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WORKS BY THE SAME A UTHOR.
THE ANNALS OF RURAL BEN GAL.
VOLUME I. 4th Ed.
THE ETHNICAL FRONTIER.
CHAPTER I. Introduction. CHAPTER II. State of the Country when it passéd under
British Rule. CHAPTER III. Ethnical Elements of the Lowland Population of Bengal.
CHAPTER IV. The Aboriginal Hill-Men. CHAPTER V. The Company's First Attempts
at Rural Administration. CHAPTER VI. The Company as a Rural Manufacturer.
CHAPTER VII. Conclusion.—APPENDICES: Bengal in 1772, portrayed by Warren Hastings; .
The Great Famine of 1770 described by Eye-witnesses; Family Chronicles; Santáli Gram-
mar; Administrative Statistics, etc. -
THE INDIAN MUS AL MANS:
BEING A SKETCH OF THE MUHAMMADAN REVIVAL,
WITH A CHAPTER ON THE REQUIREMENTS AND SOCIAL HISTORY OF
THE INDIAN MUSALMANS UNDER BRITISH RULE.
Second Edition. 10s. 6d.
A DICTIONARY OF THE NON-ARYAN LANGUAGES OF
INDIA AND HIGH ASIA:
BEING A GLOSSARY OF
A HUNDRED AND THIRTY-NINE LANGUAGES,
BASED UPON THE HODGSON PAPERS, OFFICIAL RECORDS AND MSS.
M DISSERTATION ON THE NON-ARYAN RACES OF INDIA,
(TAKEN FROM THE MON-AAEYAN DICTIONARY)
O R IS S A :
OR THE VICISSITUDES OF AN INDIAN PROVINCE
UNDER NATIVE AND BRITISH RULE:
I N T W O V O Z U M E.S.
BEING THE SECOND AND THIRD VOLUMES OF
THE ANNALS OF RURAL BENGAL.
NOW, AND FOR US, IT IS A TIME TO HELLENIZE, AND TO PRAISE KNOW-
ING ; FOR WE HAVE HEBRAIZED TOO MUCH, AND HAVE OVER-VALUED DOING.
BUT THE HABITS AND DISCIPLINE RECEIVED FROM HEBRAISM REMAIN FOR
OUR RACE AN ETERNAL POSSESSION ; AND, AS HUMANITY IS CONSTITUTED,
ONE MUST NEVER ASSIGN THEM THE SECOND RANK TO-DAY, WITHOUT BEING
READY TO RESTORE THEM TO THE FIRST RANK TO-MORROW.
~----
-|-
ſaeaeae aevo，ſae.----·|-
seniens Krennau L e un uſJCIVNy Hºw W ºſſº dº SSVd. “In Waeſſa AHL




O R | S S A :
:
:
BY
s', Nº
st, WA. W.' H U N T E R.
V O L U M E I.
L O N DO N :
SMITH, ELDER & CO., 15, WATERLOO PLACE.
1872. -
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.]
:
|
;.
TO MY MOTHER
I DEDICATE THIS Book.
362992
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
=º-
VOL. I.
PAGE
I. MAP, . . g tº . o C º Engraved on Steel, and tinted.
II. Frontispiece—Os the MAHANApi, . In Colozzrs.
III. SouthERN END of CHILKA Lake, . Woodcut, e o I8
IV. THE CHILKA LAKE, ". º e o Woodcut, e º 27
V. TeMPLE OF JAGANNath, Elevation, O On Copper, e e 8I
VI. GROUND PLAN of PURí TEMPLE, . © On Copper, e º I29
VII. AN ILLUMINATED PALM-LEAF MS., º On Copper, ge º I68
VIII. SERPENT CAVE AND ROCK CELLS, e On Copper, . o 178
IX. TIGER CAVE, BUDDHIST, . o © On Copper, e º I81
X. ANCIENT FIGURES IN BOOTS AND GREAVES, On Copper, e º 183
XI. TWO-CELLED BUDDHIST CAVE, . º On Copper, & º 184
XII. THE ORISSA HELEN, a Rock-Monastery Frieze, On Copper, e . 186
XIII. GANESH-GARBHA CAVE, . o º On Copper, º e 189
XIV. BUDDHIST ROCK ELEPHANT, © º On Copper, tº º 23O
XV. THE TEMPLE CITY OF SIVA, º º On Steel, º º 233
XVI. THE HINDU ARCH, . e e © Woodcut, º º 277
XVII. AN ORISSA SUN PILLAR, . te º On Copper, º © 29O
VOL. II.
FRONTISPIECE.—THE Man'sapí AT CATTACK, On Steel.
ER RATA.
Several errors, not the fault of the Printer, have crept into this work, which was for the most part
printed at home while the author was in India. These I hope to have the opportunity of removing
in a second edition. Meanwhile, as the following omission and misprint introduce confusion into the
calculations to which they respectively belong, they may be corrected by the reader.
5o,ooo..}< 7 × 24 × 60 × 6o - -
Vol. I. p. 72. In footnote ro5, read º 528o X 528o X 450 = 2.4 cubic feet, or allowing for
the gradual rise of the lake to its maximum area of 450 square miles, say three cubic feet.
Vol. II. App. II. p. 56, line 35—for 1864, read 1804.
*
C O N T E N T S.
—Q-
VOLUME I.
CHAP. PAGE
I. Introduction, . . º º © e º e 3–16
II. The Chilká Lake, . © © g © tº 17–8o
III. Jagannāth, e © • e 81–136
IV. The Pilgrims of Jagannāth, . tº o e 137-167
V. Orissa under Native Rule (3101 B.C. to 1532 A.D.), . I68–330
VOLUME II.
VI. Orissa under Foreign Governors, Mughul and Marhatta
(1568–1803), º e e e © o I-35
VII. The English as Settlers and Governors in Orissa (1635–
1871), . tº • * © ... 36–173
VIII. The Calamities of Orissa : Floods and Famines, . . 174–200
IX. The Village System, and Growth of Private Rights in the
Soil, ſº - o e . . 201 ad finem.
A PP E N DIC E S :
BEING A STATISTICAL ACCOUNT OF ORISSA,
DISTRICT BY DISTRICT.
APP. -
I. Statistical Account of Purſ District, . e º e I-3o
II. Statistical Account of Balasor District, e - . 31–70
III. Statistical Account of the 19 Tributary States, - e 7I-94
IV. Statistical Account of Cattack District, . • , . 95–160
V. Geological Account of Orissa, © * º . 161–174
VI. Specimens of Orissa Flora, . º de © . 175–182
VII. Chronicle of the Orissa Kings, 3101 B.C. to 1871 A.D., . 183–192
VIII. Muhammadan Orissa History, as told by the Persian
Annalists, o e º º e . 193–198
IX. Vernacular Literature of Orissa, being an Analytical
Catalogue of Ioy Uriya Writers, and 47 MSS. of un-
determined Authorship, º Q . I99–21O
INDEX, e e e o º e . 2 II ad finem.
To facilitate reference to the Original Records, certain letters are, when
necessary, appended to quotations from Manuscripts, indicating where the
Documents may be found. The following are the contractions used :—
G.R.—Records of the Ganjám District in Madras.
P.R.—Records of the Purí District in Orissa.
C.R.—Records of the Cattack District in Orissa.
B.R.—Records of the Balasor District in Orissa.
M.R.—Records of the Midnapur District in Bengal.
O.R.—Commissioner of Orissa's Records at Cattack.
S.P.-Survey Papers and Maps; Calcutta and District Offices.
I.R.—Records of the Irrigation Department; Calcutta and Madras.
B.G.—Bengal Government Records; Secretariat, Calcutta.
B.R.R.—Board of Revenue's Records; Calcutta.
P.W.D.—Records of Public Works Department; Calcutta.
P.I.R.—Records of Public Instruction; Midnapur and Calcutta.
H.D.—Records of Home Department of Government of India.
Where the Archives of Native Families are used, the source is suf-
ficiently indicated in the Text.
C H A P T E R I.
INTRODU CTION.
HIS book endeavours to delineate the inner life of
an Indian Province. It tries to bring home to
the imagination and the understanding of Englishmen, a
state of society and forms of human existence far re-
moved from their own. The narrative is embellished
by no splendid historical characters, nor does it possess
the interest which belongs to striking crimes. To the
world's call-roll of heroes it will add not one name. … The
people of whom it treats have fought no great battle for
human liberty, nor have they succeeded even in the
more primary task of subduing the forces of nature to
the control of man. To them the world stands indebted
for not a single discovery which augments the comforts
or mitigates the calamities of life. Even in literature—
the peculiar glory of the Indian race—they have won no
conspicuous triumph. They have written no famous epic;
they have struck out no separate school of philosophy;
they have elaborated no new system of law.
Yet if I have in any degree done justice to my
materials, these pages can well dispense with the plots
and scenic effects of history. Nature, long grown cold
and inert in Europe, here toils as wildly at her primeval
labour, as if the work of Creation still lay before her.

4. THE SUBJECTS OF THIS Book.
She discloses her ancient secrets of land-making, and
admits us as spectators to the miracle of the Third Day.
We see the dry earth in the act of standing forth from
the water, peering above the surface of once deep lakes,
and pushing itself out as blunt headlands into the sea.
Nor does she hide her more terrible aspect, destroying
and reproducing with an equal balance; wrenching great
rivers from their courses; and, by the same series of acts,
providing fresh land for a thousand new homesteads, and
perpetrating tragedies as appalling as the desolation of
the Palatinate. Within the single province of Orissa,
she has brought together, as in a great museum, speci-
mens of all her handicrafts, from the half-formed amphi-
bious region around the river-mouths, to the chaos of
primitive rock which walls out the seaboard from the
inner table-land.
Nor is the province less rich in organic remains.
Upon the delta, and among the mountains which rise
behind it, we come upon endless strata of races, dynas-
ties, and creeds, from the latest alluvial deposit of Ben-
galis, with their soft Hinduism, to the aboriginal peoples
and their hard angular faith. In Europe, the primeval
tribes have disappeared from the range of observation
into the twilight of hypothesis. Scholars stand like
Hamlet in the Elsinore Grave-yard, and see the bones
of forgotten nations thrown up at their feet. They muse
over the hollow skull, measure the facial angles, and
labour to reconstruct the lost speech. But the tongueless
jaw and empty socket yield to them much the same con-
clusion as they did to the moralizing Prince : that here has
been a fine revolution, if we had but the trick to know it.
Orissa exhibits a profusion of such primitive races, not
in a fossil state, but warm and breathing, living apart in
AZSTORICAZ ASPECT OF INDIAN CREEDS. 5
their own communities, amid a world of suggestive
types and links that have elsewhere disappeared. The
aboriginal peoples of India have, as it were, been hidden
away in hill-caves, until the great ethnical movements
subsided, beneath which they would otherwise have been
submerged. - -
I have dwelt at unusual length on the historical
aspects of the principal Indian creeds. For the history
of religion is, in India, the history of the people. The
ethnical revolutions which brought in new ruling races,
ceased in very ancient times; and, during the last 1500
years, the rise and fall of the Orissa dynasties have been
connected not with tribal movements, but with religious
reformations. Each new line of kings represents a new
era of worship and of spiritual belief. Its elevation to
power takes place amid the birth-throes of a fresh popular
creed; its decay is contemporaneous with the decline of
the national religion; and its fall is consummated amid
the extinction of the old rites and the coming in of new.
The reader may perhaps think that I have given too
frequent prominence to the religious side of Orissa
history. But I have done so, from a firm belief that it
forms the key to the right understanding of the people,
Throughout all Northern India, not less than on the
remote Orissa shore, dynastic revolutions and religiöus
reformations have for centuries gone hand in hand.
Buddhism and Hinduism, the Muhammadans and the
Sikhs, represent a conflict of creeds not less than a
struggle of races; and these same religious upheavals,
in the more temperate form which the British power
imposes alike on Kuka and Wahábi, remain one of the
great problems of Indian government at the present
day.
6 FSSEAVZZAZS OF AAVGZO-/AVD/AAW HZSZOA’Y.
For it is with the present rather than with the
past that this book has to do. The English found
India strewn with the wrecks of Asiatic despotisms;
and out of the drift-wood which the tempest threw up,
they had to build the fabric of a civilised government.
How these political Crusoes hewed their log into a sea-
worthy ship, is a story which touches the honour of
England to have one day truly written. Every year of
the past century has rendered the rulers more alive to
the inadequacies of their administration. Scarcely had
they put down armed violence and rapine,—a task which
no Native Power had permanently succeeded in, than
they found themselves confronted with a necessity for a
great apparatus of civil government, such as no Native
Power had ever attempted to supply. As property
accumulated, new and costly machinery had to be orga-
nized for protecting it; and as personal rights developed,
Courts had to be multiplied for ascertaining and enforcing
them. Government ceased to be what, during at least
two centuries, it had been in India, a mere engine for
raising revenue. And now that justice has been brought
very near to the people, new functions of government,
formerly unrealized, are pressing upon the conscience of
the rulers. Philosophers believed that they had found
the stationary type of human society in the arrested
mental activity and low physical tone of the Indian
races. But within the past twenty years, a vast system
of State Education has quickened the intellectual torpor
into new forms of life; and a costly sanitary organization
is battling in every Province with the endemics which
for ages preyed upon the public health. What were
once deemed direct visitations of God are now brought
under the control of man. Famines, floods, droughts,
AVCRAEASE/O COST OF GOVERAVMEAVZ. 7
and pestilence are no longer permitted to perform their
ancient function of checking the pressure of the popula-
tion on the soil; and Government has taken upon itself
to step in between its subjects and the ordinary dealings
of Providence. The isolation of each District, which
formerly intensified every local scarcity into a famine,
has been broken through. Railways, roads, and canals
have welded the severed Provinces of India into a homo-
geneous whole, mobilized the resources of each, and
increased the efficiency of the national harvest in a
greater degree than if we had suddenly doubled the
productiveness of the soil. During the past few years,
the scope and responsibilities of Government have still
further extended. It was reserved for the wise and
brave man whose loss England is at this moment de-
ploring, to grapple with the most terrible enemy of a
tropical empire; and, by a comprehensive scheme for the
control and the husbanding of the water supply, to re-
move death by starvation from among the ordinary risks
of Indian peasant life.
As Government became more effective, it grew
more costly. Each new function which it found itself
compelled to undertake has involved an additional out-
lay of money. Yet any attempt at unwonted taxation
among Asiatic races is beset with extreme peril; and
the Company early realized that one of the first fiscal
duties of its servants was the study of the people. No
sooner had it, in 1769, appointed English officers for the
rural administration of Bengal, than it issued an elabo-
rate circular to them, calling for a historical and statis-
tical account of the country. “The form of the ancient
constitution of the Province compared with the present;'
“an account of its possessors or rulers, the order of their
8 ATTEMPTS AT STATISTICAL SURVEY'S, 1769.
succession, and the peculiar customs or privileges which
they or their people have established or enjoyed;’ a
description of the land tenures, with a report on the com-
mercial capabilities of the country, and the best means of
developing its resources:" these were the points to be
taken up. But the daily pressure of administrative
work leaves the Indian officer small leisure or inclination
for such researches; and repeated injunctions from head-
quarters, while producing several isolated memoirs of
great value, failed to elicit any comprehensive result.
During the next forty years, the want of a statistical
survey made itself very keenly felt, and in 1807 the Com-
pany had no alternative but to organize special machinery
for the work.” The Governor-General himself laid out
the plan. He appointed an eminent scholar,” with an
efficient staff, to draw up ‘a topographical account of
each District, its history, antiquities, and climate. An
investigation of the inhabitants, their numbers, religious
sects, and material condition was to follow. The natural
productions of the country then pass under review ; its
fisheries, forests, and mines; with its crops, land-tenures, -
modes of tillage, facilities for irrigation, and safeguards
against floods. The list of subjects ends with an elabo-
rate enumeration of salient points connected with the
arts, manufactures, and commerce of Bengal.” The in-
structions were well conceived; no short-sighted haste
was allowed to cramp the operations; and the best man
was selected for the work. Yet the net result was, that,
1 Proceedings of the President and Select Committee, dated 16th Aug.
1769.
2 Court of Directors to Government at Fort-William, dated 7th Jan.
1807, with subsequent Proceedings of the Governor-General in Council.
* Dr. Buchanan.
4 Instructions of the Governor-General in Council, dated IIth Sept.
1807.
THE STATISTICAL SURVEY OF 1807–13. 9
after seven years, 430,000 were said to have been spent,
and not one page had been rendered available to the
Government or the public. A quarter of a century later,
nine District Accounts were disinterred from the mass
of papers left behind. There were, in fact, three defects
in the scheme, any one of which would amount to ship-
wreck in such an undertaking. In the first place, it was
not done upon a scale. No attempt seems to have been
made to estimate how much space could be profitably
allotted to each subject and District, or to calculate how
many volumes it is possible for a man to write, or for the
public to read, within the ordinary span of life. In the
second place, the materials already existing in a scattered
form were left unutilized, and the whole work was begun
over again for each District. The third defect arose
from the absence of any system for rendering the results
of the survey available, District by District, as they were
obtained. *
This costly failure discouraged further attempts on a
large scale. A period of isolated efforts followed,” and it
was not till 1855 that the Court of Directors again issued
instructions for anything like a Statistical Survey of India.
