Jayananda is already preparing for Ratha-yatra.
Jayananda is already preparing for Ratha-yatra. This is the first year there will be three carts. In a vacant lot on Frederick Street, Jayananda and his crew are busy building the wheels and other parts for the chariots. He has found a picture of the Jagannath Puri carts and is copying the original design. Every day he goes out to collect the essential supplies for construction. By his enthusiasm, he inspires people to donate supplies for Jagannath's festival.
Bhavananda: We built one cart that we copied from a poster we found of Jagannath Puri. Jayananda was famous for that and worked very hard. Again Nara-Narayana designed the mechanism for the pulley, and I supervised the designing. We were all so busy from morning until night that I never had a conversation with Jayananda outside of just working on the carts. We never really had a talk together. I would see him often, and he was always very serious and grave. I never saw him in a dhoti except on Ratha-yatra day. He was driving a taxi then also.
Every morning, before the Ratha-yatra crew begins to work, Jayananda offers arati to each cart beginning with the wheels. He actually offers incense to every wheel. He has erected a big sign, along with a picture of the Puri Ratha-yatra, to attract curious passersby. 'HARE KRISHNA Welcome to the Construction site of the Holy Ratha-yatra Chariots! The great cars that you see being built here will carry Lord Jagannath, Krishna, the Supreme Lord, along with His brother, Balarama, and His sister, Subhadra, on a wonderful ride to the beach on SUNDAY, JULY 5. This Holy Ratha-yatra festival has been held in India, annually, for 2,000 years. Now, by the grace of our spiritual master, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami, this Transcendental Excursion will take place here in San Francisco. The parade begins at noon from Haight-Ashbury and wends its way through Golden Gate Park to the sea, where a great feast will be served to all.'
As hippies stop to read the sign, Jayananda makes friends with them and engages some to help with the construction of the carts. Prabhupada has requested the temple to spend more money for decorations, flowers, flags and festoons, to make the festival even more gorgeous than last year. But due to Jayananda's efforts, this Ratha-yatra is almost entirely funded by donations. He is so absorbed getting everything ready in time that he even sleeps out in the lot with the carts. Seeing that Ratha-yatra is coming up, Chitsukhananda, the San Jose temple president, gathers his men, "All the San Jose devotees are going up to help prepare for Ratha-yatra."
Hari Vallabha: We came to the temple, and the car pulled up right in front of the carts. They had three carts up the hill in a little alley by Frederick Street near Kezar Stadium. We were getting out of the car when, all of a sudden, this person comes walking down like King Kong with all this power and force. Jayananda walked right up to us. "Who's this devotee?" I was buff. I was a surfer. They said, "That's Bhakta Harry." He says, "I want him." I said, "Hey, I thought I was going to work in the kitchen." "Well, Jayananda needs men, you know. He needs strong guys. He's building the carts." So I started working with Jayananda. As soon as he saw me, he wanted me. It was very active service, and I really felt someone was engaging me. We were buddies right from the beginning, building the carts. From the first time you met him, he made you feel like a friend. He was so interested in you. Jayananda would quote Prabhupada, but he was always really interested to hear what you had to say. "Oh, you surf? Wow! What's it like to ride those big waves?" He'd get right into it with you. He didn't say that surfing is maya. He was never like that. "Yeah, I'd like to do that, ride those big waves." He would just be your friend. He wasn't a fanatic obsessed to only preach. He hardly ever preached in the formal sense. He'd always give me a hug and talk to me and make me feel wanted. On Sunday afternoon Jayananda likes to sit outside the temple door, inviting everybody to come in for the Sunday feast. When little kids come, he likes to put them on his lap and give them a horsey ride on his knee, chanting Hare Krishna and Hari Haribol. He also takes the opportunity to inform everybody about the upcoming Ratha-yatra Festival in Golden Gate Park.
Traidas: When I first walked into the temple on Frederick Street, Jayananda was sitting at the front door letting people into the Sunday feast. They were selling tickets, and he was greeting people and keeping the real crazies out. I immediately got the impression of a father. I don't think he was that old at the time, but compared to me, only nineteen, he was like a father. The next day, when I decided to move in the temple, he took me to my house to pick up all my belongings and gave me my first Isopanisad. I immediately felt like I had the shelter and protection of a father. He was the most warm personality.
