The terrible stories of pilgrims crushed to death in the god's honour have made the phrase "Car of Juggernaut" synonymous with the merciless sacrifice of human lives, but these have been shown to be baseless calumnies. The worship of Vishnu is innocent of all bloody rites, and a drop of blood even accidentally spilt in the god's presence is held to pollute the officiating priests, the people, and the consecrated food. The Car festival takes place in June or July, and the feature of its celebration is the drawing of the god from the temple to his "country-house," a distance of less than a mile. The car is 45 ft. in height and 35 ft. square, and is supported on 16 wheels of 7 ft. in diameter. Vishnu's brother and sister have separate cars, slightly smaller. To these cars ropes are attached, and thousands of eager pilgrims vie with each other to have the honour of dragging the god. Though the distance is so short the journey lasts several days, owing to the deep sand in which the wheels sink. During the festival serious accidents have often happened. Sir W. W. Hunter in the _Gazetteer of India_ writes: "In a closely packed, eager throng of a hundred thousand men and women under the blazing tropical sun, deaths must occasionally occur. There have doubtless been instances of pilgrims throwing themselves under the wheels in a frenzy of religious excitement, but such instances have always been rare, and are now unknown. The few suicides that did occur were, for the most part, cases of diseased and miserable objects who took this means to put themselves out of pain. The official returns now place this beyond doubt. Nothing could be more opposed to the spirit of Vishnu-worship than self-immolation. Accidental death within the temple renders the whole place unclean. According to Chaitanya, the apostle of Jagannath, the destruction of the least of God's creatures is a sin against the Creator." See also Sir W. W. Hunter's _Orissa_ (1872); and _District Gazetteer of Puri_ (1908). JUGGLER (Lat. _joculator_, jester), in the modern sense a performer of sleight-of-hand tricks and dexterous feats of skill in tossing balls, plates, knives, &c. The term is practically synonymous with conjurer (see CONJURING). The _joculatores_ were the mimes of the middle ages (see DRAMA); the French use of the word _jongleurs_ (an erroneous form of _jougleur_) included the singers known as _trouvères_; and the humbler English minstrels of the same type gradually passed into the strolling jugglers, from whose exhibitions the term came to cover loosely any acrobatic, pantomimic and sleight-of-hand performances. In ancient Rome various names were given to what we call jugglers, e.g. _ventilatores_ (knife-throwers), and _pilarii_ (ball-players).