![\"\"](\"http:\/\/i.imgur.com\/s8K0l05.jpg\")
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Around noon on Saturday, men wrapped in white robes gathered just off Boston\u2019s Boylston Street in the middle of a festive crowd of women dressed in bright colored saris and men in dhoti kurtas, with gopi dots and lines of color painted on their faces. The robed men lined up before the tall yellow chariot wagon, garlanded with flowers, that resembled a temple on wheels.<\/p>\n
One man raised a coconut above his head, then smashed it on the pavement for an auspicious beginning to the annual Festival of Chariots \u2014 or Ratha Yatra (a Sanskrit phrase that roughly translates as \u201cchariot procession\u201d) \u2014 by the International Society for Krishna Consciousness Boston or ISKCON Boston or more generally known as the Hare Krishnas.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/i.imgur.com\/WoXOSD2.jpg\")
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Then, the crowd of devotees sang the traditional \u201cHare Krishna, Krishna Krishna\u201d and danced \u201ca free-flow devotional dance with swami steps\u201d down Boylston Street beginning near Massachusetts Avenue. They waved pennants. They tugged on the long ropes to pull the wagon loaded with small statues representing Jagannatha, \u201cmaster of the universe, in other words he is Krishna himself,\u201d his older brother Baladeva and younger sister Subhadra. Also on board was a statue depicting A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896-1977), the Calcutta man who brought the Hare Krishna movement to New York in 1965, which then spread across Western countries.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe pull the chariot with dancing, sing the glories of the lord, his holy names are chanted,\u201d temple president Vanamali Pandit Dasa says. \u201cIt is said in the scriptures whoever sees the big eyes of the lord, whoever dances in the chariot procession, whoever eats food in this procession, whoever sings, whoever pulls the rope, whoever walks in the procession, all of them will get a spiritual credit. Their sins will be completely eradicated. In other words, they\u2019ll be free from miseries and anxieties.\u201d<\/p>\n
This relates to the Hindu belief in reincarnation. \u201cWe take birth again and again,\u201d Pandit Dasa says. \u201cWe transmigrate from one body to another body, and from one species to another species.\u201d They aspire to live good lives that will bring them closer to their ultimate, full spiritual realization. \u201cWhen you\u2019re free from this cycle, that\u2019s the beginning of your spiritual migration. Once you\u2019re free, you can embark on your spiritual realization. You\u2019re free from the cycle of birth and death.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/i.imgur.com\/DxVmiKQ.jpg\")
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The Festival of Chariots is an annual Hindu tradition, going back hundreds of years, some say thousands, in the coastal town of Puri in eastern India that recalls a legendary visit by the Hindu diety Krishna. Last summer, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness Boston reinstated the public parade for the temple\u2019s annual Festival of Chariots. That was the first time they\u2019d processed through city streets for nearly two decades, Pandit Dasa says.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn Boston, we also celebrate A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. When the Hare Krishna movement started, the founder, he first landed in Boston, at Commonwealth Pier, on the first of August 1965 at 5:30 in the morning,\u201d Pandit Dasa says. \u201cHe was here for a few hours and then from here he went to New York.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Saturday, as they processed down Boylston to the music of drums, cymbals, tambourines and shell-horns, a man in an orange turban went onto the sidewalk urging people watching the procession to join in. \u201cEverybody, come on!\u201d he shouted. \u201cChanting and dancing!\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/i.imgur.com\/leq7cRT.jpg\")
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Hundreds participated in the procession toward Boston Common, the crowd growing as they went. At the park, they would pray and meditate and sing and eat vegetarian food and explain their philosophy.<\/p>\n
Men took turns with a broom, sweeping the path before the wagon, because \u201cthe lord of the universe is coming.\u201d A woman riding aboard the wagon gave out apples and bananas and other fruit.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s transcendence,\u201d Pandit Dasa says. \u201cIt takes us from the material platform to the spiritual platform. When you sing the lord\u2019s name, it uplifts you. Dancing is an expression of our joy.\u201d
\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/i.imgur.com\/aXCHb3o.jpg\")
\nSource: http:\/\/www.wbur.org\/artery\/2017\/07\/09\/hare-krishna-festival-of-chariots<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Around noon on Saturday, men wrapped in white robes gathered just off Boston\u2019s Boylston Street in the middle of a festive crowd of women dressed in bright colored saris and men in dhoti kurtas, with gopi dots and lines of color painted on their faces. The robed men lined up before the tall yellow chariot wagon, garlanded with flowers, that resembled a temple on wheels. One man raised a coconut above his head, then smashed it on the pavement for an auspicious beginning to the annual Festival of Chariots \u2014 or Ratha Yatra (a Sanskrit phrase that roughly translates as \u201cchariot procession\u201d) \u2014 by the International Society for Krishna Consciousness Boston or ISKCON Boston or more generally known as the Hare Krishnas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48437"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48437\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48447,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48437\/revisions\/48447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Hare](\"http:\/\/i.imgur.com\/06JxEkk.jpg\")
By Greg Cook<\/strong><\/p>\n