Hiuen-Tsang’s Accounts of Orissa: The Chinese pilgrim Hiuen-Tsang (Yuan Chiang or Xuanzang ) visited Orissa in 639 A.D. He proceeded from Karna-Suvarna, the capital of Gauda in the southwest direction and covering a distance of 140 miles reached WU-Cha or Odra. His accounts clearly say that Orissa or Kalinga was then divided into three separate kingdoms such as Wu-cha (Odra), Kong-yu-To (Kongoda) and Ki-ling-ka (Kalinga). From his accounts it is also clear that Andhra and Kosala were two distinct neighbouring kingdoms. It is further known from his accounts that Midnapore was then a part of Orissa. The coastal regions of Orissa consisting the modern districts of Midnapore (Bengal) Balasore, Cuttack and a part of Puri district remained under the suzerainty of Harsavardhan. Harsavardhan appointed a military Governor from Datta family to administer this country. About the people of Odra country the pilgrim says that they were tall .and yellowish-black in complexion. The present...
Kalinga under the Chedi Dynasty Kharavela: The history of Kalinga following the decline of Mauryan supremacy is obscure and yet to be known exactly when Kalinga regained her independence. The Hatigumpha inscription in Udayagiri near Bhubaneswar records, the achievement of a mighty ruler of Kalinga named Kharavela. Who belonged to the Mahameghahahan family of the Chedi class. The Chedis were originally ruling is Madhaydesha or Magadha and it has been suggested that a branch of this royal family of the hoary antiquity came to Kalinga and established it power over Kalinga. There is no information readily available to say as to when did they migrate to Kalinga but from the Hatigumpha inscription it becomes apparent that Kharavela was the third member of the Chedi family of Kalinga. The date of the reign of Kharavela is highly controversial one. Some scholars put this date in the 2nd Century B.C. and some others in the 1st Century B.C. Other group of scholars drags him down to the 1st...
Causes of Decline of Orissa: Rise and fall of ruling dynasties are the logic of history. The fall of the mighty empire of Orissa was not an escape to it. The Hindu kingdom maintained its independence up to 1568 when northern parts of India including Bengal and Bihar went to the grip of Turkish invaders. Prof. R.D. Banerjee attributes that the long stay of the Vaishnava saint Sri Chaitanya in Orissa is the main cause of the decline of Medieval Orissa. The saint destroyed the structural pattern of the society of Orissa introducing a train of false faith in men. Sri Chatanya alone should not be blamed for this decline because of the fact that Oriyas of the sixteenth century did not accept the teachings of Sri Chaitanya blindly. From the inscription it is clear that the king and the people of Orissa had already accepted the Sahajiya (Easy) form of Vaisnavism of the Gitagovinda prior to the coming of Sri Chaitanya to Orissa. It is thus not proper to say that the teachings of Sri Chai...