Of all the festivals of the year the greatest is the Rath yatra or Car Festival, which commemorates the journey of Krishna from Gokul to Mathura. According to Hindu mythology, Krishna, the ninth incarnation of Vishnu, was the eight son of Basudeva and his wife Devaki. It had been predicted that a son of theirs would kill Kansa, the demon King of Mathura, who typifies the principal of evil. Kansa, therefore, imprisoned Basudeva and his wife, and slew their first six sons; Balarama, the seventh, was abstracted from Devaki’s womb, transferred to that of Rohini, another wife of Basudeva, and so saved.

            On the birth of Krishna, the father escaped from Mathura with the child and, crossing the Jamuna, entrusted the infant Krishna to the care of the herdsman king, Nanda of Vraja. In Gokul or Vraja Krishna grew up to manhood. At length, Kansa heard of him and sent a messenger to bring him and his brother to Mathura. The brothers drove in their chariot victoriously to Mathura, where Krishna killed Kansa and ruled in his stead.

         The brother and sister of Jagannath have separated cars a few feet smaller. The images are brought out from the temple through the Lion Gate and placed on the cars, this being known as the pahandi, a sacred moment when the assembled pilgrims fall on their knees and bow their foreheads in the dust. They then seize the ropes, and drag the cars down the Bara Danda road to the garden house of Jagannath. The distance is only about 1.5 mile, but as the heavy structures have no contrivance to guide them, and the wheels sink deep into the sand, which are some places covers the road; the journey has been known to take several days.

       Once arrived at the garden house, the enthusiasm subsides. By the third day most of the pilgrims have left, and but for professional car-pullers, Jagannath would often be left there. The cars are dragged from the temple by the assembled pilgrims and by a number of villagers, who hold revenue-free lands granted to them as remuneration for the work; when the pilgrims are insufficient to drag the cars back, coolies are engaged from the neighboring villages. In 1904, the pilgrims alone pulled the cars to the country house in 4 hours and brought them back again to the temple without such assistance; in 1907, when 75,000 pilgrims attended the ceremony, the journey was performed in 4.5 hours.

            The Kerala Coir Corporation provides these specially manufactured coconut fibre ropes. Iron nails, brackets, clamps, etc. used for this purpose are indigenously prepared by the native smiths near the  Dolavedi and it takes them more than a month. The Rath's superstructure (above the wheels) contains eighteen pillars and roofs at various stages which are known as bhuin, potala, parabhadi, etc. There are 34 components of the chariot. Each chariot contains nine parswadevatas (subsidiary deities), two dwarapalas (door keepers), one sarathi (charioteer) and one presiding deity of the crest banner (dhwaja devata), all made of wood.