Bisara Mohanty

Bisara Mohanty was a devotee and historical figure of Jagannath culture, who rescued Brahma Padartha of Lord Jagannath from the river Ganga. He was a contemporary of Gajapati Ramachandra Deva I of Bhoi dynasty.

Historical context 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. When he tried to burn the idol, he found a part of the idol, called Brahma Padartha, difficult to burn. He threw the remaining part into the river of Ganga. Bisara Mohanty a Vaishnav Karan, followed Kalapahad with the idol from Orissa to Bengal, 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.

Background and early life Mohanty spent much of his time engaged in Naam Sankirtan (devotional chanting) and associating with temple servitors (Sevayats) from Puri. In her biographical text Bhakta Bisar Mohanty, Odia novelist Kanakalata Mohanty links his ancestry to Jajpur, characterizing him as a descendant of Bandhu Mohanty—another celebrated, historic devotee of Lord Jagannath. Though contemporary observers often misjudged his ecstatic, devotional absorption as madness, his resolve proved critical during the collapse of the Gajapati kingdom. Foreseeing the danger, the chief temple superintendent of Jagannath Temple, Paricha Dibyasingha Pattanaik, along with other priests, hastily evacuated the large wooden idols of Jagannath, Balabhadra, and Subhadra, partially burying them near the secluded coast of Kujanga.

Preservation at Kujangagarh

Upon returning to his native region, Mohanty sought a safe haven for the relic.