It is not by chance, that on the prakara of the Jagannatha temple Narasimha is full is depicted. He plays a dominant role in the Jagannatha cult. He is praised as the defensor of the wooden figure, who will terribly punish the wrong body languishing at them. He is the presiohing deity of the whole temple complex. According to tradition the Narasimha temple is the oldest temple within the compound. But I think the most striking proof for the fact that Jagannatha originally represented Narasimha is the fact that during the Nabakalebara festival the pratistha mantra given to the Jagannatha figure do not pertain to Visnu or to Krusna but to Narasimha. Such a ritual as the Nabakalebara, which is only seldom performed naturally tends to be most conservative.

The typology of Hinduisation of wooden symbols gave parallels ane explantions for the figures of Sudarsan, Subhadra and Jagannatha-Narasimha. It seems that Jagannatha-Narasimha and a Hinduised female deity of that type worshipped in western Orissa since the fifth century were the original couple. The main features the Vaishnava god and the Hinduised mother goddess as we have seen who sits very well in the tantric ........ of Orissa. Moreover, this ........ could well be identical with Laksmi-Narasimha, as the worship of this couple is very popular in Orissa. Up to late medieval times Subhadra has been iedntified with lakshmi and despite the fact that she was by then firmly believed to be the sister of Jagannatha, she still is referred to as his wife as well.

No parallel to the figure of Balabhadra could be found within the typology of Hinduisation. It would seem, that his figure and personality is a late addition, no more of tribal origin. And this seems all the more probably if we cast one final glance at the later iconological development of the trinity.

The oldest known representation of Jagannatha is a relief on the Konark Temple, dated about 1250. It shows the constructor of the Sun Temple, adoring a Sivalinga , an archaic representative of Jagannatha-Purusottam, and Durga-Mahisamardini, as H. Kulka has pointed out, this trinity represents exactly those three deities usually worshipped by a king on the sub-regional level: Siva, and Durga and in addition another deity or tribal origin the traditional deity of the tribals, which the king had to acknowledge in order to secure the support of his tribal subjects. According to Kuchi the Konark trinity has been iconologically identified with the vaisnava trinity of Krsna, his brother Balarama and their sister Ekamansa, as they are shown within the ......... Vasudev temple at Khubamswar, which is a sort of dependence of the Puri temple built in 1278. As we have seen the Puri gods of today still bear features of the three deities shown at Konark. Looking for instance at the parsra devatas of the cars only those of Jagannatha are consistently Vaishnava, those of Subhadra show mainly Durga images and those of Balabhadra are mainly Shaiva. When Purusottam was more and more identified with Krsna his elder brother Balarama, who was already worshipped in Puri, had to accompany him. Balabhara iconologically took up SHaiva features, iconographically he borrowed from both the Hinduized figures already established, he has assumes as Jagannatha has, but his head is of the same type than that of Subhadra. The development of Subhadra from the wife or shakti or Purusottama-Jagannatha to his sister was clearly a consequence of the Krishnaization and of the introduction of Balabhadra. Because up to that very day in Orissa it is a strict taboo for the wife a younger brother to appear in the presence of her older brother in law. Thus Subhadra was regarded as the sister of Jagannatha still retaining some of her original features.

The present Jagannatha trinity is the result of two different development superimposed: the Hinduisation of tribal cults and a further iconological development within Hinduism. We saw that the first process, was greatly influenced by Yayati Kesari who by the construction of the first temple and the institution of Daita, and Brahmins raised the cult to subregional importance. The second development, the Krishnaization most probably began to be decisive under Anangabhima III. His inscriptions show the change. In 1225 he still refers to that old trinity, which his son once more depicted in Konark, by naming himself Durgaputra, Rudraputra and Purusottamaputra. But in 1236 he for the first time (?) praises the Krishna trinity, namely Halin, Cakrin and Subhadra. As Kulke has shown in the inscriptions of Anangabhima from 1230 onwards Purosottama is made the real king of Orissa and this is shown by the new conception of the trinity where the deities representing the other subregions have become subordinate or dependent on him. And this conception enabled the Jagannatha cult to become the centre of regional tradition.