The Juggernaut's Heart

An adventure for Calcutta PCs, working for the Great Detective Chatterjee.

Krishna’s heart stolen from the Jagannath Temple in Puri.

A palm-sized anti-sapphire. Preserved inside the wooden idol of Jagannath, in the temple’s inner sanctum.

Fell from the sky thousands of years ago - shrapnel from an alien war taking place in near-earth orbit. Burns. Vibrates. Supplies instant moksha - liberation from the cycle of samsara. Should be carried with a blindfold and thick gloves.

Said to be left over when Krishna was cremated - or a fragment of the sleeping deity Narayana, worshipped by the Sabar forest tribes centuries ago. Alien colour - can only be described as “not blue”.

You’re approached by Govinda, a humble priest. Sweeper of temple floors. Certain the heart has gone missing, and the Jagannath Temple has been desanctified.

Normally the temple casts no shadow. The flag on the highest tower, which has to be changed by climbers every day, blows in the opposite direction to the wind. Birds and airplanes can’t fly over it.

But it lost its magic powers when Krishna’s heart was stolen. Now it’s just another mundane building, obeying nature’s laws.

Govinda is not allowed into the idol chamber. Has never seen the heart, and can’t prove it’s even real. Also can’t prove that anything has really changed about Jagannath Temple. Still wants your help.

The idols are barred from public view in the days leading up to the Ratha Yatra chariot festival. Which is set to happen soon.

Right now they can only be accessed through the priests’ door in the temple kitchen. Largest in the world. Full of bustling dhoti-clad holy servants, cooking rice and vegetable curry in clay pots for ten thousand pilgrims every day.

Balaram, chief priest of the temple, brought Jagannath his breakfast. Took out Krishna’s heart - badly burning his fingers on the jewel’s incandescent surface. Hid it in a curry pot.

Marked the pot with red paint. Sent it out to be sold in the Anand Bazaar, in the northeast corner of the temple complex. The other priests are jealous of his power - they keep an eye on him. So he couldn’t just walk out with it.

The marked pot was bought by Ghosh. A fakir, and leader of a small troupe of travelling performers. Fire-eaters. Jugglers. Sword swallowers. Guys who lie on beds of nails.

He’s blackmailing Balaram. Caught him by the river with a dancing boy.

Took the heart out of the pot. Wrapped it in a hessian sack. Sold it to Mirra Alfassa, the well-known occultist and yogi, who runs the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry with an iron fist.

Balaram caught a glimpse of the heart. In all its naked glory.

Now tormented by visions. Flying towards a cosmic horizon. Rainbow-winged entity of pure light. Pursued by a shadowy demon whose talons snatch at his heels. Slowly losing ground.

Ghosh saw it, too.

Stays up late. Smokes opium. Wanders the streets, looking for God. Friends are starting to worry. His girlfriend Samaira, an expert knife thrower, wants him to buy her a new gold nose ring with the money they got paid for the job.

Keeps talking about rejecting all earthly attachments.

Has lost interest in food, music and sex. Cries like a baby in his sleep. Begs for mercy from someone called Choronzon. Kicks and claws the air like he’s fighting something off.

Ramchandra Devi IV is the last of the Gajapati rajas.

Got stewardship of the Jagannath Temple as compensation from the British when they took Orissa from his family in 1804. Sprawling white mansion across the road from the temple. Vegetarian restaurant on the ground floor. Serves Bengali pilgrims. A few Western truth seekers, picking at the rice.

Role in the Ratha Yatra festival is to sweep the streets in front of the forty-foot-tall chariots, with a golden broom, and sprinkle the dust with fragrant water. A reminder that even kings are humble before the gods.

Hates this. Wants revenge. Got in touch with Alfassa and offered to sell her Krishna’s heart. Knows Ghosh from the Turf Club in Calcutta - they’re old gambling buddies. Whole scheme was his idea.

Has never seen the heart himself.