* These may be classed under two heads: (1) Works by private indivi-
duals more or less assisted by the Court of Directors; (2) Official or De-
partmental Papers. Among the former, the most valuable are Hamilton's
East India Gazetteer (1817 ? and 1828); Mr. Masson’s Investigations
(1834–37); H. H. Wilson's copious and scholarly works ; Bengal Guide
and Agra Gazetteer (1841–42); Thornton's Gazetteer (1854–57 and 1862);
Pharaoh's Gazetteer of Southern India (1855); Surgeon-Major Balfour's
Cyclopaedia of India (1856), with its elaborate supplements; Mr. M. Mar-
tin's Eastern India, based upon the Buchanan MSS. (1838); and a long list
of excellent memoirs scattered through the Journals of the Asiatic Societies.
Among Official Papers, those by the District Medical Officers (1837–50),
especially Dr. Taylor's Dacca and Dr. M'Cosh's Assam, deserve special
notice; also General Cunningham's Archaeological Works, with many excel-
lent reports by the Revenue Survey Department, and, in Northern India, by
the District Settlement Officers. -
WOL. II. A
IO A CENTURY OF ATTEMPTS (1769–1869).
Meanwhile, the necessity for such a survey had con-
stantly increased, and, about 1850, the Company en-
deavoured to have a comprehensive work drawn up, not
in India, but at home. The result was Mr. Thornton's
Gazetteer in four volumes, a marvel of patient research,
but unfortunately based upon materials, many of which
had become obsolete, and others absolutely misleading.”
Accordingly, in 1855, the Court addressed the Govern-
ment of India, with a view to supplementing the work by
local inquiries, such as might render it “a faithful register
of the state of the country as at present existing.' The
task proved, however, to be a much more difficult one
than had been anticipated. The next ten years yielded
no practical result; and the subordinate governments in
India, gradually diverging from the Court of Directors'
scheme, struck out new plans for themselves." In 1862
the Madras Government resolved upon a series of inde-
pendent works, which should exhibit that Presidency,
District by District, in minute detail.” Sir Richard
Temple inaugurated similar operations in the Central
Provinces, and more recently the local officers drew up
a set of statistical reports for a part of Eastern Bengal.
The divergence which had thus taken place from
the Court's plan of 1855 was accepted by the Secretary
of State in 1867, and the Governor-General once more
addressed the ten Local Administrations, requesting that
an account of their territories might be drawn up, ‘in
* Despatch of Court of Directors to the Governor-General in Council,
No. 1 of 1855, Stat. Dept.
* In May 1861, the Government of India officially inquired what had
been done, and circulated fresh interleaved copies of Mr. Thornton’s work
for correction by the local officers; but, excepting in the North-Western Pro-
vinces, without results.
* No. 591, dated 17th Mar. 1862, quoted Proceedings of Madras Govern-
ment, 12th Aug. 1869. H. D.
FINAL ORDERS FOR THE WORK (1869). 11
accordance with the wishes of Her Majesty's Govern-
ment.'" Various measures were set on foot, and, as on
previous occasions, several works of great individual
value were obtained. But again the want of organiza-
tion threatened to deprive the undertaking of adequate
results; and the Asiatic Society, with other public bodies,
forcibly addressed Government on the subject. They
pointed out that the absence of a uniform plan would not
only depreciate the value of each local volume, but that,
when the time came for working the whole into a com-
prehensive account of India, it would necessitate a large
amount of the labour being ‘gone over again de novo.”
Shortly afterwards, in 1869–70, the Governor-General in
Council directed me to visit the ten Local Governments
of India, with a view to my submitting a plan for utilizing
the materials already collected, for prescribing the prin-
ciples upon which the provincial compilations should in
future be prepared, and for their ultimate consolidation
into one comprehensive work.”
Exactly one century of inconclusive efforts had thus
elapsed since the Bengal Government first endeavoured,
in 1769, to obtain a Statistical Account of its territories.
The truth is, that the Company never realized the magni-
tude of what they were asking for. The Indian Empire
consists of ten separate Governments, who, with their
Feudatory States, administer a territory of 1,556,836
square miles, and include about fifty different races,
° No. 1758, dated 19th Oct. 1867, Foreign Department. -
19. Council of Asiatic Society of Bengal to Government of India, dated
17th-Feb. 1869. Government had also been addressed on the subject by the
Statistical Committee in 1868, and by certain leading members of the
Indian Mercantile Community, who strongly insisted on the practical neces-
sity for such a work. H. D.
* Government of India to Government of Bengal, No. 3056, dated 3d
July 1869. B. G.
I2 MAGAV77'UDAE OF 7A/E UAVZ) ERZAA ZAVG.
speaking a great diversity of languages, and numbering
200,424,072 souls.” The Account of India, therefore,
which from time to time has been so airily asked for,
means a vast series of statistical operations and local
inquiries spread over an area but slightly smaller than
that of all Europe, excepting Russia; and among a
population which falls short of the Berlin estimate in 1861
for all Europe, less Russia, by only 4% millions. The
single Government of Lower Bengal has a people more
numerous, by about ten millions, than the whole popula-
tion of Great Britain and Ireland, and an area twice as
great. Its territories extend over a quarter of a million
of square miles, and present every diversity of men and
manners, from the wild forest tribes of Orissa, whose
women wear only a string of beads and two bunches of
leaves, to the shrewd, wealthy, and highly cultivated in-
habitants of its river districts and great cities. In Bengal,
moreover, we find ourselves in the presence of a great
conflict of parties, and are eye-witnesses of the throes
and upheavals by which an ancient worn-out society
emerges into a new order of things. To draw up a
“faithful” account of such a country demands a union
of philosophical reflection with minute local research,
and the Provincial Government might well shrink from
lightly entering into the work. “In a Province so exten-
sive as Bengal,’ wrote the Lieutenant-Governor in 1869,
‘with a newly added frontier, and a population of at
least forty millions of many races and creeds, and repre-
senting interests so important, such temerity would only
be risking the public money, and exposing Government
to the chances of a conspicuous failure.’
** Annals of Indian Administration for 1869, vol. xiii. p. 5.
“Court of Directors' Despatch, No. 1 of 1855, Statistical Department.
OB/ECTS OF THIS BOOK. I3
This work forms the first-fruits of the new enter-
prise. It takes a single Province of Lower Bengal, with
a population slightly greater than that of Scotland in 1861,
and an area rather less, and tries to render an account of
it, sufficiently exact for administrative purposes, and yet
sufficiently comprehensive to satisfy the general reader.
The main body of the book deals with matters of the
deepest interest to all thinking Englishmen. It honestly
endeavours to show what the real effects of English rule
have been, and what are the difficulties and sources of
anxiety which now beset it. For such views as it may
express, I alone am responsible. It forms part of my
private work, the ‘Annals of Rural Bengal;’ and while
I have to thank the Indian Government for many facili-
ties in continuing this rural history, I should add that it
pretends to only such authority as it may be found in-
trinsically to merit. The second portion consists of
systematic Statistical Accounts drawn up in my official
capacity; and, for the convenience of the Indian public,
printed at the end of the book in the form of Appendices.
Taken together, the two parts exhibit my conception of a
statistical and general account of an Indian Province.
For, during the century which elapsed, from 1769 to
1869, the scope and requirements of such an Account
have greatly enlarged. The Company originally con-
templated the undertaking from a purely official point of
view. They felt it to be a matter of the first importance
that their servants in India, and their controlling body at
home, should possess a common source of really trust-
worthy information. Since the government passed to the
Crown, this necessity has increased both in England and
in India. In England, the controlling power has passed
from the Court of Directors, a small body with a special
I4. AWECESS/TY FOR SUVCAſ A WORK.
knowledge of India, to Parliament, an assembly whose
members have for the most part had no opportunity of
studying Indian subjects. In India, the Company's ser-
vants accepted that country as their home, and usually
remained a long time in the same District. Under the
Crown, the new system of furlough tends to break up an
Indian career into fragments of four years' service, dis-
joined by one year in England, and involves a number
of short ‘acting’ appointments, whose incumbents are
moved from place to place, without having time to learn
the localities for themselves. To these officers, a statis-
tical account of their District would be of great value;
and, indeed, such a guide forms an indispensable com-
plement to the changes in Indian service, which the
modern facilities for frequent visits to Europe have
brought about. Moreover, under the Crown, a new
class of public servants has sprung up, whose existence
the Company never contemplated. A very numerous
body of professional men, engineers for railways, canals,
and other public works, now come out to India, without
any previous knowledge of the country, and, as labour-
employers on a large scale, are brought into close and
often difficult relations with the people. At present,
they must find out everything for themselves; whereas,
if they could only start with a knowledge of the District
in which they have to work, a vast saving in temper, in
time, and in public money would be annually effected.
The Company had to consider only its own servants;
but the Queen's Government has to provide for a new
and more important class in India, the English Public.
The Indian revenues depend to some extent, and the
safe increase of the Indian population depends to a very
large extent, upon the application of English capital to
EWGLISH CAPITAZ; INDIAN ZABOUR. I5
Indian enterprise. The people are not allowed to die
at the old rate, Marhatta raids have ceased, epidemic
diseases are trampled out by science, and famine has been
deprived of its ancient edge. The population, no longer
held back by the customary checks in an Asiatic country,
presses more and more heavily on the land. English
capital forms one of the most important agents by which
this pressure may be diverted; and at this moment it
is employing the surplus population of Western Bengal
to reclaim the jungles of the North-east Frontier. No
country ever stood in greater need of imported capital
than India, in its present transition stage; yet there is
scarcely any country or colony about which so little in-
formation exists, with a view to attracting foreign capital,
and directing its employment. The history of tea-plant-
ing in Bengal from 1863 to 1866 is a narrative of capital
hastily thrust into a country, without sufficient knowledge
being accessible to ensure its safe and intelligent ap-
plication. The English public have a right to demand
accurate information regarding India. But, putting aside
their claims, and looking at the question solely from the
Indian point of view, it is, of the utmost importance that
English capital should be enlisted in easing the growing
pressure of the Indian population on the land, and in
rendering as painless as possible the transition from the
purely agricultural state to those more complex forms of
society on which India has now entered. An account of
the country, done with adequate appreciation of its com-
mercial capabilities, and in a spirit of accord with the
mercantile public, will form an epoch in the removal of
the obstacles which still exist between English capital
and Indian enterprise.
Such an account will demand the patient industry
I6 Z'HE ZATE ZOAC/D MAYO.
of many years.” A man would be deemed foolhardy
who should attempt to give a historical and statistical ac-
count of Scotland in two volumes, such as I now devote
to a province of about the same extent and population.
Yet even this meagre scale is much more liberal than
that on which the rest of Bengal must be done. It has
been possible in the case of Orissa, only owing to the
fact that, in such researches, a considerable interval must
elapse between the issue of the circulars to the District
Officers, calling for information, and the receipt of their
replies. I can but express my unavailing regret that
the Indian statesman, to whom I owe it that I have
been enabled to undertake the work, should not have
been spared to see the initial result. A long list of
great measures during the past three years bears witness.
to the silent, strong sense of Lord Mayo, to his sted-
fast courage and immense powers of work. His charac-
ter and policy will stand out in colossal lines upon the
Indian history of our time; and, meanwhile, there is
not one who worked under him, from the least to the
greatest, who does not mourn as for a friend.
* Besides the gentlemen whose assistance I acknowledge in the course
of the work, I would express my special obligations to His Highness the
Mahárájá of Denkhánal; to Mr. T. Ravenshaw, Commissioner, and to Mr.
Molony, formerly Acting Commissioner, of Orissa; to Colonel Thuillier,
C.S.I., Surveyor-General of India, and Captain Murray, Assistant Sur-
veyor-General ; to Mr. W. Macpherson, Magistrate and Collector of
Cattack ; to Mr. J. Beames, Magistrate and Collector of Balasor ; and to
Mr. Walton, Magistrate and Collector of Puri. A large portion of my
Statistical Account of Balasor is taken from Mr. Beames' official reports.
For the botanical identifications of the flora which I collected in the Orissa
Sundarbans, I have to thank the Superintendent of the Botanical Gardens,
Calcutta.
CHA PTE R II.
T H E C H I L K A. L. A. K. E.
A" sunrise on the 1st February 1870, my boat was
punted across the line on the Chilká Lake, which
forms the southern boundary of Orissa. A few days
before I had landed at Gopālpur, an open, surf-beaten
port in the northernmost district of Madras, consisting
of half-a-dozen mercantile houses built upon the sandy
ridges of the beach, with a distant background of peaked
mountains,” and clustering little colonies of hills projected
out upon the plain. Proceeding north-west by palan-
quin, I had passed through Ganjám, once a great river
harbour, and the official and mercantile capital of the
province, but desolated in 1815 by fever, and deserted
alike by the governing body and by its native population
and trade. Of its former magnificence scarcely a sign
remains, except a few half-fallen mansions, with hovels
Swarming around their lower storeys and seeming to
grow out of their ruins. Lofty pillared gateways stand
about the rice-fields, leading nowhere, or, a more preg-
nant lesson to human vanity, are utilized as entrances
to the peasant's thatched cottage.
At Ganjām I joined the Great North Road, and
a few miles farther on began to ascend the watershed
* Among them Mahendragiri, 4923 feet high. Trigonometrical Survey.
VOL. II. B

I8 7'HA, CH/ZÄA ZAKE.
which separates the river system of the Ganjām district
from the Chilká Lake. It rises from a solitary rice
country, where the children came trooping out of the
hamlets to stare at my white face; while the cattle in the
bullock carts took fright, and rushed down the embank-
ments of the road, as my palanquin approached. The
pass grew narrower as it rose beyond the range of cul-
tivation, and the banyan trees had a ragged and battered
look from half a century's exposure to the southern mon-
soon. Bamboo jungle laden with creepers next com-
menced to line the road, and before long its green masses
had filled up the whole space between the converging
hills. A wild peacock strutted along the wayside, daintily
picking up his food, and spreading his tail in unconcerned
pomp. At the top, the pass appeared to be little more
than half a mile wide; but by the time I had reached it
the sun had set. The northern descent was down a dark
covered way of noble banyan trees, secured by the in-
tervening hills from the dilapidations of the monsoon.
From underneath their spreading branches came glimpses
of mountains on either side, exaggerated by the twilight;
and as night closed in, I began to catch the reflection of
the canoe lights flashing on the Chilká Lake below.
The Chilká Lake is a shallow inland sea, situated
in the extreme south-east corner of Orissa. A long strip
of land, which for miles consists of nothing but a sandy
ridge little more than two hundred yards wide, separates
it from the ocean; and the roaring of the exterior unseen
surf can be heard far across the lake. On the west it is
walled in by lofty mountains, in some places descending
perpendicularly upon its margin, and in others thrusting
out gigantic arms and promontories of rock into the
water. On the south it is bounded by the hilly water-
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THE CHILKA LAKE. I9
shed, which forms the natural frontier between Orissa
and Madras. To the northward it loses itself in endless
shallows, sedgy banks, and islands just peeping above
the surface, formed year by year from the silt which
the great rivers bring down. A single narrow mouth,
cut through the sandy ridge, connects it with the sea.
Through this the tide comes rushing and storming against
the outward currents; at certain seasons throwing itself
up in pyramidal billows topped with spray, and looking
like a boiling river in which no boat could live.
Thus hemmed in between the mountains and the sea,
the Chilká spreads itself out into a pear-shaped expanse
of water forty-four miles long, of which the northern half
has a mean breadth of twenty miles, while the southern
half tapers into an irregular curved point, and barely
averages five miles wide.” Its smallest area is as nearly
as possible the size of Huntingdonshire, being 344 square
miles in the dry weather, and extending to about 450 in
the rainy season.” Its average depth is from three to
five feet, and scarcely anywhere exceeds six. The bed
of the lake is a very few feet below the level of sea high
water, although in some parts slightly below low-water
mark.” The distant inner portions of the lake keep
about two feet higher than the exterior ocean at all stages
* Statement F, forwarded with letter dated 6th June 1858 from the
Superintendent of Embankments, Lower Provinces, to the Chief Engineer.
I. D. R.
* MS. papers, exhibiting the results of the Cattack Revenue Survey, by
Lieutenant (now Colonel) Thuillier. The Chilká Lake, in the dry weather,
covers 22O,436 acres I rood ; Huntingdon, 229,544 acres. The Chief En-
gineer, Lower Provinces, in letter No. 4470, dated 9th October 1858, para.
18, gives the area at ‘about 350 miles.” Captain Harris assumes its area in
time of flood to be about 450 square miles. Report, dated Cattack, 31st
August 1859, para. 26. S. P. and I. D. R.
* Report of a Professional Tour of Inspection, by Lieutenant-Colonel
F. C. Cotton, dated Fort St. George, 12th July 1856, para. 78. G. R.
2O THE PROCESS OF LAMD-MAA ZAVG.
of the tide.” The neck which joins it to the sea is only
a few hundred yards broad; so that the narrow tidal
stream which rushes through it is speedily lost in the
wide interior expanse, and produces a difference never
greater than four feet between high and low water, and
at times barely eighteen inches, while the tide outside
rises and falls five feet." It suffices, however, to keep
the lake distinctly salt during the dry months from De-
cember to June. But once the rains have set in, and
the rivers come pouring down upon its northern ex-
tremity, the sea-water is gradually pushed out, and the
Chilká passes through various stages of brackishness into
a fresh-water lake.
This changeable inland sea forms one of a series
of lacustrine formations down the western shores of the
Bay of Bengal. The strong monsoon and violent cur-
rents which sweep from the south during eight months
of the year have thrown up ridges of sand, in some
places rising into lofty yellow cliffs along the coast. An
eternal war goes on between the rivers and the sea : the
former struggling to find vent for their columns of water
and silt; the latter repelling them with its sand-laden
currents, and giving a northward bend to their estuaries
as they enter the Bay." Where the river has the complete
mastery, it sweeps out to the ocean, scouring for itself a
channel through the sand. When the forces are so equal
as materially to counteract each other, a stagnation takes
place, the sea depositing a bar outside the river-mouth,
* Reduced levels: Sea high water, springs, 47:21. Sea high water, neaps,
45'81. Sea low water, 42'08. Lake high water, 49'45. Lake low water,
45°o8.
