Reclaiming the Ocean: Odisha’s Maritime Linkages and the Misread Identity of Bali Jatra

Join us as we delve into the second part of the Paricharchā series, turning to a long-standing and widely celebrated cultural event in Odisha—Bali Jatra.

While the fair is commonly associated with Odisha’s maritime history, particularly with the narrative of ancient voyages to the island, a recent lecture by Dr. Umakanta Mishra at Bakul Library presented a different interpretive framework. His arguments rested on ritual anthropology, seasonal worship cycles, and symbolic practices embedded in Odia Hindu tradition.

Rather than disputing existing narratives or asserting superiority of interpretation, here we document those insights to foster open scholarly dialogue. ParibhaAsha’s approach here is to place the lecture’s arguments in the public domain, invite multidisciplinary evidence, and encourage a more rigorous analysis of how ritual memory, historical imagination, and contemporary identity converge in shaping cultural meaning.

Locating Bali Jatra Within Ritual Time

Bali Jatra takes place annually on Kartika Purnima, a date that carries significant ritual weight in Odia religious practice. According to Dr. Mishra, the timing of the festival is inseparable from the broader observance of Kartika Month Upasana. Kartika is regarded as one of the most auspicious months in the Odia calendar, marked by dietary discipline, abstention, devotional acts, and domestic worship practices centring on Vishnu, Shiva, and Tulasi.

The last five days of the month are collectively known as Panchuka, a period of heightened ritual observance. However, many households begin this disciplined routine even earlier, on Shukla Paksha Navami, known as Amla Navami, indicating that the ritual intensity often spans nearly a month. This cycle structures a religious environment in which restraint, reflection, and purification dominate daily rhythms.

In this context, Bali Jatra does not appear to be an isolated cultural event. Instead, it emerges as the ceremonial closure of a sustained period of ritual practice. It is at this juncture—on Kartika Purnima—that 52 Sankirtan Mandali from across Cuttack gather at the Gadagadia Ghat of the Mahanadi. Their collective worship marks the formal end of the month-long ritual cycle. This ritual gathering, occurring specifically on the sandbanks of the river, constitutes the foundation for Dr. Mishra’s argument regarding the festival’s nomenclature. According to him, the name Bali Jatra derives directly from its setting: bali refers to “sand,” and jatra denotes the “gathering” or “observance.”

This interpretation differs markedly from the popular understanding linking the term “Bali” to the Indonesian island. It instead positions the festival firmly within Odia ritual tradition, independent of external geographic associations. From an academic standpoint, such an etymological grounding is plausible and consistent with linguistic patterns in many regional festivals whose names describe the physical or ritual conditions under which they are performed. It also aligns with the anthropological understanding that many community gatherings acquire names derived from the sacred geography of their performance space.

Symbolic Dimensions of the Boat Ritual

One of the most recognisable features of Bali Jatra is the tradition of floating miniature boats—constructed from paper, thermocol, banana stems, or other materials—on rivers, ponds, and other waterbodies during the early hours of Kartika Purnima. This practice is popularly explained as a symbolic remembrance of ancient maritime voyages. However, the lecture presented a different interpretation grounded in ritual symbolism.

Dr. Mishra situated the boat-floating ritual in relation to the temporal structure of the Kartika month. The first fifteen days of the month, known as the Krushna Paksha, overlap with what is often considered a period of ancestral connection in Odia tradition, akin to paternal ancestry. Within this framework, floating a miniature boat can be interpreted as a symbolic act facilitating communication between the human world and the ancestral or spiritual realm.

Anthropologists have long recognised waterbodies as liminal environments, functioning as transitional spaces where boundaries between domains become permeable. Boats, as portable vessels capable of movement across water, often serve as ritual instruments enabling symbolic passage. This logic is documented across numerous cultural traditions globally, where floating a boat signifies a transition, offering, or communication within a belief system.

The chant “Aa-Ka-Ma-Bai”, widely associated with the boat ritual, is frequently interpreted in popular discourse as a mnemonic for overseas destinations or maritime months. According to Dr. Mishra, this interpretation is misplaced. He stated that the chant refers instead to four auspicious months in the Odia calendar: Aashadha, Kartika, Magha, and Baisakha. These months hold specific ritual significance, and their invocation during the boat-floating practice aligns with seasonal and spiritual logics rather than navigational or oceanic purposes.

From a cultural anthropology perspective, such chants often encode calendrical information, ritual references, or cosmological mappings rather than literal geographic markers. Therefore, the interpretation presented in the lecture is consistent with broader ethnographic patterns in Hindu ritual practice, in which symbolic vessels, seasonal cues, and oral recitations work together to anchor religious activity within a cyclical understanding of time.

Anthropological Parallels in Symbolic Boat Rituals

To situate the interpretation within comparative anthropology, it is helpful to examine other cultures where miniature boats function as ritual or symbolic objects associated with spiritual transition or communication. These parallels do not prove a shared origin but demonstrate that the interpretive framework proposed by Dr. Mishra is compatible with global patterns in ritual symbolism.

• In ancient Egypt, for instance, the concept of the solar barque is central to cosmology. The god Ra is depicted navigating the sky and underworld in a boat, and miniature funerary boats were placed in tombs to assist the deceased through the afterlife. The boat serves both as a cosmological model and as a symbolic carrier between realms.

• In Norse and Germanic cultures, ship burials—such as those excavated at Oseberg and Gokstad—functioned as funerary rites in which the deceased was placed in a boat or a boat-shaped stone arrangement to signify their journey to the afterlife. Here, the ship is directly tied to spiritual transition and the movement of the soul.

