Caitanya Mahaprabhu, the golden avatara, appeared on the streets Berkeley, California. Lord Caitanya, who is Krsna Himself, appeared just to please His devotees and to attract the minds of all living entities who are suffering from the pangs of material entanglement.
This Ratha-yatra festival is very old—at least five thousand years old. Lord Krsna, along with His elder brother, Balarama, and His sister, Subhadra, once rode in a chariot from Dvaraka to Kuruksetra, and this festival commemorates Krsna’s riding with His family on the chariot.
At the great chariot festival in the holy city of Jagannatha Puri, Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu danced in ecstasy before the chariot of Lord Jagannatha, revealing a most intimate pastime of the Supreme Lord.
Suddenly a frenzied storm of 10,000 young chanters startled San Francisco. A sea of people poured around the corner of Haight and Ashbury Streets in the dazzling noonday sun, completely surrounding the thirty-five foot high, brilliantly decorated Rathayatra car.
My dear boys and girls, I thank you very much for joining us on this Rathayatra Ceremony. I am going to sing an Indian song and then I will explain it. Even if you don’t understand the language of the song, still, if you kindly hear patiently, the sound vibration will act.
On July 27th, 1969 in San Francisco the most powerful spiritual celebration the bay area has ever known, the Rathayatra Festival, took place. Words cannot describe the nectarean beauty of the holy day glorifying the Jagannath Deities.
Today is the Jagannath Car Festival. There is great excitement in the San Francisco temple. A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami, affectionately known as Prabhupada, had given a lecture the night before, and the chants had been sung with much enthusiasm.
Prabhupada emerged from a car which had cautiously nuzzled its way through the crowds up to the side of the great ratha car. Purple velvet steps were lowered onto the street by the devotees, and the Golden Guru rose up onto the ratha’s opulent throne, just below the Deities.
Children and grandmothers with tilok all wanting to pull the rope that will send dancing the grand Lord of the Universe. Then the conch is sounded and with the transcendental broom sweeping away the material dust, we dance towards Trafalgar Square.
The Kam Day Parade is a yearly event commemorating the reign of the Hawaiian King Kamehameha. This parade is known to draw thousands, so we were naturally anxious to take advantage of this opportunity for propagating Krishna consciousness.
The three towering chariots, their brightly colored silk canopies billowing, glide slowly down streets that on every other day of the year are reserved for a heavy traffic of cars, trucks, and buses.
Here Comes Jagannatha, Jagganath Car Festival, Central Park, New York City New York, July 7, 1968. Black and White Photos.
The first annual Ratha-yatra chariot festival in Washington, D.C. Hare Krsna devotees came from around the country and at the foot of the Washington Monument thousands of well-wishers, friends, and onlookers joined them for the parade to the Capitol.
You have not had LSD, Allen? “I have had it.” It is dependence, Allen. “It’s like a car—a mental car—to resolve certain inner things.” Krishna Consciousness resolves everything. Nothing else is needed.
Pastureland next to the Waikato River (south of Auckland) was transformed into a tent-and-caravan metropolis. Seventy thousand young people were basking in perfect weather at the annual Sweetwaters Rock Festival—New Zealand’s Woodstock.
For thousands of years devotees of Lord Krsna have journeyed to Jagannatha Puri in India to take part in the annual celebration called Ratha-yatra, “The Festival of the Chariots.”
At Fifty-ninth Street and Fifth Avenue the chariots are waiting. Forty feet high with spires atop. I bow to the statue of Srila Prabhupada which sits on an elegant throne in the second chariot.