Chari Kshetra
Chari Kshetra (literally four holy regions) is a group of four holy regions in Odisha. According to tradition, when Vishnu killed the demon Gayasura, to commemorate the glory of his victory, he placed his shankha (conch) in Puri, chakra (discus) in Bhubaneswar, gada (mace) in Jajpur and padma (lotus) in Konark and they were known as Sankha Kshetra, Chakra Kshetra, Gada Kshetra and Padma Kshetra respectively. Sankha Kshetra In the Sacred Geography of Puri : Structure and Organisation and Cultural Role of a Pilgrim Centre, Nityanand Patnaik has detailed the following structure of the Puri centre: The first zone is in the form of the archetypal circle within which the modem wooden icons are represented standing on the Lion throne. In the words of the Visrttt Reliasya of the Brahma Purana "In the centre of the seven enclosures, in the cave of the Blue Mountain there is an abode . . . full of “consciousness". The text explains that inside "the three innermost circuits, Vishnu, the highest Purusa, is present in the wooden form. The second circuit is in the shape of a hexagon. In the six angles are depicted four goddesses: Durga-VimaIa, Kamala-Laksmi, Uttara Durga and Batamangala, together with