• In Japan, the Obon festival uses floating lantern boats called shōrōbune to guide the ancestral spirits back to their realm after their visit during the Obon period. The ritual uses boats as intermediaries between the living and the dead.

• The Thai festival of Loy Krathong involves releasing small banana-stem boats carrying candles and incense. Although not ancestral in nature, the ritual symbolises release, purification, and communication with spiritual forces.

• In southern China and Taiwan, Taoist traditions include rituals involving paper “spirit boats,” which are floated or burned to help wandering souls find peace—an explicitly spiritual role for the vessel.

• In South Asian contexts, including certain Tamil and Sri Lankan practices, floating objects in water during auspicious lunar phases is often tied to rituals of purification, transition, or offering.

These examples demonstrate that miniature boats frequently serve as ritual instruments across cultures and geographies. Their symbolic functions—spiritual passage, offering, ancestor communication, release—are far more common than their use as commemorative tools for literal maritime history. Thus, Dr. Mishra’s interpretation of the Odia boat ritual fits within this broader anthropological pattern and merits serious academic consideration.

Documenting Lecture-Based Interpretations and Areas for Research

Our primary purpose here is to document the interpretive framework shared during the lecture rather than endorse or reject any particular viewpoint. A few key propositions presented by Dr. Mishra can be summarised here:

1. Bali Jatra may have originated as a ceremony marking the conclusion of Kartika Month Upasana.

2. The term Bali Jatra may derive from the sandbanks of the Mahanadi where the closing ceremony is held.

3. The miniature boat ritual may carry symbolic, spiritual meaning, associated with movement between realms rather than historical maritime activity.

4. The “Aa-Ka-Ma-Bai” chant refers to four auspicious months, not navigational codes or overseas destinations.

5. The festival’s current form as a large open-air fair is a later development built around an earlier ritual core.

These propositions are not positioned here as definitive claims but as contributions to an evolving discourse. They underscore the need for additional research drawing from epigraphy, ritual studies, oral tradition, folklore, and maritime archaeology.

For instance, there may be local traditions, inscriptions, or regional variations in practice that support or challenge aspects of Dr. Mishra’s interpretation. Similarly, the maritime identity of Odisha is well-documented through archaeological evidence, inscriptions from Southeast Asia, and Buddhist textual transmissions. How exactly these historical networks intersect with ritual memory is an open question requiring careful interdisciplinary study.

Moving Toward an Evidence-Based Discourse

One of the central challenges in cultural analysis is differentiating between ritual memory and historical memory. Festivals often accumulate layers of meaning over time, shaped by community practice, local symbolism, and shifts in socio-cultural identity. As Bali Jatra grew into one of the largest open-air fairs in Asia, its public identity also expanded, absorbing narratives about maritime heritage that resonate with the collective pride of Odisha.

This does not invalidate those narratives; rather, it suggests that the festival operates at the intersection of ritual significance and historical imagination. Distinguishing between these dimensions is essential for academic clarity but that does not diminish the cultural value of the festival or its role in reinforcing regional identity.

ParibhaAsha’s objective in presenting Dr. Mishra’s interpretations is to encourage deeper academic engagement, not to assert a singular narrative. The points documented here can serve as reference material for future ethnographic research, comparative ritual studies, and examinations of how public festivals evolve through layered meanings.

We invite historians, anthropologists, practitioners, and community members to contribute additional evidence—inscriptions, archival sources, oral histories, ritual manuals, or ethnographic accounts—that may enrich this discourse. Only through cumulative research can a more comprehensive understanding of Bali Jatra emerge.

Here, we outline a set of interpretive insights from Dr. Mishra’s lecture on the ritual origins and symbolic dimensions of Bali Jatra. These observations shift attention from external geographic associations to internal ritual structures and anthropological patterns. Presenting them here is intended to open space for scholarly dialogue and collaborative research.

Odisha’s maritime heritage is robust, diverse, and well-evidenced. Understanding how festivals like Bali Jatra relate to that heritage—whether directly, symbolically, or independently—is a question that requires nuanced, interdisciplinary exploration. By sharing these interpretations in a structured academic format, ParibhaAsha hopes to encourage further inquiry and foster a more rigorous understanding of how ritual practice and historical consciousness intersect in shaping Odisha’s cultural identity.

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About the Series

• Essay I: Explores the principle of cultural fluidity and non-linear exchange across the Bay of Bengal. (READ HERE)

• Essay II: Traces Odisha’s Maritime Linkages with Southeast Asia and examines the confusion of identity surrounding Bali Jatra, the largest open-air trade fair of Asia.

• Essay III: Revisits the anthropological legacy of L.K. Mohapatra, drawing from a lecture by Vijoy S. Sahay (Former HOD, Anthropology, University of Allahabad), and argues for the role of anthropology in addressing socio-economic and political challenges.

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References

• Mishra, Umakanta. Merchants, Mātṛkās & Monks: Three Aspects of Kalinga’s Relations with Southeast Asia. Public Lecture, Bakul Library, Bhubaneswar, 2025.

• Behera, K. S. Maritime Heritage of Odisha. State Maritime Museum, Bhubaneswar, 1999.

• Kulke, Hermann. “Kalinga and Suvarnadvipa: Early Networks in the Bay of Bengal.” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 1993.

• Hornung, Erik. The Ancient Egyptian Books of the Afterlife. Cornell University Press, 1999.

• Keyes, Charles. “Ritual Practices and Symbolism in Thailand.” Journal of Asian Studies, 1987.

• Bose, Sugata. A Hundred Horizons: The Indian Ocean in the Age of Global Empire. Harvard University Press, 2006.