garuda

Forest Hill & Sydenham Examiner - Friday 04 December 1896 has an article by H Kirton Bland which begins

THROUGH "THE HORNIMAN MUSEUM." (BY A VISITOR.)
No. XIV. completed the "First Indian and Ceylon Room" in my article last week, I now enter THE SECOND INDIAN AND CEYLON ROOM and I must confess that, to my mind, this carries off the palm so far as the Indian sections go.

and later in the article comes to the Juggernaut

Particular attention should be paid to the panel from the Juggernant car of India. It is carved in teak, and represents the god Vishnu and his Sabite or female form, Lakshmi, riding on the watery principle of nature—the alligator, etc. It is 14 inches high by 10 inches wide. The whole is a very fine specimen of ancient Indian deep carving.

To the famous car of which this once formed a part there is a rather interesting history. At Juggernaut there is a Pagoda, the first object of Hindu veneration and it is attended by about 500 priests. The number of pilgrims that used to visit this temple was not less than 1,000,000 annually, of whom a great number never returned; and to the distance of so miles the way it is said was strewd with human bones. The excess of fanaticism which formerly prompted the pilgrims to court death by throwing themselves under the wheels of the Juggernaut car has happily now ceased to actuate the worshippers of this idol.

From - www.horniman.ac.uk/object/376/

"Carved wooden panel from a Juggernaut car, depicting Vishnu mounted on Garuda, with Garuda kneeling on a crocodile, from whose mouth issues an elephant. Vishnu carries a conch (shanka) in his left upper hand and a wheel (chakra) in the upper right. The lower left hand has a palm facing out, pointing downwards (varada mudra); the lower right hand has the palm facing out and pointing upwards (abhaya mudra). To either side of the Vishnu figure are three wing-like projections. There is an inscription in an Indian script on the reverse, which appears to read 'Jagannath', according to Dagmar Pospisilova."

We've just posted another photo of an Irish Olympian to celebrate Ireland's most successful games ever!

John Spooner beachcomber australia Thank you both. The Horniman Museum say before 1899. The newspaper article is from 1896. Our photographic print above has 1895 written on it. Would imagine it's centuries older?

Probably not possible to ascertain how old, but would we have any chance of finding out where it came from originally? Asia on the museum site spreads rather a wide net...

The illustration page and stuck-on note appear to be from the Horniman Museum Fifth Annual Report of 1895 -
www.horniman.ac.uk/object/ARC/HMG/GOV/003/1895/
- which is not all online, but the bottom right of this page (15) has the relevant mention of the juggernaut -
www.horniman.ac.uk/media-collection/186/811/large_ARC_HMG...

Edit: the same page references 'The Irish Wishing Chair' - catalogue.nli.ie/Record/vtls000742844
and a 1682 'Old English Violin' - catalogue.nli.ie/Record/vtls000745848

Flying as Garuda Indonesian Airways Flight #892, unfortunately this exact aircraft would crash just five years later, killing all on board on a flight segment between Mumbai and Karachi. The cause was never officially found, though misfueling in Mumbai is suspected.