I recently came across a book called ‘The Wesleyan Juvenile Offering’. Multiple editions of this book are on Google Books, in case you would like to have a look. Curiously, there’s a bit about Jagannatha and the Dola Jatra of Puri.
Without further ado, here’s what he says. Note that the author hasn’t actually said anything about Odisha till now- this could well be anoher place. But the lithograph beside has typical Odia architectural features, as you can probably notice. Since that set of pages was deleted from the free preview in Google Books, here’s the same content from another book. This one explicitly states that it is from the Jagannatha Temple. But intentionally spelling it as ‘Juggernaut.’
And here’s the next page.
“Pretended god”, “wicked character of his worshippers”, “heathens.” Let’s continue reading.
“Depraved character”, “Great Deceiver of the Nations.”
Then he describes the Dola Jatra of Puri.
And later in the book, he presents an image of Jagannatha, which confirm my hypothesis.
His conclusion remains baseless though. Next, he switches to ranting.
People are happy- they dance and sing for their deity- what’s wrong with that? And this much when he has not introduced the deity at all!
For the grand finale, he comes up with an intentionally twisted image.
And doesn’t stop there.
This person has such an established imaginary world it’s difficult to explain.
The book reveals a clear hatred for the colourful rituals and festivals of Puri. All of this so that they can call an entire nation ‘wrong’ and ‘satanic’, whom they must bring on to the ‘correct’ path. Read it on your own if you want more. There’s hundreds of pages full of this rubbish.
Update : Those sets of pages have been hidden away from preview now. There remain other copies though. Like Missionary Papers.