* Colonel F. C. Cotton's Professional Report, para. 83.
? I refer only to the rivers north of the point where the coast turns to
the north-east and catches the full force of the monsoon, i.e. from the Godá-
varí northwards.
7"HE PROCESS OF ZAAVZ)-MAA ZAVG. 2 I
while the river pushes out its delta to right and left
inside. There are therefore two sleepless artificers at
work forming land out of water; the ocean which throws
up its sand, and the rivers which bring down their silt.
The land grows at the expense of the sea, and pushes
itself forward in the shape of rounded promontories.
Indeed, the Indian coast-line of the Bay of Bengal con-
sists of nothing but a series of these blunt projections
formed by the mouths of rivers, and separated by long,
gently curving bays.”
It has been necessary to explain the growth of
deltaic land in order to understand the formation of a
deltaic lake. We have seen what results when the river
gains a complete mastery over the ocean, and also when
the forces are fairly balanced. But when the river comes
down languid, or too widely diffused, the victory is with
* Dr. Keith Johnston’s Map (scale, 70 miles to the inch) will suffice to
show the more important of these promontories. The following list can
easily be tested by the Sheet Atlas of the Surveyor-General of India (scale,
4 miles to the inch). Beginning at the point where the Bay turns to the
north-east, there are (1) the rounded point formed by the mouths of the
Krishná, with the Masulipatnam Bay between it and (2) the rounded pro-
jections formed by the mouths of the Godávarſ; (3) the slight projection
formed by the Bansadhará River at Kalingapatnam, beyond which a long
curve stretches up to the Mahánadí, broken, however, by (4) a local projec-
tion formed by the river at Ganjām. The Orissa River-system forms a
distinct series of such curves and points, of which the most important are :
(5) the projections at the mouth of the Deví; (6) False Point, or the pro-
jection at the point of the Mahánadí; (7) Point Palmyras, or the great
promontory formed by the united rivers which discharge themselves under
the name of the Dhāmrá. From Point Palmyras a long curve stretches up
to the Gangetic Sundarbans, which are simply a deltaic projection on the
grandest scale. This curve is broken, however, by a slight projection at the
mouth of the Burabalang near Balasor, noticeable enough when I walked
along the beach, but the result of too small a river to find expression upon
a map on the scale of 4 miles to the inch. The curve really ends at the
mouth of the Subanrekhá; but the vast discharge from the Hughly and
the mouths of the Ganges, which give the Bay of Bengal its muddy colour
for miles out to sea, has filled up the curve on the north-east side of the
Subanrekhá, so that its projection merges in the general deltaic formation
beyond. -
22 Z}/E PROCESS OF ZAKE-MAA WZVG.
the sea. The sand-laden tides and currents of the Bay
throw up a beach across the mouth, “which chokes the
river and causes the formation of a lake behind it.”
Orissa has formed one of the great battle-fields of
this struggle between the rivers and the sea. It consists,
as you will find from the map at the beginning of this
volume, of an inland hill-country, with a strip of alluvial
land lying between the mountains and the Bay of Bengal.
At some period, infinitely remote as regards the world's
history, yet still commemorated by a local proverb, and
very recent if computed by the epochs of geology, the
surf of the Bay used to lash against the foot of the hills.
But from these hills two great river-systems issued,
charged with tons of silt, which they deposited as soon
as they emerged on the more equable levels beneath.
During ages they have been patiently carrying their
burden of sand and slime from the interior highlands,
and making it into new land at the ocean's edge. The
sea has thus been slowly pushed back, and a strip of
alluvial country, 150 miles long by about 50 broad, has
been formed.
It is this strip of country which constitutes the low-
lands of Orissa. The direct channels carried down the
largest share of the silt, and have projected themselves
and their deposits boldly into the ocean. At the present
day they enlarge their deltas every year at its expense.
But the lesser channels, which turn off at a sharp angle
to the south-east, not only secured less silt to make land
of on their own account, but they had also less force to
withstand the sand-depositing currents of the Bay. The
° De la Beche's Theory, cited para. 17 of letter No. 4470 from Chief
Engineer, Lower Provinces, to the Government of Bengal, dated 9th October
1858. I. D. R.
THE AEROCESS OF ZAKE-MAA ZAVG. 23
work of land-making, therefore, has hung fire in the south-
east corner of the delta; and instead of alluvial plains a
few feet above the level of the ocean, we have the Chilká
Lake. e
Another influence has also been at work to impede
the process of fluvial land-making in this part of Orissa.
It will be seen from the map that the other portions of
the delta always lie between two rivers or distributaries,
and thus receive deposits of silt from the overflow of
large streams on both sides. The south-east corner,
however, receives silt only from one direction. For on
its southern side, a spur of hills runs down upon the sea,
and parts it from the adjoining river-system of the Gan-
jám district. It can get no silt from that direction; so that
while every year sees new banks and islands emerge
above the water where the rivers enter the north-east ex-
tremity of the Chilká, there is scarcely any silting up, nor
any land-growth, on its mountainous southern shores."
The Chilká Lake, therefore, may be regarded as a
gulf of the original Bay of Bengal, lying between two pro-
montories, and only partially filled up. On the south, a
bold, barren spur of hills runs down to the Bay of Bengal.
On the north, the land-making rivers have pushed out
their rounded mouths and flat deltas into the ocean.
Nor has the sea been idle, but, meeting and overmaster-
ing the languid river discharge that enters the Chilká, it
* It will be observed that the Chilká Lake lies at the innermost part of
the coast-line curve between the deltaic promontories formed by the mouths
of the Mahánadí and the Rasakuliá River at Ganjám. According to the
general principle, explained in a subsequent chapter on the River-system of
Orissa, such a curve marks the lowest level between deltaic rivers. The
Chilká Lake is, in fact, an extreme instance of such a low level. An extreme
instance, because it only gets silt from one side instead of from both, and the
deposit has not yet sufficed to raise its bed above the level of the sea and
produce solid land. - - -
24 LAKE-MAKIZVG AND LAMD-MAK/AWG.
has joined the two promontories with a bar of sand, and
thus formed a lake. At this moment both agencies are
busily at work. We can stand by and witness the deli-
cate processes of land-making from the river silt at the
north-east end of the lake, while the bar-building sea
visibly plies its trade across its mouth. I find, from old
documents, that a century ago the neck of land was only
half a mile to a mile broad, in places where it is now two.
On the other hand, the opening in the bar was a mile
wide in 1780, and had to ‘be crossed in large boats.”
Forty years later this opening is described as choked up.”
Shortly before 1825 an artificial mouth had to be cut ;
and although it also rapidly began to silt up, it remained,
as late as 1837, more than three times the breadth that
it is now.” The villagers inform me that it still grows
narrower every year. Indeed, so steady a workman is
the Ocean, that the difficulty in maintaining an outlet
from the Chilká forms one of the chief obstacles to
utilizing the lake as an escapement for the floods that
desolate the delta. Engineers report that, although it
would be easy and cheap to cut a channel, it would be
very costly and difficult to keep it open, and that each
successive mouth would speedily choke up and ‘share
the fate of its predecessor.”
In offering this explanation of the Chilká, based
upon the agencies visibly at work throughout the Orissa
* MS. Itinerary furnished to the troops. Proceedings of Ganjám
Factory, December 1780. G. R.
* Stirling's Account of Orissa Proper, 1825. Asiatic Researches, vol.
xv. page 187, quarto.
* Survey measurements and maps (one mile to the inch), 1838–42.
* Captain Harris, Superintendent of Cattack River; Second Report
(1858), para. 30 ; also Third Report (1859), para. 23, etc. Letter No. 269
from Superintendent of Geological Survey to Chief Engineer, L. P., 16 May
I859, para. 2.
THE LEGEND OF THE CHILKA. 25
delta, I ought not to conceal that another theory has also
been put forward. Our early revenue officers in Puri
district believed that the Chilkä had once been solid land.
A native tradition relates how, about the year of our
Lord 318, a strange race” came sailing across the sea,
and cast anchor off the holy city of Puri, hoping to sur-
prise the temple, with its store of jewels, and treasure-
house of costly oblations. But the priests, having for
days beforehand seen quantities of litter from the horses
and elephants drifting ashore, fled with the precious
image, and left an empty city to the invaders. The
disappointed general, Red-arm" by name, enraged at
the tell-tale tide, advanced in battle array to punish the
ocean. The sea receded deceitfully for a couple of
miles, and then suddenly surging in upon the presump-
tuous foreigners, swallowed them up. At the same time
it flooded a great part of the Puri district, and formed
the Chilká Lake."
I am not aware that any of the professional engineers
who have visited Orissa have seriously adopted this view.
Unless the bed of the Chilkä was at one time four feet
higher than at present, it never could have been solid
ground, and we have no reason to believe that it ever
was higher, or that it has ever suffered a depression by
earthquake or otherwise. So far from the sea breaking
in upon the land, the land has been constantly pushing
itself out into the sea.
Instead, therefore, of the Chilká being an example of
a Verdronken Land, like the drowned tract of South
Beveland so graphically described by Motley,” I think the
* The Yavanas. 16 Rakta-Báhu.
* Asiatic Researches, vol. xv. p. 263.
* Motley's Rise of the Dutch Republic, vol. ii. p. 402, London 1864.
26 THE PEOPLES AROUND THE CHIZA.A.
evidence leaves no alternative but to regard it as a corner
of the original Orissa Bay, in which, for specified reasons,
the process of land-making has proceeded more slowly
than in its other parts. The process is going on rapidly
at this moment, and within a not incalculable period the
Chilká, if left to itself, will fill up. Meanwhile it pre-
sents a very typical feature of an Indian delta, a feature
which is reproduced in the Kolair Lake, 350 miles down
the coast, and on a still larger scale by the Bákarganj
shallows and swamps, in the great land-workshop amid
the mouths of the Ganges.
Around this vast shallow basin dwell communities
of men, as diverse in their nature and history as are the
geological formations which hem it in. On the western
side, where the mountains overhang the lake, wild races
pick up a livelihood as best they can, in a region of
bamboo and endless thorn jungle, hunting, wood-cutting,
waging man's primeval warfare against the wild beasts,
and cultivating their highland valleys with a fitful tillage.
Hamlets of fishers and salt-makers dot the eastern strip
between the Chilkä and the sea, and a sparse agricul-
tural population gambles at getting a rice crop from
the temporarily dried-up shallows of the lake. At the
south-western end, villages of boatmen thrive by trans-
porting the surplus crops of Orissa to the Ganjám
shore, in flat-bottomed, coffin-shaped canoes. At the
opposite extremity, where the rivers pour into the lake
from the north, skilled agricultural communities live
behind dykes and embankments, reaping rich crops, but
every fifth or sixth year swept away, with their cattle and
their homesteads, by the floods, and fortunate if they can
float on a rice stack or thatched roof till the waters
subside.
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A REGION OF ROCK AND WATER. 27
I found the Government pinnace waiting my arrival
at the southern end of the lake, a two-masted boat,
drawing about twenty-five inches of water, and fitted
up with a sitting-room, bed-room, and bath-room. On
the shore stands a solitary pile of white buildings,
erected half a century ago by the Collector of Ganjām, as
a means of finding work for the people during a famine;
in style something like a villa on the Lago Maggiore,
but upon the grand Indian scale. The lights of the little
town of Rambhá, with its flotilla of grain canoes, glittered
on the beach, and a clashing of cymbals gave notice that
the priest was offering his evening oblation of peas, oil,
and butter to the local god. But by nine o'clock every-
thing was silent, except the occasional splash of a fish,
or the cry of a startled water-fowl on the lake ; while a
single monotonous voice droned forth a story from the
Rāmāyana upon the receding shore.
Next morning I found that we had punted only a
few miles during the night; and at daybreak, as the sails
were loosened to the morning breeze, we crossed the
geographical line that separates Madras from Orissa.
Behind us, the frontier watershed threw out a precipitous
peninsula into the lake, and rocky islands dotted its sur-
face: ‘huge rounded blocks of highly indurated porphyritic
granite, containing large crystals of felspar, tossed and
piled on each other in the wildest confusion.” On the
west, the steep hills of Bánpur, the first territory on the
Orissa side of the frontier, lined the lake, with a strip of
rich rice land in front. At intervals, projecting spurs
descended sheer into the water, with deep bays and
fertile valleys between. Of these valleys, some run far
inland between the ridges of hills, receiving their torrents
* Stirling. As. Res. xv. 188.
28 THE ZAAWD OF 7A/E AERO WMAEAV.
and streamlets, and producing crops of the fine golden-
spiked variety of rice.”
Bánpur, which literally means the Land of the Bow-
men, used to be a source of much disquietude to the
Company's factors in the adjoining province. As late as
1848, a native writer describes it, and its background of
hill-country, as ‘wild, inaccessible places, inhabited by a
set of dangerous people, such as Kandhs, Savars, and
other barbarians, who are bad subjects, and not trust-
worthy.” During the last century it was the haunt of
fugitives and banditti; and the district” on the Ganjám
side of the boundary line was in a scarcely more settled
state. The records of an expedition against it, exactly
one hundred years ago, bring out in strong relief that
inglorious but obstinate warfare which the Company's
servants had to wage on every frontier of their
dominions.
The country was covered with forts; and while one
detachment of our troops forced a perilous passage
through the ambuscades between the mountains and the
lake, another party proceeded by boats from the Ganjám
end. Among the incidents of the march, we find ‘a pass
formed by a hedge of bamboos, and a parapet wall
running from the foot of the hills to the water-side,
being three or four hundred yards in length;’ ‘a deep
ditch scarcely fordable, cut in the rock, and defended
by two small ports;’ the baggage cut off; the ammuni-
tion captured, but fortunately retaken ; and the troops
‘greatly pestered by parties firing on them the whole
* Swarna-kānta-dhán, popularly called Soná-khil.
* History of Puri, by Brij Kishore Ghose, p. 65. Cattack Mission Press,
1848.
* Kálſkot, meaning the Stronghold of Kálí, the goddess of destruc-
tion.
7 HE ZSZAAWD OF REAE/DS. 29
way.” At that time, the hill-country was one vast
thicket; and even fifty years later, so cheap was fuel,
that a cart-load of bamboos, which would now cost about
8s. 6d., could be bought in Bánpur, and conveyed to
the other side of the lake for a total charge of one
shilling.” For centuries the chiefs of Bánpur have claimed
the right annually to present the timber for the sacred
car of Jagannāth, and to receive the left-off head-dress
of the deity in return.”
Half-way across the lake is Nalbana, literally the
Reed Forest, an island about five miles in circumference,
and scarcely anywhere rising more than a few inches
above the level of the water. Immense flocks of wild-
fowl floated around its shores, and fearlessly awaited my
approach. When at length they rose, they produced a
loud rattling noise like platoon-firing, caused by the
flapping of their wings on the water as they started
upwards. The island was one unbroken expanse of
high grasses, without a single habitation, or tillage of any
sort. But hundreds of coffin-shaped canoes clustered
around its margin, waiting for the bundles of sedge
which parties of thatchers from the mainland were busily
cutting.
On the eastern side of the lake lie the islands of
Párikud, which have silted up behind, and are now par-
tially joined to, the narrow ridge of land that separates
the Chilká from the sea. At some places they emerge
almost imperceptibly from the water; at others, they
spread out in well-raised rice-fields. Their north-western
* Letter from the Collector of Ganjám, dated 18th November 1769,
etc. G. R.
* Letter from the Salt Agent for Purſ, dated 25th April 1819, para. 3.
The same would now cost from 8s. to 9s. at Purí. P. R.
* History of Purí, by Brij Kishore Ghose, p. 42.
3O AAA’/KUZ) A HUAVIDRAE/D YEARS A GO.
extremity” slopes gracefully down to the lake, like an
English park, dotted with fine trees, and backed by
noble masses of foliage, from which one might expect
the gables of an Elizabethan mansion to peep out.
They form the hereditary domain of a Rājá, who claims
descent from the ancient warrior caste of Northern India.
When we first hear of the country, a hundred years ago,
it seems to have been miserably poor. Not a single
grain-selling village could be found along the high road,
and the troops who had to pass that way were warned
to bring everything for themselves, even down to a
supply of firewood, and of the earthen cooking vessels
which are to be bought in every village in Bengal.”
The people were as ignorant as they were poor,
and marvellous stories still survive in this isolated
region as to what was then going on in the outside
world. In 1803, when our army marched up the coast
to oust the Marhattás and assume charge of the country,
the various chiefs and landholders on the route came
out to welcome it, and received presents or grants of
land in return. The Collector of Ganjám had put
145,000 rupees into the military chest” on the morning
the force left his jurisdiction, and the commissariat paid
liberally for everything by the way. Never was an
invading force so popular. The Rājā of Párikud alone
held aloof. He had heard, on credible authority, that
the invaders were people with pig faces, and huge
drooping ears, in which they wrapped their bodies at .
night, as it was very cold in their country. He believed
26 Gurbai.
* Letter from J. Greenwell, Esq., to the Hon. Warren Hastings,
Governor-general, etc., dated Cattack, 30th November 1780. G. R.
* Besides 12,000 rupees to other departments. Letters dated Septem-
ber 4 and 17, 1803. G. R.
AAA*/A UD AWO W. 3I.
it to be an irruption of the legendary demon races of
Southern India, and wisely kept quiet while the storm
swept past.