Gokularanjana: I got a BTG and was invited to the Sunday feast. I remember Jayananda saying to me, "My spiritual master told me that I should utilize this human form of life to become perfect. And I think you should do the same thing." He was so personal. I thought, "His spiritual master told him that, and now he's telling me." I was really touched by it.
Not content to merely build the carts, collect donations, and prepare the prasadam, Jayananda is also actively engaged in promoting the festival with as much free advertising as he can dream up. Taking a few brahmacaris, he goes out late at night to erect a huge Ratha-yatra billboard on the freeway. Thousands of people see it on their way to work the next morning, attracting the attention of the media. 'Juggernaut, a title of the Hindu deity Krishna, whose idol is drawn in an annual procession on a huge car or wagon under the wheels of which worshippers are said to have thrown themselves. American Heritage Dictionary.' Thus begins a story on page three of the June 27, Saturday edition, of the San Francisco Examiner under the headline, "Hare Krishna! Juggernauts to Roll."
The article features a picture of Bhavananda and Nara-Narayana holding up a large photo of a Jagannath Puri Ratha-yatra cart. Behind them sits the American version of the cart almost completed. Jayananda, always humble, is busy seeing to last minute details in the background. On Friday, a reporter had come out to interview the devotees working at the parking lot on Frederick Street. Nara-Narayana gladly provided him a story with all the controversy he was looking for. Prabhupada had given Nara-Narayana the title Visvakarma as a result of his artistic and carpentry skills. It is a title that he wears proudly. But no one will throw himself under the wheels.
The idea of ecstatic suicide is just one of the many misconceptions about the rites practiced by the followers of Krishna, according to Visvakarma Das, the young shaven-headed, saffron-robed monk who is supervising the construction of the three enormous wagons. Visvakarma is a member of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, the religious cult whose devotees have become familiar on the streets of San Francisco and Berkeley with their chanting of "Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna." Visvakarma and his fellow monks can and will expound at length on the significance of the upcoming procession, the theology of their faith, and the errors of Western-oriented scholars like those who compiled the American Heritage Dictionary. But there is space only for a few basics.
First, he says, Krishna is the godhead not of Hinduism but of the Vedic culture, historically centered in India but actually a "universal culture of which Hinduism is an offshoot." Second, a more proper spelling of "Juggernaut" is "Jagannath", and the religious procession featuring the huge carts is correctly called "Ratha-yatra Car Festival." Third, the idea of worshippers throwing themselves under the wheels of the carts as an act of religious devotion is a myth fostered by the religions of the Western world. And fourth, he says, they do not carry "idols" but the actual deities, Krishna, his brother Balaram and his sister Subhadra. "This," says Visvakarma, "is not idol worship but the worship of the form of the Lord. He represents himself in this form to accept worship."
Whatever the case, the carriages of Krishna will be impressive as they are trundled from the intersection of Haight and Ashbury Streets, through Golden Gate Park and finally to Ocean Beach, where they will be parked in front of the Family Dog Auditorium. The procession will begin at noon, and according to the monks, they expect between 25,000 and 50,000 to take part in the celebration, which will be capped with a vegetarian feast. The three cars have been under construction for more than a month. Materials timber by the ton and fabrics by the hundreds of yards have been largely donated and the work done by about a dozen monks, aided by volunteers. The two largest carts measure 30 by 45 feet, and each will support canopies of intricately decorated canvas rising five stories high. The canopies are affixed to ingenious telescoping supports which will allow them to be lowered to pass under telephone lines and other obstructions. The domestic "Juggernauts" are modelled after similar rolling temples which have featured celebrations in Jagannath Puri, India, for some 2,000 years. The Indian models are about twice as big. The huge carts are being built on a vacant lot near the Hare Krishna Society's temple at 518 Frederick St. The lot is on loan from Clifford Haynes, who owns the Stadium Garage and takes a tolerant view of the religious construction on his property. "They're not bothering anybody," says Haynes, "and everybody's got his little 'thing' going for him. I don't know. They may be right, who knows?"