Juggernaut (jug′ ẽr-na̤t), a sacred town of India, containing the temple of the Hindu god Juggernaut, whose name means Lord of the World. The god is first mentioned in 318 B. C. The grounds include 120 temples, the chief one having a tower 192 feet in height. There are 24 festivals annually held in his honor. The great festival is when the god is dragged on his car, 45 feet high and 35 feet square, with 16 wheels, each seven feet in diameter. He is taken to his country house, and, though the distance is only a mile, the great weight and the heavy sands make the journey one of several days. It was thought formerly that the worshipers threw themselves under the chariot wheels as a sacrifice to the god, but probably the deaths occurred from accident. The word, however, has become fixed in our language to represent that which marches on, riding over everything in its way. See Orissa (in Bengal) by Sir W. W. Hunter.