Even at the present day, the struggle for life con-
tinues a hard one throughout the domain of Párikud.
Towards the sea the sandy ridges grow nothing.
Towards the Chilká Lake the alluvial flats yield rich
rice crops, if there is plenty of rain, and yet no floods.
Otherwise there is more intense distress in Párikud than
in any other part of Orissa. The people live perpetu-
ally on the verge of famine. There are no fresh-water
streams, nor any good tanks, and the husbandmen have
to make up for their absence by well-irrigation, fresh water
being found in plenty at the depth of twenty-five feet, and
in some places at fifteen. The sandy ridges produce the
blue convolvulus in great profusion, and another ground-
creeper with a thick pulpy leaf, on which herds of ante-
lopes feed. Along the shore are little fishing communi-
ties, who get a livelihood by means of trawl-nets, one
end being pulled along by a man on the shore, and the
other end by a comrade up to his waist in the surf. I
have tried the sport, but the fish caught in this way are
miserably small. A more profitable trade is dragging
with the great net at sea. Two large boats go out a
couple of miles, and trawl towards the beach with very
strong nets about twenty feet deep.
The fishing communities, and especially the hamlets
of boatmen, are Telinga settlements from the Madras
coast. They speak a different language, observe diffe-
rent customs, and worship different gods from those of
the agricultural population. And here I may notice, as .
I shall not again have to recur to the subject, that the
boating villages along the whole coast, up to the Deví
32 A 7'YPYCA/ HIWVO U COMMOAVIWEAZZTH.
river, and even above it, consist of similar Telinga
colonies from the south. They are indistinct remnants
of the aboriginal races; and although their separate
origin is forgotten, they are excluded from the Hindu
commonwealth. They disregard a thousand customs
and scruples religiously observed by the Hindus. There
is a little village of them” on the sands of Puri, which,
although situated within the holy precincts, is denied an
entrance into the great national temple of Jagannāth.
The agricultural population of Párikud are a very
different people. The Sanskrit race has impressed its
polity so strongly upon every corner of India, excepting
the hill tracts, that the whole continent presents but one
type; and even these isolated swamps and silt banks
of Párikud exhibit an almost perfect picture of the pri-
mitive Aryan commonwealth. A Rājā is at the head,
and exercises unquestioned hereditary control. His do-
mains extend over seventy square miles, divided into 54
communities of agriculturists, whose homesteads, 900 in
number, cluster together into villages — each village
having a perfectly defined extent of land attached to it.
In these rural communes the distinctions of caste are
rigidly preserved, and the gods are worshipped accord-
ing to the ancient rites. The husbandmen pay rent, not
according to the quality of their fields, but according to
their social rank.” Colonies of Brähmans have been
induced to settle on the domain at low quit-rents, and
pay only from 3%d. to 5d. an acre for good rice land,”
for which the common herd pays about 6s.” Inter-
29 Nuliás.
* Letter from J. C. Geddes, Esq., Collector of Purſ, to the Commissioner
of Orissa, No. 730, dated IIth February 1869, para. 8. P. R.
* From Rs. 1. 3. 5 to Rs. 2. 8.9 per bâtſ of 8 acres.
* Rs. 23. 14.6 per bâtſ of 8 acres.
CUSTOM AAWD COMPEZYZZOAV. 33
mediate between the Brähmans and the ordinary hus-
bandmen are other two privileged classes, which prac-
tically represent the Rājā’s connections or officers, and
the military aristocracy of the domain.” These gentle-
men pay as high as IS. 3d. an acre for the same land
that the Brähmans would get for 3%d., and for which
the common peasant would have to pay 6s. I should
mention, however, that these are the old theoretical
rates. The famine of 1866 has levelled down the
ancient land-system of Orissa in this as in many other
respects; and practically, the rents paid in kind since the
famine are less unequal.
As in other Hindu estates, the struggle between
custom and competition constantly goes on. Nominally,
the rate for each quality of land is fixed; but practically
the Rájá, by levying various assessments calculated upon
the rent, is able by degrees to extract an increased
revenue from the soil. There is therefore a tendency to
maintain the customary rates, constantly in conflict with
an opposite tendency to raise these rates to the full
market value of the land. Whether these two influences
work together harmoniously, depends a great deal upon
the mutual moderation of landlord and tenant. It is
only fair to add, while other districts have been con-
vulsed by agrarian feuds, that in this remote corner of
Bengal disturbances are unknown.
The rent, properly so called, is now calculated in
Párikud at one-half of the gross produce of the fields.
* The three tenures are called : (1) Dán-tanki, or the lands held by
Bráhmans, and literally meaning the Gift Rupees; (2) Datta-tanki, the lands
held by Khandaits, etc., the rates being Rs. 5 per bâtſ of 8 acres; (3) Símá-
tanki, or Hetá-tanki, the rates being from Rs. 1. 5. 3 to Rs. 4. 2.5 per 8 acres.
These rates are taken from the admirable report of Mr. Collector Geddes
above cited, dated 11th February 1869, para. Io. P. R.
. VOL. II. C
34 A&AEAV7:SYSTEM //V AAA’/KUZ).
Formerly it was paid in money; but since the general
disorganization of Orissa by the famine of 1866, it has
had to be paid in kind. The assessment is made either
by appraisement of the standing crops in November, or
else by actual measurement and division on the thresh-
ing-floor in January. The former system is most
popular. Two officials appointed by the Rájá, watched
over by deputies, at least two in number, on the part of
the husbandmen, measure the fields, and estimate the
weight of the crops. If the cultivator is a Brähman, or
of either of the two other privileged classes, the rent is
calculated at one-eighth of the produce.* If he belongs
to the common herd, the Rájá's share is estimated, as we
have seen above, at one-half, and theoretically amounts
to three-fifths.” Practically, I find that out of a crop
valued at £455, the Rájá's share is 4,250 from the 342
peasant families on his estate who pay the full rent.
According to the Sanskrit code, Brähmans were to live
content on just enough to suffice for their bodily wants;
and the privileged tenants in Párikud are even at this
day only allowed enough land at the one-eighth rent for
their own maintenance. If such a tenant sublets, he
has to pay an additional rate” of nominally 50. an acre,
but practically varying according to his status in the
three privileged classes.
Besides the Rájá's share of the crops, the hus-
bandmen have also to pay a homestead rent for their
* Called Chauthſ, or one-fourth, apparently because it amounts to only
one-fourth of the full assessment levied from the ordinary cultivator,
* This assessment is called Bhāg, or division. Nominally it is 4% of the
crop; but #5 are added, under the name of Nikala, to protect the Rájá from
arithmetical losses in the calculation, making a total of ##, or three-fifths.
* Called Tripani. Of the total rent paid by these three privileged
classes, amounting to £IIo, I4S., about one-sixth, or £19, 12s. 7d., is paid
as Tripani.
A/OO/OS WAV PAR/KUZO. 35
dwellings.” The rate varies from a little over Is. to
2s. 6d. per ſo feet of frontage. -
These, and the petty cesses noted below,” constitute
the regular demand of the Rājā; but unless Párikud
greatly differs from all other parts of India, there are a
number of unrecognised rates and aids, which the people
contribute more or less willingly on occasions such as a
marriage in the Rájá's family, or the celebration of his
funeral rites.
The soil which the husbandman thus cultivates at a
rent of half his crop is a fine sandy loam, very easy to
till, but liable to severe droughts. If there is just enough
of moisture, he reaps a splendid crop. But if the rain
holds off a little too long, everything is burned up, while
a few extra inches swamp the whole country, and it is
exposed to even more ruinous inundations of salt water.
To the east there is the sea, with its cyclones and tidal
waves. To the west is the Chilkä, with uncontrolled
rivers pouring into its north-western end, and forcing
down the main body of its own brackish water upon the
Pārikud rice-fields. In 1866, out of 7650 acres assessed
as under cultivation, 6900 were devastated by the floods.”
There is only one harvest a year in Párikud, the late rice
* Called Chándina, or Chándna-dihi, rising from Rs. o. 9.7 to Rs. 1.3. I}%
per seven cubits. It is paid by 224 separate householders, and yields to the
Rájá 4,46, 13s. 4d. a year.
* Assessment on spring crops, . º © gº g A5 o 8
Charge for collection, * e 8 3 o
Sale of surplus idol food, e e sº e © 4 7 6
Payment for the long grass and thatching mate-
rials on Nalbana, . & tº • . e 3O o o
Fisheries, . . * > © * * Qe * I4I O I
Total, g . A 188 II 3
Report of Mr. Collector Geddes, dated 11th February 1869, para 15. P. R.
* Report of the Committee to investigate the effects of the inundations
in the Province of Orissa, A.D. 1866, pp. 91, 92. I. R.
36 THE RA/A AND HIS ZEAVURE.
crop, sown in June or July, and reaped in November or
December. No cotton or oil-seeds are grown; and a few
fields of peas and pulse, yielding a total rent of barely
A 5 a year throughout the whole domain, constitute the
entire spring crop.
Beneath the agricultural population are various low-
castes, such as wine-sellers, washermen, fowlers, skinners,
eaters of forbidden meats, who live their lives as apart
from the respectable husbandmen as the Jews did in the
Ghetto of Rome.
We have therefore, in this remotest corner of Bengal,
all the elements of a typical Aryan community of Sanskrit
times. The Rājā claims, and is admitted by his people,
to be of the military caste," to which, according to the
ancient land-law of Northern India, the prince ought to
belong. His little capital is dignified by the title of
Fort, and he holds his domain from the British Govern-
ment on the old military tenure, paying no rent, but
theoretically liable for his quota of swordsmen at the call
of his paramount. This tenure, as we shall see, is the
one on which the greater part of Orissa is still held.
In most cases the military service has been commuted by
our Government for a small money tribute; but Párikud,
and the four other estates on the strip of land between
the Chilká and the sea, are altogether exempt from pay-
ment of land revenue.” The domain enjoys, therefore,
all the advantages of British administration, without con-
tributing anything to its cost, except the Government
* Kshattriya. The same descent is claimed by almost all the Rájás of
the Garhjáts and tributary states of Orissa, but is disallowed by the Bráhman
genealogists, who admit the pedigree only in the case of the Rājā of Khūrdhá.
* These estates are Bajrakot, Málud, Párikud, Mánikpatná, and
Andhári. I have selected Párikud for detailed description, as it is the most
important of the five, and gives a good idea of the whole. -
THE RURAZ AAEASTOCA’AC V. 37
duty upon the salt that the people consume, and an occa-
sional income tax.
The Rájás, in the exercise of their unquestioned
hereditary power, have made rent-free grants of lands to
members of their family, and given fertile estates for the
worship of the gods. At the present moment, eighteen
of the fifty-four rural communes of Párikud are thus
assigned away. Next come the holders at low rents,
consisting for the most part of Brähmans, and to a cer-
tain extent representing the original Aryan conquerors
or settlers. This class, like the whole ancient Aryan
community, is divided into three ranks, holding their land
on three different scales of rent, but all of them paying
a great deal less than the common herd—the Städras
of Sanskrit times. They consider themselves a landed
aristocracy, and, if Brähmans, leave the manual work of
tillage to be done by low-caste hired labourers. Even
down to the minutest point the ancient theory is main-
tained, and a Brähman is not supposed to have more
land than he requires for his own subsistence. If he
does, he must pay a higher rent for it.
The ordinary husbandman holds the next grade in
the rural commonwealth. He pays the highest rent that
can be drawn from the soil, and his inferiority to the
lightly assessed classes above him is a social fact which
he never dreams of disputing. Officers who have studied
the matter closely, believe it to be an ethnical fact as well;
and one of the ablest district administrators in Bengal
has briefly described it to me as ‘a fiscal recognition
of the Aryan and non-Aryan elements of the popula-
tion.” Without insisting on any hard and fast line, it is
certainly the case that the upper class, holding at low
* Mr. J. C. Geddes, now on furlough in England.
38 AOA'UZAZYOAV AAVZ) WASTE LAAVZ).
quit-rents, is composed of Brähmans and other unmis-
takeable Aryans, while the heavily taxed cultivators con-
sist of castes beyond the pale of pure Aryan descent.
They occupy a position half-way between the privileged
ranks and the semi-aboriginal low-castes. Although
holding at a rack-rent, they have practically a right of
occupancy as long as they pay the customary rates. No
leases are given, and the Rājā and the cultivators alike
declare themselves averse to their introduction.” They
prefer to go on in the old fashion, dividing their crops
by appraisement at harvest-time; and they believe that
by this plan they share the good fortunes or the mishaps
of the agricultural year between landlord and tenant in
the most equitable manner.
Another point in which Párikud represents the
typical Sanskrit commonwealth, is the abundance of waste
land. When surveyed twenty years ago, the measure-
ment gave a total of 69'94 square miles, or 44,764 acres,
of which only 18,560 were cultivated, while 26,204 were
returned as waste. Of the cultivated part a large pro-
portion is held without payment by the Rájá's connec-
tions and the ministers of religion. In 1866 only 7650
acres actually paid rent as under cultivation, the rest
being waste or held rent-free. At the beginning of that
year the population amounted to I I, 179. During the
next eighteen months 5375 perished in the famine, and
1250 emigrated. In 1867 only 4519 remained; and
although they have now increased to between 5000 and
6OOO souls, the cultivation, which reached 7650 acres in
1866, amounted to only 5056 in 1869.
It will be readily understood that a property thus
heavily weighted by rent-free tenures and low quit-rents
* Report of Mr. Collector Geddes, before cited, para. 2I. P. R.
REAWZl ROZZ OF PARA UD. 39
yields but little to its owner. Of the whole domain, but
a very small proportion is cultivated at all ; and of the
fifty-four agricultural communes, eighteen are held by
the ministers of religion and the connections or officers
of the Rájá. These probably represent one-half of the
really good land on the estate. They pay nothing
except a contribution of food for the idols, the surplus of
which is sold to travellers or pilgrims, and fetches to the
Rājā about £4 a year. In the remaining twenty-six
communes only 5056 acres are now under tillage, the total
number of cultivating families being 986.” But of these
986, only one-third, or 342, pay the full customary rate
of one-half the crop; while the remaining two-thirds
belong to the high-caste privileged husbandmen, holding
at nominal quit-rents, and paying barely one-eighth of
the produce of their fields to the Rájá. The agricultural
rent-roll barely amounts to 4,463 from a surveyed area
of 44,764 acres; and including all other sources of in-
come, the whole domain of Párikud, with its seventy
square miles, yields to the Rājā a gross revenue of only
4,698 per annum.” -
Of this sum, however, about two-thirds appear to
be swallowed up by charges upon debt or cost of collec-
tion, and the Income-tax Office assesses the total nett
income of the Rājā at 4.240. As the estates are now
under the direct management of the Collector, this sum
probably represents the full amount. The famine of
* Of whom only 224 are separately entered in the Rájá's account books
as payers of homestead rent.
* Value of rent paid in kind, . tº e © . 4.361 Io o
Money rents, . e º Q o © e IOI I4 2
Homestead rent (“Chándina”), . e º º 46 I2 4
Miscellaneous items shown in note 38, . º & 188 II 3
Total, e . 4,698 7 9
4O AMW IMPROVZAVG ZAAWDZOR/D.
1866 put a finishing stroke to the fortunes of Párikud.
Although burdened with debt himself, and unable to
draw a rupee of rent from the desolated fields, the Rájá
exerted himself in a very noble way to save his people.
He emerged from those terrible eighteen months beg-
gared; but the Government had not looked on unmoved,
and the ruined Rājā woke up one morning to find him-
self a Companion of the Star of India, and with a large
Treasury advance at his disposal, to free him from the
grasp of usury. With his concurrence, the Collector
temporarily took charge of his estates, and in a few years
it is hoped that they will be returned unencumbered,
with their nett rental greatly increased by the more
exact management which British officers have introduced.
Insignificant as £240 a year may sound to an English
country gentleman, it is a fine income in Orissa, where
unhusked rice, the wheat of that part of the world,
sells on the field at about twelve pounds for a penny.
As a matter of fact, I find only thirteen landed pro-
prietors returned as having a larger revenue in all Puri
district, with its population of more than half a million
of souls.
The Rājā meanwhile has become the improving
landlord of the district, lives on half his income, and
raises enough food for himself and his family on a
Home-farm. He hopes to get a large proportion of the
waste land cultivated by colonies of immigrant husband-
men from other estates, whom he may entice to settle
on his domain, and is full of schemes for repairing broken-
down embankments, and reclaiming virgin soil from the
bed of the Chilká Lake. There are miles of pasturage
which could be protected at a very small cost, and brought
under tillage. For an outlay of 430, the Rājā believed
SA/, 73. MAK//WG WAV PAA’AA UZ). 4I
the other day that he could reclaim 1200 acres of the
most fertile land, and add £300, or nearly one-half, to
his gross annual revenue.”
The only manufacture of Párikud is salt. There
are two processes of making it; one by solar evaporation,
the other by boiling in the usual manner.” The former
was the only salt made in Párikud under the native
dynasties, and the British Government found great diffi-
culty in introducing the latter in 1815.” As Párikud
and the adjoining coast to the south are the chief places
where solar salt is now made, the process may be fitly
described here. The Hindu reckons salt made by the
sun to be more pure than that evaporated by the artifices
of man. It alone enters the temples, and throughout
the whole of Orissa the respectable classes will not use
the other sort. Liverpool salt comes out at very low
rates, often indeed as ballast, to Calcutta. In the dis-
tricts to the east of the Hughly, it has driven the native
manufacture out of the market. But the orthodox pro-
vince of Orissa will have nothing to say to an article
made by the impure hands of the infidel. The solar
salt has taken a firm hold on the religious feelings of the
people. Their whole life is one round of observances
in meats and drinks and making clean of platters, and
the use of solar salt is an important aid to the salvation
of their souls.
