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JUGGERNAUT—JUGURTHA
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the recovery of the countship of Castres. Boffille, with the object of escaping from his enemies, applied for the command of the armies of the republic of Venice. His application was refused, and he further lost the vice-royalty of Roussillon (1491). His daughter Louise married against his will a gentleman of no rank, and this led to terrible family dissensions. In order to disinherit his own family, Boffille de Juge gave up the countship of Castres to his brother-in-law, Alain d’Albret (1494). He died in 1502.

See P. M. Perret, Boffille de Juge, comte de Castres, et la république de Venise (1891); F. Pasquier, Inventaire des documents concernant Boffille de Juge (1905).  (M. P.*) 


JUGGERNAUT, a corruption of Sans. Jagannātha, “Lord of the World,” the name under which the Hindu god Vishnu is worshipped at Puri in Orissa. The legend runs that the sacred blue-stone image of Jagannātha was worshipped in the solitude of the jungle by an outcast, a Savara mountaineer, called Basu. The king of Malwa, Indradyumna, had despatched Brahmans to all quarters of the peninsula, and at last discovered Basu. Thereafter the image was taken to Puri, and a temple, begun in 1174, was completed fourteen years later at a cost of upwards of half a million sterling. The site had been associated for centuries before and after the Christian era with Buddhism, and the famous Car festival is probably based on the Tooth festival of the Buddhists, of which the Chinese pilgrim Fa-Hien gives an account. The present temple is a pyramidal building, 192 ft. high, crowned with the mystic wheel and flag of Vishnu. Its inner enclosure, nearly 400 ft. by 300 ft., contains a number of small temples and shrines. The main temple has four main rooms—the hall of offerings, the dancing hall, the audience chamber, and the shrine itself—the two latter being each 80 ft. square. The three principal images are those of Vishnu, his brother and his sister, grotesque wooden figures roughly hewn. Elaborate services are daily celebrated all the year round, the images are dressed and redressed, and four meals a day are served to them. The attendants on the god are divided into 36 orders and 97 classes. Special servants are assigned the tasks of putting the god to bed, of dressing and bathing him. The annual rent-roll of the temple was put at £68,000 by Sir W. W. Hunter; but the pilgrims’ offerings, which form the bulk of the income, are quite unknown and have been said to reach as much as £100,000 in one year. Ranjit Singh bequeathed the Koh-i-nor to Jagannath. There are four chief festivals, of which the famous Car festival is the most important.

The terrible stories of pilgrims crushed to death in the god’s honour have made the phrase “Car of Juggernaut” synonymous with the merciless sacrifice of human lives, but these have been shown to be baseless calumnies. The worship of Vishnu is innocent of all bloody rites, and a drop of blood even accidentally spilt in the god’s presence is held to pollute the officiating priests, the people, and the consecrated food. The Car festival takes place in June or July, and the feature of its celebration is the drawing of the god from the temple to his “country-house,” a distance of less than a mile. The car is 45 ft. in height and 35 ft. square, and is supported on 16 wheels of 7 ft. in diameter. Vishnu’s brother and sister have separate cars, slightly smaller. To these cars ropes are attached, and thousands of eager pilgrims vie with each other to have the honour of dragging the god. Though the distance is so short the journey lasts several days, owing to the deep sand in which the wheels sink. During the festival serious accidents have often happened. Sir W. W. Hunter in the Gazetteer of India writes: “In a closely packed, eager throng of a hundred thousand men and women under the blazing tropical sun, deaths must occasionally occur. There have doubtless been instances of pilgrims throwing themselves under the wheels in a frenzy of religious excitement, but such instances have always been rare, and are now unknown. The few suicides that did occur were, for the most part, cases of diseased and miserable objects who took this means to put themselves out of pain. The official returns now place this beyond doubt. Nothing could be more opposed to the spirit of Vishnu-worship than self-immolation. Accidental death within the temple renders the whole place unclean. According to Chaitanya, the apostle of Jagannath, the destruction of the least of God’s creatures is a sin against the Creator.”

