A town on the S. coast of Orissa, in Bengal; one of the holy places of India, with a temple dedicated to Vishnu, and containing an idol of him called Jagannatha (or the Lord of the World), which, in festival times, attracts thousands of pilgrims to worship at its shrine, on one of which occasions the idol is dragged forth in a ponderous car by the pilgrims and back again, under the wheels of which, till prohibited, multitudes would throw themselves to be crushed to death in the hope of thereby attaining a state of eternal beatitude.