple and are pulled through the town on three enormous chariots, and it is among the largest religious gatherings anywhere, and this app has entries on it.
And Balarama Das went up on the chariot.
And the pandas pushed him off.
The accounts are direct about it: he was manhandled, publicly, in front of the crowd, by the temple servants, and told he had no business there.
What he did
Went down to the sea and built one.
On the beach at Puri, in the sand, a chariot of his own, and he pulled it himself, and sang.
And in the accounts the real chariot stopped.
It would not move. The crowd pulled and the ropes held and the wheels did not turn, and it stayed where it was until somebody worked out what had happened and Balarama Das was fetched back.
What the story is doing
It is a small, precise argument and it is worth taking apart.
One. He did not protest.
He was thrown off a chariot in public and he did not argue, appeal, complain or organise. He went and made his own arrangement out of what was available, which was sand.
Two. The sand chariot was not a substitute.
Which is the point that the story is making and that is easy to miss. He is not shown consoling himself with a lesser version. The account is that the sand chariot was the real one for as long as he was pulling it, and the wooden one in the town was the thing that had stopped working.
Three. And the temple had to come and get him.
The correction runs the other way. He does not apply for readmission and is not forgiven. The institution is stuck, and it comes to him.
The pattern this series keeps recording
And it should be named again because it is now the sixth or seventh instance.
Chokhamela kept outside the temple at Pandharpur. Kanaka Dasa at the window at Udupi. Nandanar at Chidambaram. Thiruppan Alvar carried in on a brahmana's shoulders. Maraneri Nambi, whose funeral Periya Nambi performed. Raskhan lying outside at Gokul. Umapati Sivacharya thrown out for feeding a woodcutter.
And Balarama Das on the beach.
In every one of these the tradition preserved the story, and in every one the story is told against the institution, and in none of them did the story change the institution at the time.
Which is what a record is for. It does not fix anything by existing. It makes the position permanently arguable, and the argument gets made by somebody later.
And on the exclusion itself
The Jagannath temple at Puri restricts entry to Hindus, and has other restrictions, and this has been contested and litigated.
This app's position, as throughout: the historical record is what it is, the stories the tradition tells about itself are the strongest available argument against exclusion, and they were told by the tradition rather than against it.
And a person going to Puri to see Jagannath does not need to have a view on the administration. The Rath Yatra is in the street, and the street is open, and that is deliberate: once a year the deity leaves the building.
The Ramayana Odias Actually Read
The Jagamohana Ramayana
Also called the Dandi Ramayana, from the dandi vritta metre it is written in, and it is the Odia Ramayana.
Not one of several. It is the one: read in households, recited at gatherings, learned in fragments by people who have never read it through, and available in cheap editions everywhere in the state.
Which is a specific kind of standing and it puts Balarama Das in the same position for Odia that Tulsidas occupies for the Hindi speaking north and Kamban for Tamil.
Why it worked
Three reasons, and they are practical rather than literary.
One. The metre.
Dandi vritta is a long lined Odia metre that is easy to chant, easy to remember and easy to keep going in, and it is the standard vehicle for narrative in Odia.
Which matters more than elegance for a text that is meant to be recited aloud over days by people who are not professionals.
Two. The language.
Ordinary Odia, not a Sanskritised register, and Balarama Das was writing for people who would hear it rather than read it.
Three. And the scale.
It is complete. The whole story, all the kandas, at a length that gives a household something to work through, and it does not assume prior knowledge of the Sanskrit.
What is distinctive in it
The devotional register is Odia and it is centred on Jagannath.
Rama and Jagannath are not held apart in the Odia material the way a systematic theology might hold them apart, and the Jagamohana Ramayana moves between them, which is what an Odia audience expects and what the Puri cult had already established.
And there is a good deal of Balarama Das's own theology in it, which is the subject of the next section and which is genuinely unusual.
