temple
Chhatia Bata
- Jajpur
Chhatia Bata is a Jagannath temple and pilgrimage place at Chhatia in Jajpur district, roughly midway between Cuttack and Jajpur. It is the temple, and not a separate deity, that people mean by the name. It takes its name from the banyan tree, bata in Odia, at its centre. The images of Jagannath, Balabhadra and Subhadra are arranged in a different order from Puri. The place is linked with the 18th-century saint Hadidas and with the saint Achyutananda Das of the Panchasakha period. A popular prophecy attached to it says that Chhatia will stay above water at the end of the age and that Kalki will appear.
quick facts
- district
Jajpur
- dress code
Ethnic or traditional dress is customary.
how to reach
history and significance
history
According to a verse attributed to Achyutananda Das, when the world is engulfed in a deluge, Chhatia alone will remain above the water, and fish will play on the twenty-two steps of the Puri temple. Some accounts say the same prophecy came from the saint Hadidas, who is described as a reincarnation of Achyutananda in some tellings, so the attribution is contested. This belongs to the body of Odia prophetic verse known as Bhavishya Malika, which is attributed to Achyutananda Das.
The Odisha Hindu Endowments page presents it as a prediction that Chhatia is the only place the sea will not submerge. Popular belief adds that the three deities will leave Puri for Chhatia, and that Kalki, the future avatar of Vishnu, will appear here. The different order of the three images is read by some as a sign of a new world order. These are beliefs and readings, and the verse is cryptic and open to interpretation.
The origin of the temple is also disputed. One record ties it to a 12th-century Ganga ruler, and its Vaishnava association is dated by others to the 15th century and Achyutananda. The Hadidas samadhi is said to lie in the temple complex. Heritage sources describe the place as one of the few temples linked with Kalki.