The manufacture begins at the commencement of the
hot season in the latter half of March. In the first place,
a little canal is dug from the Chilká Lake, with sets of
broad shallow tanks on either side. These sets of tanks
* Report of Mr. Collector Geddes, before quoted, para. 21.
* The name of the solar salt is Karkach. Artificially evaporated salt
is called Pángá.
* Report from Collector, dated 23d March 1818. P. R.
42 SOLAR SAL 7: MAK/WG.
run out at right angles from the canal in rows of four.
Each tank is 75 feet square, by from 18 inches to 3
feet deep. On the first day of the manufacture, the
brackish water of the lake is admitted by the canal into
the first tank of each of the sets of rows. Here it stands
for twenty-four hours; and as the depth of this first
series of tanks is only 18 inches, evaporation goes on
very rapidly. Next morning the brine is transferred
from tank No. 1 to tank No. 2 in each of the sets of
rows. Tank No. 2 is 24 inches deep, and each succes-
sive one deepens by 6 inches till the brine reaches No. 4,
which is 3 feet deep. The water stands for a day in
each, gradually thickening as it evaporates. On the fourth
day it is transferred to tank No. 4; and on the morning
of the fifth, some of the brine is ladled from that tank
into an adjoining network of very shallow pools, each
pool being 5 feet square by only 6 inches deep.
Here it stands during the intense heat of the day.
In the afternoon the manufacture is complete, and the
salt is raked out of the network of shallow pools.
The same process goes on, with slight variations,
from day to day. Every morning water is let into tank
No. 1 of each of the sets of rows, from the canal;
while the brine gradually progresses from one tank to
another, in the various stages of evaporation. A constant
supply of brine is thus kept up in tank No. 4, and a
portion of it is daily ladled into the network of shallow
pools, in which the finishing stage of evaporation takes
place.
A Párikud salt-field, therefore, consists of a little
canal from the Chilká, with ‘workings,' if I may use a
mining term, diverging from the canal at right angles
upon either side. Each working is composed of a row
A PAR/KUZO SAZZAZZZZ). - 43
of four tanks and a network of shallow pools, and is
managed by from three to five men, who are paid by
piecework, and earn a little over twopence a day each,
or six shillings a month. The out-turn is about fifteen
tons the first week; and if the manufacture goes on
without interruption for a fortnight, it may amount to as
much as eighty tons for the fifteen days. But it is some-
what of a gambling trade. A single shower of rain puts
a stop to the whole process, the tanks having to be
emptied out, and the work begun again de novo.”
The total cost of salt made in this way is 8d. a
hundredweight, or 13s. 4d. a ton.” Government, when
it kept the manufacture in its own hand, used to allow
the workmen Iod. a hundredweight, or 16s. 8d. a ton.
The duty is 8s. 8d, a hundredweight, or 48, 13s. 4d. a
ton, which, added to the cost of manufacture, makes a
total of 49, 6s. 8d. a ton. Under the present system
the Government does not itself make salt, but has trans-
ferred the trade to licensed manufacturers, charging them
with the duty upon the amount actually madé, in the
* The ‘workings’ are called Abrás; the tanks as a whole, Kiáris. Tank
No. 1, Kánchá; tank No. 2, Gándi ; tank No. 3, Sijhá; tank No. 4, Páchelá;
the rake, which consists of a bamboo handle attached to the middle of a
square slice of wood, Pálká; the small network of pools is also called Kiári ;
the raised mounds on which the salt is temporarily heaped, Kándis, or Bowris;
and the permanent warehouses, Golás.
* The manufacturer's estimate per maund is as follows:–
Ánás. Pies
Cost of labour, 2 6
Land rent, - © o 6
Excavation of canal, etc., o 6
Part cost of workmen, . O 3
Do. of establishment, O 3
4. O
For the purposes of computation, a maund may be taken at 84 lbs., or %
of a cwt. An Aná equals 1%d., and is subdivided into twelve pies. I am
indebted to Mr. Walton, Collector of Purſ, for the foregoing details regarding
salt-making in Párikud.
44 7F/E SA/CT/AA ERS OF PARIA UD.
same way as the excise is levied from distillers in Eng-
land. The manufacturers hope this year to be able to sell
the solar salt at the rate of IOS. a hundredweight, or 4 IO
a ton, showing a profit of a little less than six per cent.
The artificially evaporated salt sells at a slightly
higher price; but as it is stronger, and goes much further,
the people find it in reality cheaper. Nevertheless the
respectable classes throughout Orissa prefer what is prac-
tically the more costly article, made by the pure rays of
the sun. They look upon the difference between the
two sorts very much as they regard cooked and un-
cooked rice. All nature's gifts are pure until contami-
nated by the hand of man. Cooking constitutes such a
contamination ; and the priests of Orissa would as soon
think of eating rice boiled by a person of inferior caste,
as they would of using salt evaporated by the human
device of fire.
For the salt-makers belong to the despised classes.
Some of them have holdings, and work as agriculturists
during the main portion of the year. But most of them
are day-labourers, with or without a little patch of land
attached to their cottages, and the names of their castes
betray their inferiority in the Hindu social scale.” A
large proportion of them consist of settlements from the
southern seaboard. During the past eight years no salt
has been made, owing to the excessive manufacture of
the preceding period. In 1866 the whole salt-makers of
Párikud were swept away by the famine; and now that
the manufacture is resumed, the contractors say that they
will have to conduct it by imported labour from the
Ganjám coast.
* Viz. Chásás, Keuts, Bauris, and Kandrás from the Purſ district, with
Ariás and Irikás from Ganjám.
AALA' LAND, HAZF WA 7'ER. , - 45
On the northern point of Párikud, where the channel
opens towards the sea, I came upon a region of endless
shallows and stake fisheries, in which even my light-
draught pinnace had to be pushed by main force through
the mud. The stakes form close wattle-fences, about five
feet high, of which two-thirds are under water. They are
arranged as three sides of an oblong, or as two of a tri-
angle, sometimes a mile in length, with narrow-mouthed
baskets opening from their sides, like the pockets along a
billiard table. The tide flowed in with a gentle ripple,
bringing up the fish, who swam along the fences till they
came to the mouths of the baskets, which they forthwith
entered and were caught. The most lucrative enclosure
or pocket was, of course, the one in the angle where the
stake lines met. Fishers in box-shaped canoes punted
from one basket to another, and bagged the prey. But
around the wicker-work enclosure in the angle a little
flotilla was busily at work, while clouds of wild-fowl
hovered over-head, eager and screaming, dashing down
like flashes of lightning, and sometimes tearing away the
fish from the boatmen's hands. .*
Towards the north-west end of the Chilkä the
shallows become solid ground. Thirty years ago the
survey maps marked an extensive tract of the lake “as
occasionally dry.’ This tract was even then twelve miles
in circumference. Since that time, the battle between
the land and the water has ceaselessly gone on ; the
whole being submerged in the rainy season, but the land
steadily gaining ground. As the voyager approaches
this amphibious region, he sees first, long-legged waders
standing about in the water, and then the shorter-legged
paddy birds. At last, even the ducks waddle through
the mire, instead of swimming, according to their nature.
46 THE AROCAESS OF ZAMZD-MA KZAVG.
Then a dark mud-point appears above the surface, like
an alligator's snout, or something black floating on the
water; then almond-shaped banks of slime; then unmis-
takeable land, tinged with a meagre verdure; and finally,
islands covered with tall yellow grass. -
Up to this stage the silt-formations have been a gift
of the lake to its water-fowl, and to such chance seeds as
the winds of heaven may let fall. But from this point
the land is appropriated by man. Rice-clearings appear,
dotted with the temporary straw and mat hovels of the
husbandmen who come from the mainland to stake their
labour on the hazards of lake-tillage. It is difficult to
say where the shore really begins, for its limits vary
every month of the year. The two great rivers of
Puri district here wind through endless marshes and
back-waters into the lake. But eventually clumps of
cocoa-nut trees, and a fringe of dense jungle in the back-
ground, announce that we have reached solid land.
The northern end of the Chilkä is a geographical
curiosity, even more interesting than the lake itself.
With scarcely an exception, the maritime tract around
the mouths of the great Bengal rivers, and sometimes for
more than sixty miles inland, is nothing but dense jungle
interlaced with innumerable channels, and impregnated
with deadly malaria. In this way nature has provided
for herself vast silent workshops in which to conduct her
secret processes of land-making undisturbed. When her
labours are perfected, she makes over the result without
fee or wage to man. But she will have no lookers-on to
criticise her half-finished work, and she excludes prying
eyes during the process, by impenetrable miles of jungle,
and by the pestiferous exhalations of the half-formed soil.
And this she does in the true interests of man. For
ZHE SECRETS OF ZAAVD-MAX/NG. 47
making land from water, like compressing a gas into a
liquid, or smelting iron out of the earth, requires the free
play of mighty forces; and the spectators, be they who
they may, had better stand out of the way of the workman.
The main process in the fluvial land manufacture is to
flood the scarcely emerged soil again and again with silt-
depositing inundations; and if mankind were not kept at
a distance while this is going on, thousands would be
swept into the Ocean every year. A short time ago, a
company was started to reclaim the low-lying jungles of
the Hughly delta. Everything that English capital and
engineering science could accomplish to make the works
secure, was done. But one morning the tidal wave came
up and swept away the solid embankments and an iron-
riveted pier, as a child would pluck up a ripe dandelion
and blow its seeds into the wind. +-
The mouths of the Mahánadſ that enter the Chilkä
form an exception to the contrivance by which the Bengal
rivers keep human inhabitants from settling prematurely
around their mouths. Here is nothing like the pesti-
ferous region of jungle through which the other rivers
merge into the sea, and hundreds of agricultural settle-
ments, pushed forward by the weight of the inland popu-
lation, have advanced upon these water-lands of the Purí
district. I have said that the history of Orissa is the
narrative of a province at the mercy of a great river, and
a short account of the north-eastern shores of the Chilkä
will make known to European readers the terrible mean-
ing of these words.
The Mahánadi, literally the Great River, after collect-
ing the drainage of 45,000 square miles” in the hill-country,
* From Superintending Engineer, Cattack Circle, to Chief Engineer to
Government of Bengal, No. 310, dated 18th January 1851, para. 2. P. W. D.
48 WAZTEA’ SOAPZ Y OF AURA DZSZŽe/C7.
dashes itself down upon the plains, a little above Cattack,
through a gorge barely half a mile wide. Here it imme-
diately divides, forming a delta-head, and sending out four
great arms. Of these, the most easterly, the Koyákhái,
furnishes the water supply of the Purſ district. After a
course of seventeen miles, the Koyákhái bifurcates into
the Dayá and Bhārgavi. The Dayá, literally the River
of Mercy, draws off one-third of the Koyákhái, or 33, IOO
cubic feet” of water per second, and flows south-east into
the Chilká. The Bhárgavi, or the River of Fate, carries
away the other two-thirds, or 59,220 cubic feet per
second,” and after a few miles splits into a number of
channels which run southwards to the coast. Here they
ought naturally to enter the sea, but each in turn finds
itself arrested by the high sandy ridges which the Bay
has thrown up. They accordingly struggle forward in a
south-westerly direction, almost parallel with the coast,
seeking egress, but finding none. Flowing nearly on a
dead level, and amid a hundred obstructions, they search
out every line of drainage, spreading themselves into
vast Swamps, accumulating in huge back-waters, one of
which, the Sar Lake, is sometimes as much as 18 miles in
circumference, and playing gigantic pranks with human
life and property as they force their way along. After
20 miles of a vain struggle to force a passage through
the sandy ridges into the sea, the channels of the
Bhárgavi find their way into the Chilká Lake.
Now it is a feature of the Orissa rivers, hereafter to
be more fully dwelt upon, that their channels are wholly
inadequate to their work. A vast volume of water,
amounting in time of highest flood to 1,800,000 cubic
* Appendix to Captain Harris' Second Report, Table 2, p. 96. I. R.
** /ae/2.
RIVER /)/2 VASTAZZON.S. 49
feet a second, pours through the narrow gorge above
Cattack, while the total capacity of all the Mahánadi
distributaries midway between Cattack and the sea, only
suffices for a discharge of 900,000 cubic feet.” The
channels, therefore, can carry down only half the volume
that is poured into them during flood, and the other half
would, if left to itself, spill over the banks.
From time immemorial the husbandmen have
laboured to prevent this by embankments; and on our
annexation of the province in 1803, the feature that
struck the new rulers as the one great fact in the rural
economy of Orissa, was this sempiternal struggle between
the people and the rivers. At present, were it not
for the embankments, two-thirds of Puri district would
be at the mercy of the floods.” Indeed, notwith-
standing the 316 miles of dykes now maintained by
Government in Puri district alone, there is not a single
one of the twenty-nine Fiscal Divisions” of the district
beyond the reach of inundations.”
Each channel commits its own set of depredations
as it goes along; but at the north end of the Chilká
the entire river-system of Puri reunites, and the whole
accumulated misery of the district is concentrated on its
shores. For it is a feature of deltaic rivers, that although
they do not overflow throughout their entire length every
year, yet the lower portion of their course, near their
mouths, is subjected to annual inundations.” Otherwise,
* Idem, column Io.
* Letter No. 166, from Bábu Kailas Chandra Ghose, Deputy Collector
under Embankment Committee, to President of Committee, 23d May 1868,
para. 52. I. R. - w
© * I invariably use the words Fiscal Division to represent a Parganá.
* Letter from Bábu Kailas Chandra Ghose to President of Embank-
ment Committee, para. 51. I. R.
* Report of the Committee assembled by order of Government ‘to
VOL. II. - D
5o THE MARALA 77.4 OCCUPA 7TWOAV.
indeed, how could the work of land-making go on 2
Whenever any suffering has to be borne in the Puri
district, therefore, the northern shores of the Chilká bear
the largest share, and they are frequently desolated by
floods, while the higher parts of the rivers are reaping
rich harvests in safety.
The northern shores of the Chilkä are distributed
into two Fiscal Divisions : Chaubiskud, literally the
Twenty-four Islands, on the south, watered by the mouths
of the Bhārgaví; and Sirái on the north, through which
the Dayá winds by various channels into the lake.
About a hundred years ago, the Marhattás, who then
held rule in Orissa, seized these two divisions on the plea
that their Rājā had not paid his share towards repelling
a ‘pretender’ who had invaded Puri from the south.
According to the unsettled predatory instincts of their
race, the Marhattās never took complete possession of
these estates, or indeed of any other territory which they
might snatch, but levied a rough quit-rent. A village-
head represented the husbandmen, and administered the
affairs of each little rural community, holding his office
on an hereditary tenure, and enjoying much local dignity
and some solid emoluments therefrom.
The conquerors cared nothing for the people, and
had as little to do with them as possible. A Marhattá
receiver collected the quit-rent from the village-heads,
and left each village commune to partition the burden
among its members. But in 1789 a great flood, or some
other calamity, desolated the country, and plunged the
head-men and cultivators into ruin. The village-heads
fell behind with their rents. The receiver bullied and
investigate the effects of the inundations which occurred in the province of
Orissa in the year 1866, para. I3. I. R.
THE COMPAAVY'S RURAZ SYSTEM. 5I
squeezed until he forced them to sell him their hereditary
office. The wily Marhattá thus combined the authority
of the receiver and of the head-man in his own person.
No one remained to represent the interests of the un-
happy cultivators. As receiver, he cheated his masters,
the Marhattá Government. As head-man of all the
rural communes, he extorted money from the peasantry,
in order that he should not as receiver raise their rents.
After a career of villany, he was at length turned out of
his office as receiver by his masters; but the village-
headships remained in the hands of his nominee, and
the unfortunate cultivators continued without their
natural protectors and representatives till we expelled
the Marhattás in 18O3."
Better days, however, were soon to dawn upon the
northern shores of the Chilkä. From the moment we
assumed charge of the province, the ablest talent in the
administration has been concentrated on finding out the
exact capabilities of the country, and in guarding the
people from being burdened more heavily than they
could bear. Each village was separately surveyed and
assessed; and it may be well to select the northern
end of the Chilkä as an illustration of that system of
honest and direct dealing with the peasantry, by which
the Company managed, without a bayonet or sabre
within seventy miles, to establish its power in each
remotest hamlet of Orissa. Every part of the province
presented very much the same features; and what I
now say about Sirái might be said of half the Fiscal
Divisions of Orissa.
When we drove out the Marhattás, we found the old
rural organization of Sirái so utterly broken down, that
* Abbreviated from Settlement Papers. P. R.
52 A PEASAMZ" ZAAWD-,S.A. ZZZZMAEAVZ.
no landholder appeared to engage for its revenue. It
never occurred to the dishonest receiver who had got
possession of the village-headships, that the new Govern-
ment would admit his claims, and without the sup-
port of the Government he knew he could not hold his
own against the indignant people. But afterwards find-
ing that the chief characteristic of the conquerors was
their scrupulous respect for existing rights, he plucked
up heart, and was acknowledged by the English. Be-
tween the years 1803 and 1836, our officers investigated
the condition of Sirái seven times over. The burden of
the revenue was fairly adjusted among the people. Dis-
honestly concealed holdings were brought to light, and
cultivation steadily increased, so that lands which were
supposed in 1804 to have been rather high rented at
A56 a year, were acknowledged to be cheap at 4, 122 in
1836.