His other works
Many, and the range is wide:
- Bata Abakasa, a widely read devotional work
- Baula Gai Gita, the song of the wandering cow, which is allegorical
- Kanta Koili, the thorn and the cuckoo
- Vedanta Sara, Gupta Gita, Virata Gita, Bhava Samudra
- Brahmanda Bhugola, on the structure of the universe
- Saptanga Yogasara Tika, on yoga
- Amarakosa Gita, a versified treatment of the Sanskrit lexicon
Which is worth noticing as a list.
A man who has been thrown off a chariot for being unsuitable writes a Ramayana, a cosmology, a yoga treatise and a versification of the standard Sanskrit dictionary, in Odia, for people who had no access to any of it.
And the choice of Odia is the argument, exactly as it was for Jnaneshwar in Marathi, Jagannatha Dasa in Kannada and Nammalvar in Tamil: the material is not the property of the people who read Sanskrit.
The Five Friends and What They Believed
The Panchasakha, the five friends, are the subject of the next several entries in this batch, so the group belongs here.
Who they were
- Balarama Das, the eldest
- Jagannath Das, who wrote the Odia Bhagabata
- Achyutananda Das, the most prolific and the strangest
- Yasovanta Das
- Ananta Das
Sixteenth century, all of them, all in coastal Odisha, and they knew each other.
What they had in common
One. Odia.
All of them wrote in Odia and none of them wrote for Sanskrit readers, and the decision was collective and deliberate.
Two. Jagannath.
Puri is the centre, and all of their material runs through the deity there.
Three. And a theology that is not what you would expect.
And this is the part worth knowing, because Utkaliya Vaishnavism is genuinely distinctive and is usually described inaccurately.
Shunya Purusha
The void person.
Their central term for the ultimate is shunya, void or emptiness, and the deity is Shunya Purusha, the void that is also a person.
Which is not standard Vaishnava vocabulary at all. Shunya is the technical term of Madhyamaka Buddhism, and its appearance at the centre of a sixteenth century Odia Vaishnava theology is a real and much discussed fact.
Where it comes from
A mixture, and the honest answer is that the sources are several:
- The Buddhist inheritance of Odisha, which was substantial: Odisha had major Buddhist centres at Ratnagiri, Udayagiri and Lalitgiri, Vajrayana was strong there, and the transition from Buddhism to the Jagannath cult in Odisha is an old scholarly question with no settled answer
- The Nath and siddha traditions, whose vocabulary the Panchasakha use heavily
- The Shakta and tantric material of coastal Odisha
- And Vaishnava bhakti, which is the frame
Pinda brahmanda
Their other central idea, and it is a yogic one.
Pinda is the body. Brahmanda is the cosmos. And the claim is that whatever is in one is in the other.
So the practice is internal: the pilgrimage sites, the deities, the rivers and the cosmic structures are located in the body, and the work is done there, and the outward forms are the map rather than the territory.
Which is Nath and tantric in its mechanics and is joined to a devotion to Jagannath that is entirely sincere, and the combination is what makes Utkaliya Vaishnavism its own thing.
The Chaitanya question, handled carefully
Chaitanya came to Puri in 1510 and stayed for the rest of his life, and he has an entry in this app.
And the Panchasakha were there at the same time.
And what the relationship was is genuinely contested.
Some Gaudiya accounts treat the Panchasakha as within Chaitanya's movement or influenced by it.
Odia scholarship generally insists on their independence, arguing that Utkaliya Vaishnavism has its own roots, its own theology, its own vocabulary and its own texts, that several of the Panchasakha were active before or independently of Chaitanya's arrival, and that the doctrinal content is different in ways that matter: shunya, pinda brahmanda and the yogic material are not Gaudiya positions.
This app describes both accounts and does not adjudicate.
What can be said without controversy is that two substantial Vaishnava movements were operating in the same town at the same time, that they were aware of each other, that they differ doctrinally, and that both are still living traditions.