During the festival, Ghosh will try to throw himself under the wheels of Jagannath’s chariot. A few days later, Balaram will walk into one of the big temple ovens and burn himself alive. This will horrify Devi. Lean on him a little - he’ll confess everything. Beg you to undo his mistake.

Mirra Alfassa’s disciples know her as The Mother.

Born in Paris to a family of rich Turkish Sephardic Jews. Joined Max Theon’s Cosmic Movement in Tlemcen in 1905. Performed a ritual to contact God in the Algerian desert, with Victor Neuberg and Aleister Crowley, in 1909.

Accidentally summoned the demon Choronzon, who exists to guard the abyss between humanity and true spiritual enlightenment. Crowley and Neuburg fled in terror. Alfassa stood her ground. Managed to dispel him and rob him of a few minor secrets.

Met Sri Aurobindo in Pondicherry in 1920. Joined his yogic cult and eventually took it over. Aurobindo has not been seen in the last few years, except for brief glimpses from a balcony. Using Alfassa’s spells, he directly contacted an entity he describes as “the Supermind”, and has become enlightened / insane.

On her command the cult built a geodesic dome - a form directly injected by aliens into the human mind - on a property a few miles outside town. Made from golden tiles. She got the idea from Buckminster Fuller, American futurist, who first saw the dome in a mystic vision while contemplating suicide on Lake Michigan’s shore.

Small wooden model domes decorate the cult compound.

Cluster of white houses in central Pondicherry, round a shady courtyard. Laundry. Bakery. Yoga room. Visitor’s centre. Swimming pool - open to the public. Ordinary families splashing around.

Friendly cultists will give you a tour.

A French engineer. A Czech psychiatrist who worships Jung. A friendly Japanese guy who doesn’t speak a word of any other language. A renegade lieutenant from the Chinese civil war.

A stiff-kneed Algerian with trouble sitting down. Bengalis tired of politics. Delhi civil servants. Burnt-out bright young things who partied too hard for too long in London and New York.

Alfassa’s bodyguard is Somnath Pratahari. Bald. Muscular. Huge beard. Swastika tattoo. Hindutva devotee. Liberated from a Colombo jail. Was serving a short sentence for beating up a Buddhist who insulted a cow. You might find him in the yoga room, guiding the other cultists in a session.

They all seem at peace. They love The Mother. The Mother knows The Truth and The Truth must be obeyed.

A clearing in the forest.

A geodesic dome. Not large. Not the only one on the cult’s rural property. Circles drawn around it in the reddish-orange dirt.

Humped white cattle grazing on the lawn. Wearing necklaces. Painted with mystic slogans in Sanskrit and John Dee’s Enochian alphabet. Won’t cross the circle. Perambulate counter-clockwise around the dome.

One of them is dead. Gutted. Vultures tear strips off its flesh. Bones in the dirt. Places where other carcasses have been left in place to rot.

A cool space inside the dome.

Alfassa’s volunteers sit on blankets. Babble in angel languages. Warble to each other. Voices like the chime of bells. Reject food. Eat only nectar. Turn away from mirrors. Silk spews from their mouths.

Three fat cocoons, her prizes, gleam with opalescent light. One has been ripped open. Somnath will come by in the afternoon to remove the corpse.

The bovine wards are intended to repel Choronzon. But they’re not strong enough. She needs to distract him. Lure his attention away from her experiments. Stop him killing all her children before they emerge from their cocoons.

She’s come to believe that humanity is the larval stage of a higher spiritual form. Cruelly denied our birthright through the opportunistic predation of demonic entities. Like hatching baby turtles - eaten alive before they can make it to the sea.

Jagannath’s heart accelerates the process. Kept on her person at all times. Carefully wrapped up.

Enochian tattoos around her neck and wrists. Cultists would die for her. Knows a handful of magic spells - can banish your soul from your body, with difficulty, and throw an unconvincing fireball. Carries a gun.