This improvement was the natural result of a quarter
of a century's rest and good government. It was not
taken for granted, however, but ascertained by a minute
examination of every hamlet and field, conducted by the
English head of the district, with the most scrupulous
regard to the rights of the people. He thus describes
the process : “The several villages were measured by
the village accountants and hired surveyors, and their
papers were tested by myself, or by the chief officer of
my court. Having satisfied myself that the measure-
ments and classifications of lands were correct, and having
heard the statements of the landholders, head-men, and
cultivators regarding the peculiarities and disadvantages
of their villages, rates for the different descriptions of
soil were settled, and other surveyors deputed to
prepare rent-rolls in accordance with them, and to
JAAVZ) HO//XERS’ R/GAZS UAEAZAZZZ). 53
distribute leases to all resident husbandmen willing to
engage.”
A minute examination of this sort naturally brought
to light many curious lights and shadows of rural life.
To Indian civilians of the present day, not less than to
the European reader, it reopens a forgotten world; and
not even long familiarity with the records, and the slow
toil of poring over their discoloured pages, can blunt
my admiration of the tenderness for the rights of the
people with which the Company's revenue officers did
their work. It was their policy, on the one hand, to
raise up a rural aristocracy, whose very existence should
depend upon the stability of our rule. With a view to
this, they gave the fullest recognition to those inchoate
proprietary rights, which were always imperfectly de-
veloped under Hindu rule, and which in Orissa had been
almost trampled out beneath the hoofs of the Marhattá
horse.
A subsequent chapter will be devoted to the classi-
fication and elucidation of these rights. At present it
must suffice to say, that while even in the best days of
Musalmán rule, the landholders intermediate between
the State and the cultivators, were entitled to only ten
per cent. of the rent, the Company allowed gross reduc-
tions to between thirty and forty per cent. Thus, in
seven villages on the north of the Chilká, it found that
the total rent paid by the cultivators was 4, 190 per
annum, and of this it claimed only 4, 122 for the State.”
In many cases even a more liberal allowance was made.
In another set of villages, out of a rent of 4 I 15, the
* Letter from W. Wilkinson, Esq., Collector of Purſ, to Commissioner,
dated 29th April 1837, para. 8. P. R. -
* Idem, paras. 5 to 9.
54 7 HE RESIDEAV7' CUZZYVA. TORS.
Government retained only 477;” and practically the
Company built up a rural aristocracy, with whom it
pretty equally divided the revenue of the province.
Next to the landholders, and perhaps more im-
portant than they, were colonies of Brähmans living in
villages by themselves, and holding their land at a low
quit-rent, under charters from the native Government.
Such settlements were numerous on the northern shores
of the Chilká. They formed a religious aristocracy,
which came forth unscathed from centuries of war and
tumult. On our acquisition of the country, they were
almost the only class that had title-deeds to show for
their lands. Their privileges were duly secured to them
by the British power, their rights were carefully inves-
tigated, and they are maintained intact at the present
day.”
But valuable as a well-disposed rural aristocracy
might be, the Company's officers deemed it of still
greater importance to have the people on their side. In
liberally recognising the rights of the intermediate holders,
therefore, they took care to do so, not at the expense of
the cultivators, but at the cost of the State. They found
that the husbandmen on the north of the Chilkä, as in
other parts of Orissa, consisted of two great classes:
resident cultivators,” who lived in the villages within
whose boundaries their lands lay; and immigrant or
migratory tenants,” who had no house in the hamlet,
but cultivated part of the surplus land attached to it.
The former held their fields from father to son ; and
although possessing no defined rights, it would have
* Letter from Collector of Purí to Commissioner, dated 23d May 1837.
Do., dated 5th June, granting 45 per cent. for deductions. P. R.
* Letter from Collector to Commissioner, July 1837, para. 8. P. R.
* Thänſ Ráiats. 66 Páhí Ráiats.
7A/E MZGAEA 7 OA’Y A/USAAAWZ) MAEAV. 55
been considered intolerable tyranny on the part of the
State, or of the intermediate landholder, to oust them
as long as they paid the customary rent. Such questions
scarcely ever arose, however; for at that time the diffi-
culty was not on the part of the cultivators to get land,
but on the part of the landholders to obtain cultivators.
It is doubtful whether at any period in Indian history,
until our own, an equilibrium has ever existed between
the population and the land. At any rate, when we
took over the country, famine, floods, banditti, and the
roaming Marhattás, had left barely half as many pea-
sants as were required to cultivate the soil. Each Rájá
jealously watched over the husbandmen on his domain,
and each subordinate landholder as strictly guarded the
portion of them attached to his estate. In those times
the cultivators were as important a property as the land
itself. &
But while it was the interest of each landholder to
prevent his neighbour from enticing away his own hus-
bandmen, it was equally his interest to attract as many
peasants as possible from his neighbours' estates. To
this end, he offered land to immigrant cultivators at
greatly cheaper rates than they could get it from their
own landlords. His neighbours did precisely the same
thing ; and the result was, that on every estate of Orissa
there were two distinct rates for the same quality of land.
The hereditary peasants, or resident cultivators, paid the
maximum rent, along with as many additional cesses as
could be squeezed out of them without risk of their de-
serting. On the other hand, those who had already
deserted from neighbouring estates were welcomed by
their new landlord, and received as much land as they
wanted at a low rent. The proportion which these
56 - A.OCA/C CESSES.
two rates bore to each other varied in different parts of
the country, according as immigrant tenants were more
or less urgently needed to cultivate the surplus land.
In some places the migratory husbandman paid barely
one-half of the ordinary rent, but in general three-fifths.
The twelve villages noted below" exhibit how great the
difference might be in a single Fiscal Division. A list
which I have brought together from distant parts of the
district presents a still wider diversity.
The resident cultivators, thus heavily weighted with
rent, had a further set of burdens to which the immigrant
husbandmen were strangers. The amount of these ad-
ditional rates was limited only by the inability of the
landlord to squeeze more out of the peasantry without
driving them from his estate. On the north of the
Chilká the list amounted to twenty-three distinct cesses.
If a child of the landholder married, the resident hus-
bandman paid. If a child of a husbandman married, the
husbandman paid. If the landholder died, the resident
husbandman paid. If a husbandman, not a Brähman,
bought some of the lightly rented Brähman lands, he
paid a fine to his landlord. The resident husbandmen
paid the landholder for liberty to erect embankments to
protect their crops. They paid the landholder for the
privilege of attending the festival of Jagannāth, to drag
the car. They paid for licence to grow sugar-cane and
67 Resident Immigrant Resident Immigrant
Cultivator. Cultivator. Cultivator. Cultivator.
Per Acre. Per Acre. Per Acre. Per Acre.
s. d. s. d. s. d. s. d.
Keutpárá, 4 44 3 I* | Detiapárá, . 3 IO 2 IO:
Kátpárá, . 4 24 3 3} | Tipuri, . . 3 4} 2 IO;
Delang, . . Ránſpárá, . 4 IO# 3 9%
Charpárá, : 2 9 * * | Sudhāgarh, 3 to 2 8%
Chándpårá, . 4 O 2 IO4 || Sirái, . . . 4. I 3 34
Billáyatpur, . 4 6 3 II Puseapárá, . 3 9% 2 9%
THE MIGRATORY HUSBANDMEAV. 57
other remunerative crops, in addition to the high rent
exacted for the requisite quality of land. They had to
pay the landholder for keeping up the embankments, and
then they had to give their labour free to do the work.”
It will immediately occur to the English reader to
inquire how men could be so foolish as to pay the higher
rent, and submit to all these exactions, when by moving
to the adjoining estate they might get the same land at
about half-price. To the Hindu husbandman of that
period such a question would never have occurred. For
among an old-fashioned rural community there are grave
deterrents to changing one's abode. Local ties exercise
an influence which modern Englishmen are wholly unable
to comprehend, but the recollection of which will live
to all time in George Eliot's delineations of the English
rural life of half a century ago. Such ties attain their
maximum strength in India. They have struck their
roots deep in the religion, the superstitions, and the
necessities of the people. The whole social system of
the Hindus is one continuous chain, from which, if a
link drops out, it finds nothing to attach itself to, and
no recognised place to fill. It is scarcely too much to
say, that an Orissa peasant who left his village in the
last century, found himself very nearly as uncomfortable
for the rest of his life, as a Chesapeake Indian who
abandoned his tribe.
The migratory husbandman not only lost his heredi-
tary position in his own village, but he was an object
of dislike and suspicion among the new community into
which he thrust himself. For every accession of culti-
vators tended to better the position of the landlord, and,
* Letter from Mr. Deputy Collector Melville to Commissioner, dated
20th January 1819, paras. 56, 57, and other papers. P. R. and O. R.
58 THE MIGRA ZOA' Y H USAAAVZ) MEAV.
Aro tanto, to injure that of the cultivators. So long as
the land on an estate continued to be twice as much
as the hereditary peasantry could till, the resident hus-
bandmen were of too much importance to be bullied or
Squeezed into discontent. But once a large body of
immigrant cultivators had grown up, this primitive check
upon the landlord's exactions was removed. The migra-
tory tenants, therefore, not only lost their position in
their old villages, but they were harassed in their new
settlements. Worse than all, they were to a certain
extent confounded with the landless low-castes, who,
destitute of the local connections so keenly prized in
rural Society as the evidences of respectability, wandered
about as hired labourers and temporary cultivators of
surplus village lands.
In addition to these social considerations, and to
the life-long tenderness of a simple people for their
kindred and homes, an Orissa husbandman had to make
up his mind to a serious pecuniary loss if he deserted
his native village. His neat homestead, with its garden-
ground and fruit-trees, its well or tank, its cow-houses
and barns and threshing-floor, was his own hereditary
property. His forefathers had built those mud walls,
and planted the grove of trees around them. He him-
self had repaired them year by year, and one way or
another they represented the whole fixed capital that
the family had managed to accumulate during many
generations. When a cultivator merely went from one
village to another on the same estate, or, by an amicable
arrangement, obtained a part of the surplus land of a
neighbouring village without having to quit his home,
he retained his house; and enterprising men of this sort
constituted a large class among the so-called migratory
COMPET/ZZON VERSUS CUS7 OM. 59
tenants. But the migratory tenant pure and simple had
to sacrifice his ancient homestead and all its belongings.
The landlords naturally endeavoured to render the posi-
tion of a cultivator who had thrown up his holding as
uncomfortable as possible; and what between the bully-
ing of the bailiff in his old village, and the ill-will of the
husbandmen in his new settlement, the migratory tenant
could hope but for small pleasure in life.
Nevertheless the principles of competition asserted
themselves, and land that could be got below the market
rates found customers. In the seven villages on the
north of the Chilká, of which I have already spoken, the
resident cultivators held 896 acres, and paid on an ave-
rage 3s. 6d. per acre, in addition to a variety of local
cesses, while 249 acres were held by migratory tenants,
who only paid an average of 2s. 9d., without any cesses
whatever.” But while in these villages the migratory
tenants cultivated little more than one-fourth of what the
resident husbandmen held, the proportion in the adjoin-
ing Fiscal Division of Chaubiskud amounted to one-half.”
In every case they held at very much lower rents for
exactly the same quality of land. &
The Company's officers made a marked distinction
in their dealings with these two classes of cultivators.
They held that the mere fact of a man being a resident
husbandman entitled him to a lease” at exactly the same
rent that he had formerly paid. With the migratory
tenants, on the other hand, the Company's servants did
not interfere.” This class required no protection. It
had all the world before it, and could pick its holdings
* Settlement Papers, particularly Mr. Wilkinson's Report to Commis-
sioner, dated 29th April 1837, para. 9. P. R.
"From the same to the same, dated 31st May 1837, etc. P. R. g
* Collector's Report of 29th April 1837, para. 8. 7* Idem, para. 9.
6o THE VIZZA GE ORGAAVIZA 7TWOAV.
from the entire surplus land of Orissa. Moreover, the
landholders were only too anxious to attach migratory
husbandmen permanently to their estates, by leases or
by any other means. While, therefore, our settlement
officers gave a lease on their own motion to every one of
the resident cultivators, they left it to the landholder to
apply for leases for the migratory husbandmen who might
have taken up their abode on his estate.
The same scrupulous justice was shown to every
class interested in the soil. Under the ancient Hindu
system a protective machinery of village officers had
grown up, which to some extent checked the exactions.
of the Rájás. A head-man represented each little rural
community in its dealings with the intermediate land-
holders, or with the State. It was he who arranged with
the superior lord for the quit-rent of the hamlet, and
who distributed the burden among his fellow-cultivators.
For these two distinct offices he received two distinct
sets of emoluments. On the one hand, the native
Government allowed him, rent-free, one acre” in every
twenty actually under cultivation. On the other hand,
the villagers paid him a small fee of a penny an acre
in addition to the landlord's rent, which was annually
fixed ‘after an examination of the crops when they
reached maturity.’” The nature of this latter payment
was much disputed, some officers regarding it as a
Government salary, and others as a popular contribu-
tion; but I have given what I conceive, after mining
through some thousands of Settlement Papers, to be
the real explanation.
78 Called Hetá.
* Settlement Papers, particularly Mr. W. Wilkinson's Report of 29th
April 1837, para. I2. P. R. and C. R.
THE VIZZAGE ORGANIZAZYOM. 6I
Besides the head-man, each rural commune had an
accountant,” who, in the same manner, was partly a
Government officer and partly a village representative.
He was paid by a Government allowance of half an acre,
rent-free, for every twenty in cultivation, and by a money
contribution of a halfpenny an acre from the husband-
men. Under the Marhattá Government both these
offices were hereditary, and transferable by sale, but the
accountant only received half the emoluments of the
head-man.”
The only other conspicuous person in the little rural
commonwealth at the northern end of the Chilkä was the
village watchman. He also held the twofold capacity of
a Government official and a servant of the commune.
As the former he received five acres of rent-free land,
and as the latter he was entitled to “a rather large sheaf
of corn on every five acres.’” It never occurred to the
simple husbandmen to define the size of the sheaf; but it
is recorded that ‘the watchman, as long as he is on good
terms with the cultivators, is generally allowed to select
the largest he can find on the field.’”
In this way the Company's officers laboured to pre-
serve every part of the rural organization intact. When-
ever they found rights of any sort, they either left them
as they found them, or they strengthened them at the
expense of the State. Thus the intermediate land-
holders, who were only entitled to ten per cent of the
rental, received gross deductions always amounting to
twenty, and sometimes to forty-five per cent. Neverthe-
less their old status was sharply insisted upon by the
75 Called Bhui.
* Mr. W. Wilkinson's Report of 29th April 1837, paras. I4 and 16,
etc. P. R.
" Idem, para. 20. - 78 ſalem.
62 THE VIZZA GE ORGANIZATWOW.
provision, that if they were dissatisfied with the terms
which Government offered, or fell behind in their pay-
ments, the Government would itself assume the direct
management of their estate, allowing them only their
ancient ten per cent. on the collections. But while the
Company thus improved the position of the intermediate
landholders, it also strengthened the representatives of
the peasant cultivators. The last settlement in 1837 con-
firmed all the previous privileges of the village-heads, .
and allowed them an additional fifteen per cent. for their
trouble.
At the same time, our settlement officers realized
that it was vain to strengthen the protective machinery
of the cultivators, unless they also strengthened the culti-
vators themselves. The ancient status of this class, and
its communal organization, will hereafter receive separate
treatment. At present it must suffice to say, that when
we got the country they had no defined rights whatever,
and that practically they depended for protection upon
the fact that there was more land in Orissa than there
were husbandmen to till it. But it has been found that
in every province of India the people increase under
British rule, and an equilibrium is sooner or later estab-
lished between the population and the land. The
Company, therefore, while strengthening the rural aris-
tocracy, defined the rights of the husbandmen, and
guarded them by written engagements in all time to
come. The settlement officer first ascertained that the
existing rate did not press too heavily on the peasants.
He then gave a lease to every resident cultivator at these
rates, and without any enhancement whatever.” The
* Settlement Papers; and as regards Sirái, Mr. Wilkinson's Report
above cited, para. 9. P. R.
A REGION OF FLOODS. 63
down-trodden husbandman thenceforward cultivated his
little holding upon the same high guarantee by which the
great seigneur enjoyed his estates, and the rights of every
rank in the rural community were made to depend upon
the stability of British rule.”
This edifice of rights took a full third of a century
to build, and during the first twenty years the master
masons had to labour with the Sword in one hand and
the pen in the other. But in spite of banditti, and the
occasional firing up of the half-extinguished ashes of the
previous Government, in spite of famines and floods, the
work went steadily forward. Its foundations were laid
deep in the self-interests of the great mass of the popu-
lation. The re-settlement of 1836–37 put the finishing
touch to the fabric; but the constantly increasing pressure
of the peasantry on the land has required, and will con-
tinue to involve, careful adaptations of this system of a
bygone age to the present necessities of the people.
So much for the past history of the rural communi-
ties on the north of the Chilká. Their present position
is that of a people in a state of siege. A year scarcely
elapses without an inundation that destroys hundreds of
peaceful homesteads. On the one side are the rivers,
with their beds equal to the discharge of only half the
water that is poured into them from above. On the
other side is the Chilkä, with the southern monsoon
blowing for months together, and piling up masses of water
on the northern shores to a height of eight feet above
the surface level of the other end of the lake.” At the
very time when the rivers have to discharge their greatest
* Settlement Papers and Reports for the years (Faslí era) 1213, 1217,
1218, 1219, 1221–2, 1235, and (Christian era) 1836–37. O. R.