Where to go
- Puri: the Jagannath temple, the Rath Yatra, and the beach
- Erabanga, near Puri, associated with Balarama Das
- Ratnagiri, Udayagiri and Lalitgiri, the Buddhist sites, for the other half of the Odisha story
- Jhankad, for Sarala Das, whose entry precedes this one
The Short Version
Who: Balarama Das, sixteenth century, the eldest of the Panchasakha, the five friends who made Odia a devotional language. From Erabanga near Puri, of a family at the Gajapati court, his father Somanath Mahapatra holding office, and he had a position and gave it up. He was called Matta Balaram, mad Balarama, which was not a compliment when it was first used: he shouted, wept and sang, and did not observe the distinctions a man of his standing was supposed to observe.
The sand chariot: he went up on the chariot at the Puri Rath Yatra and the pandas pushed him off, publicly, in front of the crowd. He went down to the beach and built a chariot in the sand and pulled it himself and sang. In the accounts the real chariot stopped: it would not move, the crowd pulled and the ropes held and the wheels did not turn, until somebody worked out what had happened and he was fetched back. Three things: he did not protest, appeal or organise, but made his own arrangement out of what was available; the sand chariot is not shown as a lesser substitute, since the account is that it was the real one for as long as he was pulling it and the wooden one was the thing that had stopped working; and the temple had to come and get him, so the correction runs the other way.
The pattern: Chokhamela outside at Pandharpur, Kanaka Dasa at the Udupi window, Nandanar at Chidambaram, Thiruppan Alvar carried in on a brahmana's shoulders, Maraneri Nambi, Raskhan lying outside at Gokul, Umapati thrown out for feeding a woodcutter, and Balarama Das on the beach. In every one the tradition preserved the story, in every one it is told against the institution, and in none did it change the institution at the time. That is what a record is for: it does not fix anything by existing, it makes the position permanently arguable.
The Jagamohana Ramayana: also the Dandi Ramayana, from the dandi vritta metre, and it is the Odia Ramayana, read in households and recited at gatherings, putting Balarama Das where Tulsidas stands for the Hindi north and Kamban for Tamil. It worked for practical reasons: dandi vritta is easy to chant, remember and keep going in; the language is ordinary Odia rather than a Sanskritised register, for people who would hear it rather than read it; and it is complete and assumes no prior knowledge of the Sanskrit.
His other works include Bata Abakasa, Baula Gai Gita, Kanta Koili, Vedanta Sara, Gupta Gita, Virata Gita, Bhava Samudra, Brahmanda Bhugola on the structure of the universe, Saptanga Yogasara Tika on yoga, and Amarakosa Gita, a versified treatment of the Sanskrit lexicon. A man thrown off a chariot for being unsuitable wrote a Ramayana, a cosmology, a yoga treatise and a versification of the standard Sanskrit dictionary, in Odia, for people who had no access to any of it.
The Panchasakha: Balarama Das, Jagannath Das, Achyutananda Das, Yasovanta Das and Ananta Das, all sixteenth century, all coastal Odisha, all writing in Odia by collective decision, all centred on Jagannath. Their theology is distinctive: the ultimate is shunya, void, and the deity is Shunya Purusha, the void that is also a person, which is not standard Vaishnava vocabulary since shunya is the technical term of Madhyamaka Buddhism. Their other central idea is pinda brahmanda, that whatever is in the body is in the cosmos, so the pilgrimage sites and deities are located internally and the outward forms are the map rather than the territory, which is Nath and tantric in mechanics and joined to a sincere devotion to Jagannath.
Quick Answers
Who was Balarama Das?+
A sixteenth century Odia poet and the eldest of the Panchasakha, the five friends who between them made Odia a devotional language. He was from Erabanga near Puri, of a family at the Gajapati court where his father Somanath Mahapatra held office, and he had a position himself and gave it up. He was called Matta Balaram, mad Balarama, which was not a compliment when first used. He wrote the Jagamohana Ramayana, which is the Odia Ramayana, along with a cosmology, a yoga treatise and many other works.
