Therefore, if we want to throw some light on the tribal background and origins of the Jagannatha cult, we must look for other instances of ritual and iconographic iconologic Hinduisations on different levels.

I do not want to enter in a lengthy discussion of the concepts of Sanscritization, Brahmanizaiton etc. but it is obvious that Hinduism like any other great religion(?) has different levels, the high religion (Horchreligion) and the popular religion. And the popular religion is of particular importance as Hinduism not only is inclusive by its nature, but this inclusiveness still, has to operate, tribes and tribal religions being gradually Hinduised up to the present day, a process which in other religions has been since long closed, and which naturally first of all operates on the level of the popular religion, that is the village. But the popular or local religion, which in anthropological literature has been called 'little tradition' is not confronted directly to the Sanskritic and brahmanic 'great tradition'. The link between both is the regional tradition, is that tradition of those temples and pilgrims centres which like the Jagannath temple are acknowledged all over India as true centres of Hinduism but at the same time are centres of specific regional features, not to be found elsewhere. These features are not mere provincilisms but authoritative rules desacara for all people living within this religion, which are all the more important as Hinduism has no authoritative central organisation. But as a closer examination showed, also the regional tradition does not immediately meet with the local one. Just as the different regional traditions are part and parcel of the all India great tradition, the regional great tradition is again nurtured by the tradition of different areas like Western, or Southern, or coastal Orissa. One focus of these 'subregional traditions' is the local one, the village shrine, the other one the temple, which has more than local importance, being a centre of the smaller or subregion. The village again, where tribe and castes meet is the centre of local tradition or popular religion, i.e. that sphere, where Hinduisation starts. Hinduisation is a two fold process denoting the incorporation of tribal and popular elements into Hinduism as well as the incorporation of Hindu elements into a purely tribal religion. The Jagannatha cult is the centre of the regional tradition of Orissa, but it did not always have this central position. It must have developed from a local to a subregional centre, until it defeated other similar centres like Jajpur and the Saiva temple city Bhubaneswar, and became the dominant centre of the region. By comparison with other such processes, which naturally only attained the level of subregional centres, it is perhaps possible to throw more ligh ton this process and its different steps.

As we have seen the first thing to be introduced at the very beginning of Hinduisation is the simplest form of Puja. This Hindu ritual as well as its organisation will become more sacrifice and more elaborated and the cult has reached the temple level. For the original, tribal priests there are on this stage two possibilities. They may remain the only leading priest class and accordingly raise in status. For instance on the Narasimhanath temple they might be know as a special class of Brahmins, called Vana-Brahmans, whose Khonel origin is still remembered. Or else the original priest may collaborate with real brahmins and become a special class of non-brahmanic priests within a complex ritual organisation. This is the case in the Jagannatha temple. There we have a special class of priests attached to the temple, called Daitas (from Sanskrit daitya 'son of the demon Diti'), who claim to be of tribal origin, actually descendants of that first worshipper of Nilamadhava-Jagannatha, Visvavasu, and are called 'relatives' of Jagannatha. Moreover the Jagannatha cult, though in general displaying the greatest of great tradition, includes one special ritual which is as unique as Jagannatha's appearance because it is intimately linked with it. As the wooden figures are prone to decay they are periodically renewed in a great festival called Nabakalebara which is mainly performed by the Daitas. During my field work in Orissa I was happy enough to find and once ever to witnessed myself the prototype of this ritual which is widely celebrated all over Western Orissa in the merely tribal as well as an different level of Hinduisation.

The last Puri Nabakalebara occurred in 1963. It was witnessed by my colleague Dr. Tripathy. It is to his study that I refer in the following comparison of the Nabakalebara ritual with its tribal prototype.