See also Sir W. W. Hunter’s Orissa (1872); and District Gazetteer of Puri (1908).


JUGGLER (Lat. joculator, jester), in the modern sense a performer of sleight-of-hand tricks and dexterous feats of skill in tossing balls, plates, knives, &c. The term is practically synonymous with conjurer (see Conjuring). The joculatores were the mimes of the middle ages (see Drama); the French use of the word jongleurs (an erroneous form of jougleur) included the singers known as trouvères; and the humbler English minstrels of the same type gradually passed into the strolling jugglers, from whose exhibitions the term came to cover loosely any acrobatic, pantomimic and sleight-of-hand performances. In ancient Rome various names were given to what we call jugglers, e.g. ventilatores (knife-throwers), and pilarii (ball-players).


JUGURTHA (Gr. Ἰογόρθας), king of Numidia, an illegitimate son of Mastanabal, and grandson of Massinissa. After his father’s death he was brought up by his uncle Micipsa together with his cousins Adherbal and Hiempsal. Jugurtha grew up strong, handsome and intelligent, a skilful rider, and an adept in warlike exercises. He inherited much of Massinissa’s political ability. Micipsa, naturally afraid of him, sent him to Spain (134 B.C.) in command of a Numidian force, to serve under P. Cornelius Scipio Africanus Minor. He became a favourite with Scipio and the Roman nobles, some of whom put into his head the idea of making himself sole king of Numidia, with the help of Roman money.

In 118 B.C. Micipsa died. By his will, Jugurtha was associated with Adherbal and Hiempsal in the government of Numidia. Scipio had written to Micipsa a strong letter of recommendation in favour of Jugurtha; and to Scipio, accordingly, Micipsa entrusted the execution of his will. None the less, his testamentary arrangements utterly failed. The princes soon quarrelled, and Jugurtha claimed the entire kingdom. Hiempsal he contrived to have assassinated; Adherbal he quickly drove out of Numidia. He then sent envoys to Rome to defend his usurpation on the ground that he was the injured party. The senate decided that Numidia was to be divided, and gave the western, the richer and more populous half, to Jugurtha, while the sands and deserts of the eastern half were left to Adherbal. Jugurtha’s envoys appear to have found several of the Roman nobles and senators accessible to bribery. Having secured the best of the bargain, Jugurtha at once began to provoke Adherbal to a war of self-defence. He completely defeated him near the modern Philippeville, and Adherbal sought safety in the fortress of Cirta (Constantine). Here he was besieged by Jugurtha, who, notwithstanding the interposition of a Roman embassy, forced the place to capitulate, and treacherously massacred all the inhabitants, among them his cousin Adherbal and a number of Italian merchants resident in the town. There was great wrath at Rome and throughout Italy; and the senate, a majority of which still clung to Jugurtha, were persuaded in the same year (111) to declare war. An army was despatched to Africa under the consul L. Calpurnius Bestia, several of the Numidian towns voluntarily surrendered, and Bocchus, the king of Mauretania, and Jugurtha’s father-in-law, offered the Romans his alliance. Jugurtha was alarmed, but having at his command the accumulated treasures of Massinissa, he was successful in arranging with the Roman general a peace which left him in possession of the whole of Numidia. When the facts were known at Rome, the tribune Memmius insisted that Jugurtha should appear in person and be questioned as to the negotiations. Jugurtha appeared under a safe conduct, but he had partisans, such as the tribune C. Baebius, who took care that his mouth should be closed. Soon afterwards he caused his cousin Massiva, then resident at Rome and a claimant to the throne of Numidia, to be assassinated. The treaty was thereupon set aside, and Jugurtha was ordered to quit Rome. On this occasion he uttered the well-known words, “A city for sale, and doomed to perish as soon as it finds a purchaser!” (Livy, Epit. 64). The war was renewed, and the consul Spurius Albinus entrusted with the command. The Roman army in Africa was thoroughly demoralized. An unsuccessful attempt was made on a fortified town, Suthul, in which the royal treasures were deposited. The army was surprised by the enemy in a night attack, and the camp was taken and