What is the story of the sand chariot?+
Balarama Das went up on the chariot at the Rath Yatra in Puri and the pandas, the temple servants, pushed him off publicly in front of the crowd and told him he had no business there. He went down to the beach, built a chariot of his own in the sand, pulled it himself and sang. In the accounts the real chariot then stopped: it would not move, the crowd pulled and the ropes held and the wheels did not turn, and it stayed where it was until somebody worked out what had happened and Balarama Das was fetched back. What makes the story precise is that the sand chariot is not shown as a consolation or a lesser version: the account is that it was the real one for as long as he was pulling it, and the wooden one in the town was the thing that had stopped working.
What is the Jagamohana Ramayana?+
Balarama Das's Odia Ramayana, also called the Dandi Ramayana from the dandi vritta metre it is written in, and it is not one Odia Ramayana among several but the one: read in households, recited at gatherings, learned in fragments by people who have never read it through, and available in cheap editions across the state. That puts Balarama Das in the position Tulsidas occupies for the Hindi speaking north and Kamban for Tamil. It worked for practical rather than literary reasons: dandi vritta is a long lined metre easy to chant, remember and keep going in, which matters more than elegance for a text meant to be recited aloud over days by people who are not professionals; the language is ordinary Odia rather than a Sanskritised register; and it is complete and assumes no prior knowledge of the Sanskrit.
Who are the Panchasakha?+
The five friends: Balarama Das the eldest, Jagannath Das who wrote the Odia Bhagabata, Achyutananda Das who was the most prolific, Yasovanta Das and Ananta Das. All sixteenth century, all in coastal Odisha, and they knew each other. They had three things in common: they all wrote in Odia and none of them wrote for Sanskrit readers, which was a collective and deliberate decision; Puri and the deity there is the centre of all their material; and they share a theology that is genuinely distinctive and not what a reader would expect from a Vaishnava movement.
What is Shunya Purusha?+
The void person, the Panchasakha's central term for the ultimate, in which the deity is shunya, void or emptiness, that is also a person. It is not standard Vaishnava vocabulary at all, since shunya is the technical term of Madhyamaka Buddhism, and its appearance at the centre of a sixteenth century Odia Vaishnava theology is a real and much discussed fact. The sources are several: the substantial Buddhist inheritance of Odisha, which had major centres at Ratnagiri, Udayagiri and Lalitgiri and where Vajrayana was strong, with the transition from Buddhism to the Jagannath cult being an old scholarly question with no settled answer; the Nath and siddha traditions, whose vocabulary the Panchasakha use heavily; the Shakta and tantric material of coastal Odisha; and Vaishnava bhakti, which is the frame.
Were the Panchasakha followers of Chaitanya?+
It is genuinely contested and this app does not adjudicate. Chaitanya came to Puri in 1510 and stayed for the rest of his life, and the Panchasakha were there at the same time. Some Gaudiya accounts treat the Panchasakha as within Chaitanya's movement or influenced by it. Odia scholarship generally insists on their independence, arguing that Utkaliya Vaishnavism has its own roots, theology, vocabulary and texts, that several of the Panchasakha were active before or independently of Chaitanya's arrival, and that the doctrinal content differs in ways that matter, since shunya, pinda brahmanda and the yogic material are not Gaudiya positions. What can be said without controversy is that two substantial Vaishnava movements were operating in the same town at the same time, that they were aware of each other, that they differ doctrinally, and that both are still living traditions.
About the author
Pandit Ravindra Sharma · Vedic Rituals & Bhakti, 22+ years
Pandit Ravindra is the Vandnaa editorial team's resident specialist on aarti, chalisa, and daily devotion. He has performed home and temple pujas across Varanasi and Delhi for over two decades and contributes the bhakti-focused articles on this site.
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