TO ITS earliest European witnesses the main festival of the cult of Jagannath, in the city of Puri in eastern India, was simply a bloodbath. On a huge cart with 16 wheels the black-faced god, a mere stump of wood with round, staring eyes, was rolled through the main avenue while fanatical devotees cast themselves before it, hoping to free themselves from rebirth by being crushed alive. From this scene came the English word juggernaut, an implacable and monstrous machine that, once set in motion, cannot be stopped.

To Sashimani Devi, however, the god was not like that. The Lord Jagannath she knew, a form of Vishnu, treated everyone equally, whether king or peasant girl like herself. He was also merciful, and when the temple lights were dimmed and his white eyes shone from the inner sanctum, only his face visible, she knew he heard her. For, after all, he was her husband.

She was brought to his temple at the age of three, so young that she could not recall her parents’ faces or their names. She was given to a devadasi, a dancer committed to the god for life, to be trained as one herself. At seven or eight she was married to Lord Jagannath, putting on the new red sari he gave her to show that she would never go with anyone else. She also wore, to the end of her days, a vermilion spot on her forehead and copious red bangles on her arms. “I’m his wife,” she would proudly declare. “There’s no dispute about it.”  

As husbands went, he was not demanding. Each day she would rise early, bathe and go to the vast temple complex, where on the highest spire Lord Jagannath’s red pennants flew to show he was inside. There he was, her wooden spouse, freshly dressed and decked in flowers, on a high jewelled platform beside his sibling gods. She would arrive as his breakfast was served to him of coconut, sweets and ripe bananas, and afterwards she danced in the main hall for the visitors. Until she was almost 50 she did this: small and plain, with a slightly hunched back, but displaying such delight that she outshone all the rest.

A diet of sweets

Each day revolved round food, since Lord Jagannath had apparently come to Puri, aeons before, specifically to dine. From the temple kitchen, reputed to be the largest in the world, came an endless procession of clay pots containing dal, curries, rice, cakes and sweets—especially the last, for Lord Jagannath had a sweet tooth, and ate almost nothing else for his lunch at noon, the main meal of six that were served to him. Once offered to the god, the holy prasad was taken away to be sold to pilgrims in the Anand Bazar or the Pleasure Mart, and here Sashimani too, thin as a bird, would squat with her bowl for leftovers.

Her other principal task was to help her husband go to sleep. At 11.30, when he had been dressed for the night and his couch laid out, she would dance to the veenaand sing for him the “Gita Govinda”, concerning the love of Krishna and the cow-herd Radha, or the longing of the soul for God. She sang well into her 80s, until a rampaging bull broke her ankles and she could no longer get to the temple. When Lord Jagannath was asleep she would tell the temple gatekeeper, and he would close the doors behind her as she left.

Despite her title, she did not perform more intimate tasks for Lord Jagannath. The sanctum was not her place. It was male priests or servants who brushed his teeth, draped him in flowers and changed his robes. She knew, too, that he had other wives, both powerful and jealous: a Tantric wife, the goddess Vimala, who had to be offered his food too; and a divine consort, Mahalakshmi, who supervised the kitchen and would not readmit Lord Jagannath to the temple, after his chariot ride, unless he gave her a dish of rasgulla, or cottage-cheese dumplings in syrup. But as his human wife, only Sashimani could fast and weep for him when, every 12 years or so, his stump-body was replaced and she became, technically, a widow, shaving her head and leaving off her jewels. She wept copiously every time even though, as a god’s wife, she was serenely free from widowhood in earthly life.

Charity kept the god’s last wife going; that, and a tiny state pension of around $16 a month. Whether she was exploited was a harder question. The devadasi system, which had flourished for centuries, was decaying even as she married Lord Jagannath around 1930. There were 25 devadasis at Puri in 1915; now there are none. In many smaller temples marriage to some god was merely a way of selling girls into prostitution under the figleaf of religion. The devadasis of Puri, by contrast, were respected as maharis, women who had heroically suppressed their five senses. Nonetheless, independent India abominated the practice, and with good reason. In 1988 it was banned everywhere, though in rural, overlooked patches it survives.

Sashimani was well aware of the problem. Sometimes perfect strangers would bow and touch her painted feet; she was in demand at weddings, to give beads from her necklace to new brides. Others treated her as evil, quickly washing themselves after she had passed. Her only argument against them was that she and Lord Jagannath were joined by the thread of eternal—really eternal—love. And then she would bob her head, spread her dancer’s hands and flash her teasing, joyous smile.