* Report of a Tour of Professional Inspection, by Lieutenant-Colonel
F. C. Cotton, 1856, para. 83. G. R.
64 THE DEVASTATING RIVERS.
volume, they find themselves checked at the point of
issue by this vast accumulation of water which the mon-
soon has pushed up the Chilká. We know that gales
blowing up the Gulf of Finland have more than once
checked the discharge of the Neva, and swamped the
lower city of St. Petersburgh. Now this is what takes
place every year upon the Chilká. The furious monsoon
not only chokes the mouths of the rivers, but drives
masses of brackish water right up their channels, spread-
ing desolation and havoc around.
Dim stories of terrible tragedies flit across the for-
gotten history of these shores under the Marhattá Govern-
ment. From the first moment they passed under our
hands, the necessity has been acknowledged for measures
to repress and control the floods. Up to 1836 the culti-
vators used to flee by whole villages to the hill-country
in the north, preferring its sterile uplands to the fatal
fertility of these flood-stricken shores. In 1837 large
remissions were permanently allowed for risk of inunda-
tion, and ‘the bursting of embankments.” If such were
not granted, the settlement officer reported that the
peasantry would desert by villages to the hill-estates,
‘ from which many have only lately returned.”
But these estimates have fallen far short of the
reality. Of the thirty-two years ending in 1866, twenty-
four have been years of flood, so serious as to require
additional remissions of revenue. During the last fifteen
of them, there has only been a single one in which such
remissions have not been required. This exceptional
year was 1865–66, when the province was depopulated
by drought instead. It must be remembered that, when-
* Report to Commissioner, 31st May 1837, para. Io. P. R.
* Report of 29th April 1837, para. Io. P. R.
THE COSZZINESS OF FEoops. 65
ever there are floods in the Puri district, the shores of
the Chilkä have to bear the greatest share of the general
suffering. I have no separate account of their pecuniary
losses; but during the fifteen years above alluded to,
the total remissions of Government land rent in the Purí
district amounted to 441,993 for floods alone.” If to
this we add £1393 remitted for the famine in 186 5–66,
we have a total reduction of 443,386, being very nearly
equal to a whole year's land-revenue of the district. At
the same time, there has been the enormous sum of
2435,577* expended by Government in embankments
and other protective works against inundation. We
have, therefore, for the two items of remissions for floods
and maintenance of embankments, a bill for 478,963 in
fifteen years. This forms an annual charge of ten per
cent. on the total land-revenue of the district.
But even this does not represent the whole cost of
these floods. For, on the one hand, Government has
not only to allow remissions of revenue; but it is liable
to be called on, as in 1866, for an enormous outlay in
charity and relief works, and thousands of acres of the
finest lands are left unassessed in consequence of their
exposure to inundation. Thus, in the seven villages on
the north of the Chilkä, which I have already referred to,
one-fourth of the whole area was excluded from payment
on this account.” At the present moment, throughout
the Fiscal Division of Sirái, 42.12 acres are left waste for
fear of the floods, against 55.24 which are cultivated within
their range. In Chaubiskud, the division adjoining, the
proportion is 17,482 left waste, to 23,000 under tillage.”
* Report of Inundations Committee, 1866, p. 68.
* Idem, p. 70. * Settlement Papers, 1837. P. R.
* Inundations Committee's Report, 1866, p. 90. I. R.
VOL. II. - E
66 THE COSTZ/AWESS OF F/COODS.
Moreover the part that is cultivated yields only a frac-
tion of what it would but for the floods. The various
Fiscal Divisions of Puri district are classified according
to the extent to which they are liable to such calamities.”
Among them, those on the shores of the Chilkä are
stated to be entirely within the reach of inundations.
By comparing the rents in these unhappy regions with
the rates of Fiscal Divisions which are comparatively
protected, I find that the risk of floods decreases the
market value of the same quality of land to nearly one-
fifth. Thus the highest rate for winter rice land in Sirái,
on the north of the Chilká, is 2s. an acre. In Domár-
khand, one of the best protected Fiscal Divisions, it is
9s. 6d. Again, in Sirái the lowest rent for the same
sort of land is 4%d. an acre; in Domárkhand it is 2s. 9d.
In Sirái the average rate for such land is 1s. 2d. an acre;
in Domárkhand it is 4s. Iod. In addition, therefore, to
the crushing annual incubus on the public revenue,
amounting, as we have seen, for two items alone, to ten
per cent, the risk of floods on the northern shores of the
Chilká decreases the rent-paying powers of the land to
one-fifth of their natural value.”
I feel that, in speaking of Orissa floods, I am
labouring under the disadvantage of talking in an un-
known language to the English reader. For, happily
for my countrymen, they can never realize the full signi-
ficance of the terms I use. Some square miles of inun-
dation in the fen country is the most terrible form of
river flood known in England. Such an occurrence
* Inundations Committee's Report, 1866, p. 35. I. R. -
* Inundations Committee's Report, p. 83; Statement No. 15, etc. I
have selected the worst and the best Fiscal Division to illustrate my case.
The general diminution of the market value of land in consequence of floods
will be subsequently shown. I. R. -
A PURA A/COOZ). 67
would leave behind it not a single paragraph in the
Government records of Purí. I shall endeavour to give
an idea of what a flood really means in Orissa, by a few
bare facts with regard to the inundation of 1866.
In the single district of Puri, with a total area of
2504 square miles, 275 were submerged from five to
forty-five days.” Throughout this vast area the water was
nowhere less than three feet deep;” in whole villages it
was Io feet deep, and over thousands of acres it averaged
seven. The rivers came down like furious bulls, bursting
their banks in every direction, and leaving fifty-two wide
breaches behind them as they tore along. More than
412,000 people were suddenly driven out of house and
home, and found themselves in the middle of a boiling
ocean. When we come to the details, the picture
assumes a still more appalling aspect. In one part of
Sirái, on the north of the Chilká, I2OO acres were under
nine feet of water; and the average depth over the entire
7830 acres reported upon in Sirái, was between seven and
nine feet. There were, therefore, in this single fiscal di-
vision of Puri, more than twelve square miles of solid land
suddenly turned into a sea between seven and nine feet
deep, and this sea continued to cover everything for thirty
days. Thousands of miserable families floated about in
canoes, on bamboo rafts, on trunks of trees, or on rice
stacks, which threatened every moment to dissolve into
fragments beneath them. No lives were lost in the first
rush of the waters, for the unhappy inhabitants of those
regions knew but too well, from previous experience,
what they had to expect, and live in a constant prepara-
99 The exact amount was 177,185 acres. Letter No. 166 from Bábu
Kailas Chandra Ghose, to President of the Embankment Committee, dated
23d May 1868, para. 27.
91 /ae/2.
68 A PURA FZOOZ).
tion for calamity. Most of the hamlets have boats tied
to the houses; and for miles, the high thatched roofs are
firmly held down by bamboo stakes, so as to afford a
refuge in time of flood. Starving colonies might be seen
thus perched above the waters. Every banyan tree had
its rookery of human beings, while the Brähmans effected
settlements on the roofs of their brick temples, and
looked down in safety as the flood roared past. The
common danger disarmed all creatures of their natural
antipathies. Snakes glided up to the roofs, and bur-
rowed harmlessly in the thatch. Others, less fortunate,
wriggled up trees, and whenever a canoe or a log of wood
passed, slid down into the water, and swam along the
surface, with head erect, towards the ark which their
instinct told them would bear them to dry land. From
the first the cattle suffered terribly. Sheep and goats
were carried away by herds in the torrent, and in a few
days their carcases came to the surface, and floated about
covered with crows and scuffling kites. But the most
pitiable sight of all was the plough cattle standing in
shallow parts up to their necks, and hungrily snuffing
the barren waters for food, until they sank exhausted
into the slime. During the first days of the flood, every
branch or twig or bundle of hay was covered with ants,
beetles, lizards, and a hundred forms of minute life. But
by degrees starvation did its work, and the wearied
antennae relaxed their hold. Before the thirty days
were over, many a famished family had also sunk
beneath the waters.
Such was the flood of 1866; and it must be re-
membered that, although of unusually long continu-
ance, it was by no means singular as to its extent or
its depth. Indeed, we find that in 1855 the inunda-
7"HE ZOA Z7A/A CUTZZAVG. - 69
tion was deeper in every one of the Fiscal Divisions of
Purſ.”
When the waters subsided, the survivors found
themselves amid a region of desolated homesteads, foetid
slime, and rotting crops. Close on two million hundred-
weight of rice had perished in Puri district alone during
the thirty days.” Its lowest money value was estimated
at 4.643,683, and this vast loss had been sustained not-
withstanding that, in one single district, IO,620 acres of
fertile land are permanently left untilled for fear of
flood.*
It may well be supposed that English humanity
and English engineering skill have long been anxiously
looking out for some safeguard against such terrible
calamities. The protective works of the last half-cen-
tury will be discussed hereafter; but I must not leave
the Chilkä without mentioning that one of the ablest
engineers who ever worked in Orissa, believed that the
lake itself affords an escape from the difficulty. He
proved by actual measurements, that the river-beds on
the delta were barely equal to discharge one-half the
maximum flood that the Mahánadí pours into them. He
proposed to relieve them, therefore, by means of a
cutting, which would lead off the surplus water of the
Mahānadi, at a point some miles above the gorge
through which the still united river descends upon the
plains. This artificial outlet would start from the south
bank of the river, about twenty-five miles above Cattack,
in the tributary state of Bánki, where a great natural basin
* Inundations Committee's Report, p. 65; Statement No. 4. I. R.
** The return was 2,418,390 maunds, which, at the rate of 84 lbs. to the
maund, is I,813,792 cwts.
* Inundations Committee's Report, p. 103. I. R.
7o 7'HE ZOAZZTAZA CUTZYAVG.
has formed,” and where two natural channels already
exist along the line of drainage. These channels.”
would themselves have afforded an outlet to the south
long ago, but for their being stopped by a low watershed
known as the Dáltalá Hill. Captain Harris proposed to
make a cutting through this impediment. On the other
side of it he finds another natural channel in the
Munāgunſ, a tributary of the Dayá River, which flows
into the Chilká Lake.
In this way the Mahánadi would no longer be
allowed to hurl twice as much water upon the miserable
plains as the rivers can carry off. Its discharge would
be regulated before it emerges upon the delta at all.
Practically, the Dáltalá Cutting would form an additional
mouth to the Mahánadí, and so ease all its existing
distributaries. The new mouth would at first give very
partial relief. The Mahánadí pours down at the rate of
1,800,000 cubic feet per second in flood, and the capacity
of the deltaic rivers for discharging amounts to only
900,000 cubic feet." There is therefore a total balance
of 900,000 cubic feet per second to be carried off, and
the Dáltalá Cutting would in the first instance be capable
of discharging only 50,000,” or one-eighteenth part ‘of
the surplus quantity which it is desired to dispose of, in
order to place the delta in security.” But it should
be remembered that even a partial relief would be of
**Very carefully surveyed by Mr. J. MºMillan, and reviewed by Captain
Harris, para. 25 of Third Report, 21st August 1859. P. W. D.
* The Rampá and the Ran-nālā, plate 1 to Captain Harris' Report,
Part 2. P. W. D.
*7 Appendix to Report of Superintendent of Embankments, No. 1420,
dated 21st August 1858, Table II. P. W. D.
98 Captain Harris’ Third Report, para. 26, p. 45. P. W. D.
99 Letter No. 4470, from the officiating Chief Engineer, Lower Provinces,
to the Secretary to the Government of Bengal, dated 9th October 1858, para.
13. P. W. D. .
THE ZOAZZAZA CUTT/AWG. 71
immense importance. It is the last few feet of an inun-
dation that do most mischief; and by decreasing the
maximum flood by even a few feet, hundreds of fami-
lies would be annually saved from ruin. Moreover,
the Dáltalá Cutting would gradually widen itself, so
that every year its capacity of discharge would be
increased.
There are, however, two great practical difficulties
to the scheme. In the first place, engineers are by no
means sure that the new outlet would not commit even
more frightful devastations than the present floods.
Captain Harris, like all the higher order of minds in
his profession, proposed to make nature do as much as
possible of the work. But what would be the result of
an enormous volume of water poured into a little river
like the Munāgunſ, and forced along it at a tremendous
pace P The professional advisers of the Government of
that day (1858) shrank from the question until a more
accurate knowledge of the country could be obtained.
“It would be vain,’ they said, ‘to offer any opinion upon
this apparently somewhat hazardous mode of disposing
of a flood of water equalling two-thirds that of the
Ganges at its fullest in the season of flood.” Even
after further information had been supplied, the engineers
who would have been responsible to the public for the
authoritative sanction of the scheme did not venture on
its recommendation.” For not only would the volume
of water be enormous, but the velocity would be such as
to ‘render almost certain the destruction of its banks.’
Even in the dry weather the fall between the Mahánadi
* Letter No. 4470, ut supra.
* Letter No. 2668, from the Superintending Engineer, Third Circle, to
the officiating Chief Engineer, dated Ioth October 1859, para. 50 ; and sub-
sequent proceedings. P. W. D.
72 AX/FFYC UZZYES OF 7A/E SCHEME.
and the Chilkä along the proposed route averages 2}
feet per mile, and in high floods it would average 5%.”
A fall of five feet per mile in a river thirty feet deep
gives a velocity of about ten miles an hour.” But even
this irresistible rush does not represent the whole danger;
for while the average fall would be 5% feet, it might rise
at certain sections to ten.” The Dáltalá Cutting would
indeed regulate the Mahánadi floods, but it would itself
defy control. *
The second great difficulty arises from the silting
up of the mouth of the Chilká. For, assuming that
engineering science could safely bring the monster river
into the lake, the question immediately arises, How to
get it out again P Supposing the cutting discharged
only 50,000 cubic feet a second, which, as we have seen,
represents but one-eighteenth of the surplus flood re-
quiring to be drawn off, even this would suffice to deepen
the whole Chilká at the rate of three feet a week during
floods.” But if the full extent of relief was given to
the Mahánadi, and 900,000 cubic feet per second were
carried off by the Dáltolá. Cutting, the surface of the lake
would rise eight feet per diem.” In either case, unless a
vast opening to the sea was provided, the whole country
for thousands of square miles would be submerged, the
* Captain Harris’ Third Report, para. 26, p. 43.
* No. 4470, from Chief Engineer, L. P., to Government of Bengal,
dated 9th October 1858, para. 13. In technical calculations of this sort, I
depend entirely upon the accuracy of the professional papers from which
they are taken.
194 Captain Harris’ Third Report, p. 42.
* This allows a liberal calculation of 450 square miles for the area of
the Chilkä in time of flood; thus (º)= 3 cubic feet.
10° This latter calculation was made by the officiating Chief Engineer,
who, for purposes of safety, had to assume that the flood finds the Chilká at
its dry weather area of only 350 Square miles. No. 4470, dated 9th October
1858, para. 18.
DIFF/CULTIES OF 7"HE SCHEME. 73
flood waters in the other rivers would be violently thrown
back, and half the Puri district drowned.
For it must be remembered that the Dáltalá Cutting
would practically concentrate upon a single spot the
whole surplus water of the Mahánadí, which is now dis-
tributed over all Orissa. As long as the floods con-
tinued, their rush would suffice to scour, and even to
deepen, the channel from the Chilká to the sea; but
during the eight months of dry weather, the sand-de-
positing tides and currents of the bay would fill up the
opening, and labour ceaselessly by day and night to
build a bar across it. The next rainy season, when the
rush of water found the obstruction in front, it would no
doubt eventually break through it, and scour for itself a
new channel to the sea. But this would take time, and
meanwhile the floods would pile themselves up on the
flat country around the Chilká, destroying hundreds of
villages, and thousands of pounds of property. If, on
the other hand, Government cleared out the channel
before the commencement of the rains, it would find
itself saddled with an endless Sisyphus labour, and a vast
annual expense. -
There is, however, a third alternative. It is true
that, in such a struggle with the bar-building ocean,
Government could only follow nature's lead. The safest
engineering would consist of the very contrivances which
a great river would of itself, but more slowly, adopt.
Now the rivers along the Bay of Bengal keep open their
outlets, not only by scouring, but also by building a pro-
tective work against the sand-depositing currents and
the southern monsoon. Without a single exception,
every important mouth of the Mahánadi turns north-
ward just as it enters the sea, and forms a bank or bar
74 AAV AR 7/F/C/AZ Ae/VER-MOUZAZ.
between its channel and the currents that rush up from
the south. These protective works result from the
circumstance that the marine currents find themselves
first checked by the opposing volumes of the river on
the south side of its channel, and immediately deposit a
large proportion of their sand. The rivers, on the other
hand, also find themselves more strongly checked on the
south by the marine current than by the comparatively
still water on their northern side, and accordingly deposit
a larger part of their silt along the southern edge of their
channel as they enter the sea. With regard both to the
marine current and the river stream, the maximum re-
sistance is on the southern side of the channel, and, as
a matter of consequence, the maximum deposit also. In
this way the mouth of the Deví River has been kept
open, the Dhāmrå River is rendered navigable to sloops
and rice-ships, and the sand islands off False Point have
enabled the Mahánadſ to scour out a harbour, destined,
I firmly believe, to be one of the great future ports of
India.
If, from any accident, the formation of these pro-
tective works on the south of an Orissa river-mouth is
interfered with, the channel immediately chokes up, and
the river ceases to be of any value for navigation.
