Ratha Yatra Deities Arrive ISKCON Melbourne 2011

After a 30 year break, St Kilda hosted the Festival of the Chariots. The Grand Chariot Parade started on Fitzroy St and toured the St Kilda Festival grounds, and arrived at the Vedic Village. There was live entertainment, yoga, cooking classes, dance, theatrical sketches, and kirtan (participative singing meditations).

The Ratha Yatra, or the Festival of the Chariots is perhaps the oldest continuously celebrated spiritual festival in the world. As far back as human records and memory extend, the splendidly decorated chariots of Jagannatha ('Master of the Universe' in Sanskrit) have rolled each summer in the town of Puri on the Bay of Bengal in India, to the delight of millions of joyous pilgrims. Their towering red-and-blue silken canopies rise into the sky as drums and cymbals resound in joyous celebrations. People young and old, their eyes bright with excitement sing and dance in the street, as if swimming in an ocean of overwhelming happiness.

Over forty years ago, Hare Krishna devotees brought this tradition to the streets of over 100 big and small cities around the world, including Tokyo, Dublin, Belfast, Birmingham, London, Budapest, New York, Montreal, Paris, Moscow, Singapore, Toronto, Antwerp, Kuala Lumpur, Durban, Sydney, Mumbai, New Delhi, San Francisco and Los Angeles. The last time Melbourne hosted the Festival of the Chariots was at the end of the 1970s. Now, over 30 years later this unforgettable ancient celebration has returned to Melbourne as part of the famous St Kilda Festival.

The "ropes of love" pull the chariot that carries the Master of the Universe!