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By Tara Duggan<\/strong><\/p>\n Troupes of neon-vested Segway riders and strolling tourist families exploring Golden Gate Park on Sunday made way for an especially vibrant interruption: the Festival of Chariots, an annual Hindu parade and celebration with roots going back millennia in India.<\/p>\n Held since 1967 in San Francisco, the festival drew hundreds of smiling worshipers who helped pull three large chariots along John F. Kennedy Drive that carried likenesses of Lord Jagannath \u2014 who to many Hindus is known as Lord of the Universe or Krishna \u2014 his brother, Lord Baladeva, and his sister, Subhadra.<\/p>\n Men knelt to touch their forehead to the ground and women in jewel-toned saris danced with the procession. The large wooden carts were painted with elephants and swans, draped with garlands of carnations, and capped by tall red tents meant to resemble temples.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a way to bring the lord outside and into the park,\u201d said Haladhara Rupa of Dublin, who wore a traditional purple-blue kurta, or long shirt, and billowing white dhoti pants over bright green running shoes. \u201cYou can bring the lord in a joyous way.\u201d<\/p>\n Celebrants encouraged bystanders to help pull the chariots, which they said would give them blessings. Different groups sang and chanted \u201cHare krishna, hare krishna, krishna krishna, hare hare,\u201d while others played drums and blew on conch shells.<\/p>\n With roots in Puri, India, where it is known as Ratha Yatra, the chariot festival is meant to bestow the blessings of Lord Jagannath. The San Francisco version was started by A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the founder of the Hare Krishna movement in the United States, and is still organized by local Hare Krishna chapters.<\/p>\n Vani Devi Das of Sacramento, whose parents brought her up in the Hare Krishna movement on a farm in Pennsylvania, brought her three children to the festival. \u201cI\u2019ve been going to this for 30 years,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n San Jose software engineer Malini Devi Dasi and her 9-year-old daughter were giving out pamphlets explaining their religious beliefs to cyclists and joggers. \u201cThis festival reminds me I can invite the lord in my heart,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m so confused in this world. I need some direction. I need to open my heart and clean it out a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n As the parade passed Lindy in the Park, a free swing dance class held every Sunday near the de Young Museum, it overwhelmed the class\u2019 sound system for a few minutes. The parade ended with a festival in Sharon Meadow, where there was a free vegetarian feast as well as a stand selling \u201cspiritual fashions\u201d and exhibitions on Hare Krishna beliefs, including vegetarianism and reincarnation.<\/p>\n Amit Goswami of San Mateo shepherded his son, Nimai, 5, through the crowd. Nimai pulled a small likeness of one of the parade\u2019s red chariots that he had built with the help of his mother and grandmother on top of a toddler push car.<\/p>\n \u201cWe keep it in the garage,\u201d Goswami said, \u201cand every year we remodel it.\u201d<\/p>\n Source with more photos: https:\/\/goo.gl\/BZGbyi<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Troupes of neon-vested Segway riders and strolling tourist families exploring Golden Gate Park on Sunday made way for an especially vibrant interruption: the Festival of Chariots, an annual Hindu parade and celebration with roots going back millennia in India. Held since 1967 in San Francisco, the festival drew hundreds of smiling worshipers who helped pull three large chariots along John F. Kennedy Drive that carried likenesses of Lord Jagannath \u2014 who to many Hindus is known as Lord of the Universe or Krishna \u2014 his brother, Lord Baladeva, and his sister, Subhadra. Men knelt to touch their forehead to the ground and women in jewel-toned saris danced with the procession. The large wooden carts were painted with elephants and swans, draped with garlands of carnations, and capped by tall red tents meant to resemble temples. \u201cThis is a way to bring the lord outside and into the park,\u201d said Haladhara Rupa of Dublin, who wore a traditional purple-blue kurta, or long shirt, and billowing white dhoti pants over bright green running shoes. \u201cYou can bring the lord in a joyous way.\u201d<\/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-49289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49289","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=49289"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49289\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49291,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49289\/revisions\/49291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Hare](\"https:\/\/i.imgur.com\/7tuy0ib.jpg\")
By Tara Duggan<\/strong><\/p>\n