your bridge home
Tales of the Gods
Something is carried in total darkness by priests who cannot see, cannot feel, and have never once been allowed to know what they're holding.
Something is moved from one body to another, in total darkness.
By men who are blindfolded. And whose hands are wrapped in cloth, so they cannot feel it. Nobody has ever seen it. That is the design, not an accident.
The images at Puri, Jagannath, Balabhadra, Subhadra and the disc Sudarshana, are made of wood, and wood does not last.
So every twelve to nineteen years they are replaced. The interval is not chosen by anyone; it is set by the calendar, and falls in a year when the month of Ashadha repeats. The ceremony is called Nabakalevara, "the new body." The most recent was in 2015.
It is not a repair. It is a death and a birth, conducted as such.
The rest of this story, read aloud, and a new one every day.