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| Brahmapur, the island village in Chilika (source: Google maps) |
We stayed in the resort at Brahmapur and explored the village. One of the villagers, a priest from one of the temples, told me this story. Once upon a time, there was a demon king called Raktabahu (literally means blood-stained arms), who planned to attack and vandalize the temple-town of Puri, which is quite close to Chilika. He organized a large fleet and concealed it in the lagoon the night before the attack, close to Brahmapur village, to prevent premature detection by the King of Puri. By the grace of Lord Jagannath, the presiding deity of Puri, a huge storm raged over the lagoon that night and Raktabahu and his men perished with their ships. The story, however, is silent about the casualties of the village-folks by the grace of the Lord. Asking this question elicited a deep frown from the priest. The dissatisfied souls of the perished men haunt the lagoon, and their howls can be heard on stormy nights. On a few occasions, the villagers who ventured into the lagoon in darkness have even encountered the ghosts of Raktabahu and some of his men. Needless to say, such encounters had not been pleasant.
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| Birds at Chilika lagoon |
A dig into the history tells a different story. There was indeed a king named Raktabahu, alias Govinda III, of the Rashtrakuta dynasty, who ruled during 793–814 CE. The Rashtrakutas had their capital in Manyakheta (near present-day Kalaburgi of Karnataka) and extended their empire from the Gangetic planes in the North and to deep down the South covering parts of present day Tamil Nadu and Kerala.
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| The extent of Rashtrakuta empire (source: Wikimedia Commons) |
Much of this expansion was done by Raktabahu, the fifth ruler of the dynasty. As a part of his expansion plan, he did attack Puri and was indeed successful in conquering the town despite Jagannath's blessings. That was the first time when the temple of Puri was vandalized. Forewarned of the attack, the king of Puri and the priests of the temple removed the idols to a place called Gopali, near Subarnapur or Sonepur, in Sambalpur district of Odisha. The idols were buried deep into the ground for protection against vandalism, where it remained for about 150 years. King Yayati I of Chandravamsha (the descendants of the Moon) reestablished the idols in the Puri temple, after performing Naba-kalebara (new body) ritual, when the replicas of the original (and by then decayed) idols were apparently created. The place where the idols were buried is now known as Patali Srikhetra.
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| An abandoned Kali temple at Brahmapur village |
The ghost story of Chilika seems to be a cock-and-bull story, invented by the village priests in praise of Lord Jagannatha and to demean the king who attacked Puri. The howls on stormy nights are best explained by the passage of the strong wind through the pine trees on the nearby sea shore.