It is clear, therefore, that if the Chilkä Lake is to be
converted into a vast outlet for the concentrated floods
of Orissa, Government would probably have to protect
its mouth by a breakwater, such as nature provides for
her own channels. For the Dáltalá Cutting amounts to
nothing less than the creation of a vast river, two-thirds
the size of the mighty Ganges in the time of its highest
flood. The first outlay in constructing a mole from the
shore, strong enough and long enough to protect the
7"HE ZOAZ 7.4 ZA C U7'ZZAVG. 75
Chilká mouth from the sand-laden currents and southern
monsoon, would be very great. But it is a practicable
undertaking; and it must be remembered that, once the
marine currents found themselves checked, they would
themselves begin to deposit banks on the south of the
breakwater, and the engineering powers of nature would
thus be enlisted in fortifying the work of man.
I have dwelt at some length on the Dáltalá Cutting,
because it was the greatest, and apparently the favourite
scheme of a man of the highest ability, and at the same
time almost the only one of his schemes that has not
hitherto borne practical fruit. Among the group of
brilliant engineers who have devoted themselves to the
rescue of Orissa from floods, Captain J. C. Harris stands
forth conspicuous for a rare power of initiative, with
a talent for professional observation at once compre-
hensive and exact. He did not remain long enough in
India to reach the highest grades of his profession ; but
I cannot refrain from bearing testimony to the scien-
tific enthusiasm, and to the noble sympathy for the
people, which every one of his papers breathes. It is a
spectacle of an earnest nature struggling, by an almost
painful exercise of energy, to communicate its own
motive power to the cautious weighty mass of which
every safe government must consist. There is some-
thing very melancholy in the tone of his last report:
‘And so the Dáltalá Cutting project, which has pro-
duced so much stir, dies out 2 Nothing further, then,
can be done for Orissa after all P She must continue
to be inundated as heretofore ?' Not so, as a subse-
quent chapter will show. Many things are possible to
the Queen's Government in India that were beyond the
means of the East India Company. Captain Harris
76 A VAST A RTIFICIAL RIVE R.
realized that the whole art of engineering was to follow
nature, and no one better than he knew how slowly nature
works. The Dáltalá Cutting, if practicable, would for
ever solve the question of floods in Orissa. But, as we
have seen, that cutting means the construction of an enor-
mous artificial river, which should dash down a volume
of water equal to two-thirds of the Ganges in the time
of flood” at an almost uncontrollable pace upon the
plains. A Government may well shrink from such a re-
sponsibility until the less hazardous expedients have been
tried ; and those who have watched the slow movements
by which natural rivers make for themselves channels,
will not think a period of ten or even twenty years too
long for the consideration of so great an enterprise.”
Meanwhile a great geographical feature like the
Chilkä could not exist without English engineers trying
197 Maximum flood of Ganges = 1,350,000 cubic feet per second ; of
Mahánadí = 1,800,000; capacity of Mahánadí distributaries = 900,000 ; Sur-
OO.OOO
*... =:
* In giving an account of the Dáltalá Cutting and its difficulties, I
have carefully refrained from expressing any view with regard to its practi-
cability. Such an expression, by one who is not a professional engineer,
would be simple impertinence. Among the professional correspondence
which I have read, amounting to many hundreds of pages, the following
papers have been printed by order of Government, and may readily be con-
sulted by those who desire a more exact account than would be suitable in
this work:-Second Report from Captain J. C. Harris, Bengal Engineers,
Superintendent of Cattack River, 1858, particularly paras. Io9, Io9, IIo.
Reviewed by Letter No. 1420 from Superintendent of Embankments to Chief
Engineer, dated 21st August 1858, paras. I6 to 31. Further reviewed by
Letter No. 4470 from Chief Engineer, Lower Provinces, to Secretary to
Government of Bengal, dated 9th October 1858, paras, II to 19. Further
considered in despatch by the President in Council to the Secretary of State,
No. 33, dated 14th May 1860, paras. 9 to 14. With regard to keeping open
a channel from the Chilkä, consult Lieutenant-Colonel F. C. Cotton’s Report,
dated Fort St. George, 12th July 1856, paras. 81 et seq. Third Report by
Captain Harris, dated 31st August 1859. Reviewed by letter No. 2668 from
Superintending Engineer, Third Circle, to Chief Engineer, Lower Provinces,
dated Ioth October 1859. P. W. D.
plus to be carried off by Dáltalá Cutting or otherwise, 900,000.
7"HE CHIZAA CAAWAZ. .' 77
to make some use of it. A canal has been projected
which would lead from Cattack, straight through the lake,
to Ganjām, and thus form a cheap high road for the
commerce of Orissa. This scheme, however, is at pre-
sent under abeyance until more urgently needed enter-
prises can be completed. But the last section of it,
which unites the Chilkä with the port of Ganjām, and
eventually with the whole of the canal system of porthern
Madras, has been made.” It is a short cutting of eight
miles, without locks, suitable for the traffic boats of the
Chilká Lake. These boats are nothing but water-tight,
flat-bottomed boxes, 40 to 45 feet long by 7 feet wide.
They carry ten tons, and draw from 30 inches to 3% feet
when loaded. More than I2,OOO cargoes come annually
down the lake from the Orissa shores in such boats, and
the through traffic between the Puri district and Ganjám,
via the Chilká, is officially estimated at over 1,000,000
tons per annum. The commodities carried are valued at
a quarter of a million of pounds sterling. Until the canal
was made, this enormous traffic had to be carried inbullock
carts from the southern end of the lake to Ganjám, the total
number of cart-loads being more than 190,000 a year.
The lake is also the great highway from the Madras
Presidency to the holy city of Puri. In the two months
of July and November, 65,000 pilgrims are punted across
its waters, and the total number of passengers, accord-
ing to the official returns, exceeds 18O,OOO per annum.
The canal is intended to catch these passengers at the
199 Professional Papers. Proposed by Lieutenant-Colonel F. C. Cotton
in para. 87 et seq. of his Report of Professional Tour, dated Fort St. George,
12th July 1856. Discussed in Memorandum No. 3339, from Superintending
Engineer, Cattack Circle, to Chief Engineer, Bengal, dated 6th October 1866.
Reported as “completed and navigated’ in para. 20 of Special Executive
Engineer's letter, dated Chatrapur (Ganjám district), 28th October 1868.
G. R. and P. W. D. -
78 LAND RECIAMATION SCHEMES
southern end of the lake, and to develope the port of
Ganjām by giving it water communication with Orissa,
in addition to its present outlet to the sea. It was esti-
mated that a small toll of sixpence a ton would yield
more than £2500 a year, and pay ten per cent interest
on the capital, after ample provision for repairs and con-
servancy.”
Among many other proposals for utilizing the Chilkä,
it would be improper to pass over that of Colonel F. C.
Cotton for turning it into a fresh-water lake, and reclaim-
ing a vast area of the finest land from its bed. He
believed that this could be done without much difficulty,
and that the Kolair Lake, 350 miles down the coast,
between the mouths of the Krishná and Godāvarſ, pre-
sented a precise analogy to the Chilká. Like the Chilkä,
the Kolair is connected with the sea by a channel open
to the tide, and if left to itself would be salt in the dry
season, as the Chilkä is at present, and nearly fresh
during the rains. But from time immemorial the salt
sea water has been excluded by embankments. Under
the native Government these were cut every rainy season,
to give passage to the river floods that enter the lake.
Towards the end of the rains they were built up again
before the level had sunk low enough to allow the salt
tides to affect the general body of the water. A great
expense was thus annually incurred, but the fertile lands
reclaimed from the lake gave a profit on the outlay;
and now that the operation is economically managed by
a weir, which allows the escape of the floods, while
preventing the ingress of the tide, the returns are
immense.
* The above figures are taken from Proceedings of the Madras Govern-
ment Public Works Department, 20th December 1864, No. 422.
AMAZOGY OF THE KOZAZR ZAKE. 79
‘Such a work,' continues Colonel Cotton, ‘is quite
practicable between the sea and the Chilká. The rocky
islands would afford admirable materials for the purpose.
The original mode of cultivating the Kolair was to plant
those parts of the bed first which were left bare by the
evaporation of the shallow water; and the cultivation
extended lower and lower as the water receded during
the hot weather. The richest land was at the lowest
level; but when the lake dried below a certain point, the
water became brackish and unfit for irrigation. There
was great gambling in this cultivation, and every year
some portion was lost. But the profit from what was
saved was so great, that every available acre was taken
up, not by the inhabitants of the neighbourhood, but by
people from a distance, who every year came to bid
against each other, and scrambled for a share of the lake.
The Godāvarſ weir has put an end to this. The whole
bed of the lake above the level of the brackish water
can always be cultivated, and the crops watered, without
the slightest risk, by water from the Godávarſ. This
change might as readily be brought about in the Chilkä,
the bed of which would no doubt be found equally fertile,
while the area of available land would be infinitely
greater.’”
What may be the future of the Chilká I know not.
Like every creation of nature, it has great capabilities for
the service of man. But in order that these capabilities
should be turned to account, man must himself come
forward and grapple with them, and subdue them.
Hitherto the Chilkä has been known in the records of
* Report of a Tour of Professional Inspection, 1856, para. 79. The
subsequent paragraphs of this Report contain valuable suggestions with
regard to rendering the lake available as a harbour for, if not navigable by,
ships. G. R.
*
8o FUTURE OF THE CHILA.A.
the district only by the havoc which from time to time
it spreads around its shores. The same capabilities
which might become instruments of good, are now
engines of devastation. Nature uncontrolled is nature
at war with man. . The state of the Chilkä was the state
of the whole world before science and civilisation sub-
dued the earth to their service. We found almost every
province of India at the mercy of a few inches more
or less of rain. Droughts, famines, floods, and tidal
waves ranged across the country like unchained demons,
devouring as they went.
When the history of British rule in India comes to
be truly written, it will occupy itself not solely, and
indeed not chiefly, with the brilliant achievements of our
arms, but rather with those more glorious triumphs of
English energy, capital, and skill, by which devastating
rivers, and the other stupendous forces of a tropical
region, have been controlled to the uses of the humblest
tiller of the soil.

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CHA PT E R III.
JAGANNATH.
Foº two thousand years Orissa has been the Holy
Land of the Hindus. The ancient texts love to
dwell on its sanctity. It is ‘the land that taketh away
sin.” It is ‘the realm established by the gods;' and
its Sanskrit name, Utkala-désa, literally the Glorious
Country, has crystallized the devotional regard of forty
generations.” “Of all the regions of the earth,’ says an
inspired sage in explaining the various places of pilgrim-
age to his pupils, ‘India is the noblest; and of all the
countries of India, Utkala boasts the highest renown.
From end to end it is one vast region of pilgrimage.”
Its happy inhabitants live secure of a reception into the
world of spirits; and even those who visit it, and bathe
in its sacred rivers, obtain remission of their sins, though
they may weigh like mountains. Who shall adequately
describe its sacred streams, its temples, its holy places,
its fragrant flowers and exquisite fruits 2 Who shall
estimate theosoul's gain from a sojourn in such a land 2
* ‘Sarvapápaharandésa.” Kapila Sanhitā, cap. 2.
* Mr. John Beames, magistrate of Balasor, the first Bengal civilian who
has brought scholarship to bear on the Neo-Aryan languages of India,
believes that Utkala means the Outlying Strip, i.e. lying beyond the
Gangetic valley, from ut + kala = Katila = cut off. He has got the Bala-
sor pandits to accept this signification, but the Purſ priests and all the
Bráhmans that I have talked to on the subject adhere to the orthodox
meaning.
8 Tírtha. ,
VOL. II. F

82 7"HE FOUR REG/O/WS OF AZZGAC/MAGE.
But what need for enlarging on the praises of a realm in
which the gods themselves love to dwell ?”
Orissa is divided into four great regions of pilgrim-
age. From the moment the pilgrim passes the Baitaraní
River, on the high road forty miles north-east of Cattack,
he treads on holy ground. Behind him lies the secular
world, with its cares for the things of this life; before
him is the promised land, which he has been taught to
regard as a place of preparation for heaven. On the
southern side of the river rises shrine after shrine to
Siva, the All-Destroyer. On its very bank he beholds the
house of Yama, the king of the dead; and as he crosses
over, the priest whispers into his ear the last text which
is breathed over the dying Hindu at the moment the
spirit takes its flight: ‘In the dread gloom of Yama's
halls is the tepid Baitaraní River.” On leaving the
stream he enters Jájpur, literally the City of Sacrifice,
the headquarters of the region of pilgrimage," sacred to
Pârvati, the wife of the All-Destroyer. To the south-
east is the region of pilgrimage sacred to the sun," now
scarcely visited, with its matchless ruins looking down
in desolate beauty across the Bay of Bengal. To the
south-west is the region of pilgrimage dedicated to Siva,”
with its city of temples, which once clustered, according to
native tradition, to the number of seven thousand, around
the sacred lake. Beyond this, nearly due south, is the
region of pilgrimage beloved of Vishnu, known to every
hamlet throughout India, and to every civilised nation on
earth, as the abode of Jagannāth, the Lord of the World.”
* Kapila Sanhitá. Stirling's Account of Orissa Proper, Asiatic Re-
searches, vol. xv. p. 166.
* Yamálaye mahághore taptá Baitaraní nadí.
* Vijayſ, or Pârvati Kshetra. * Arka, or Padma Kshetra.
* Hara Kshetra. * Vishnu, or Purúshottama Kshetra.
7A/A2 HOZY CZZTV, 83
There is not a Fiscal Division in Orissa without its
community of cenobites, scarcely a village without fertile
abbey lands, and not a single ancient family which has
not devoted its best acres to the gods. Hundreds of
monasteries dot the province, and enjoy an aggregate
rent-roll of 450,000 a year." Every town is filled with
temples, and every hamlet has its shrine. This lavish
devotion extends into the hill-country. In going up the
Mahānadſ, I noticed that each rocky islet, or wooded
crag that rose from its banks, was crowned, not, as upon
the Rhine, by the castle of a noble, but by a temple to
some god. Even foreigners feel that they are treading
on hallowed ground; and the villagers still tell how the
image-breaking Musalmáns retired abashed before the
sanctity of Orissa. “This country is no fit subject for
conquest, or for schemes of human ambition, exclaimed
the victorious general of Akbar in 1580; “it belongs to
the gods, and from end to end is one region of pilgrim-
age.’”
This national reverence for holy places has been for
ages concentrated on the city of Puri, sacred to Vishnu
under his title of Jagannāth, the Lord of the World.
As the outlying position of Orissa long saved it from
conquest, and from that dilapidation of ancient Hindu
shrines and rites which marks the Muhammadan line
of march through India, so Puri, built upon its extreme
south-eastern shore, and protected on the one side by
the surf, and on the other by swamps and inundations,
is the corner of Orissa which has been most left to itself.
On these inhospitable sands, Hindu religion and Hindu
* Report of Committee to inquire into the Maths of Orissa, dated 25th
March 1869, para. I5.
* Stirling, As. Res. xv. 167, 291.
84 7 HE HOLY C/7"V.
superstition have stood at bay for eighteen centuries
against the world. Here is the national temple whither
the people flock to worship from every province of India.
Here is the Swarga-dwāra, the Gate of Heaven, whither
thousands of pilgrims come to die, lulled to their last
sleep by the roar of the eternal ocean. Twenty genera-
tions of devout Hindus have gone through life, haunted
with a perpetual yearning to visit this shrine. On its
fever-stricken sand-hills a nation's adoring love has been
lavished. They are Puri, ‘the City’ of its religious aspi-
rations on earth; they are Purushottama, the dwelling
of Vishnu, ‘the Best of Men;’ they are the symbolical
Blue Mountain ; they are the mystic navel of the earth.
“Even Siva is unable to comprehend its glory; how
feeble, then, the efforts of mortal men ſ”
This great yearning after Jagannāth is to some
extent the outcome of centuries of companionship in
suffering between the people and their god. In every
disaster of Orissa, Jagannāth has borne his share. In
every flight of the people before an invading power, he
has been their comrade. The priests, indeed, put the
claims of their god upon higher ground. ‘In the first
boundless space,' they say, “dwelt the Great God, whom
men call Nārāyan, or Parameswar, or Jagannāth.’ But
without venturing beyond this world's history, the first
indistinct dawn of Orissa tradition discloses Purí as the
refuge of an exiled creed. In the uncertain dawn of
Indian tradition, the highly spiritual doctrines of Buddha
obtained shelter here; and the Golden Tooth of the
founder remained for centuries at Puri, then the Jerusalem
of the Buddhists, as it has for centuries been of the Hindus.
* Vernacular tract sold to pilgrims at the door of the temple; Amos
Sutton's Orissa, p. 124.
EEGENDS OF JAGAAWWATH. 85
Jagannāth makes his first historical appearance in
the year 318 A.D., when the priests fled with the sacred
image, and left an empty city to Red-arm and his buc-
caneers. For 150 years it remained buried in the western
jungles, till a pious prince drove out the foreigners, and
brought back the sacred Log. Three times has it been
buried in the Chilkä Lake; and whether the invaders
were pirates from the sea, or the devouring cavalry of
Afghānistán, the first thing that the people saved was
their god.
Nor was lord Jagannāth, although hurried away
helpless in a covered cart, unable to defend himself by
spiritual arms. In 1558 the Musalmán. general tracked
him to his hiding-place, and digging him up, carried him
off on an elephant to the Ganges. There he determined
to make an end of the god of Orissa, and threw him on
a blazing pile of wood. In the same moment the vaunt-
ing Musalmán's limbs dropped off, and he fell dead. A
looker-on snatched the image unharmed from the fire,
and cast it into the river. Holy Mother Ganges knew
the god, and floated him safely down her stream, till a
priest, who had followed Jagannāth into exile, rescued
him from the river, and extracting the immortal part from
his bosom, brought it safely back to Orissa.”
But the true source of Jagannāth's undying hold
upon the Hindu race consists in the fact that he is the
god of the people. As long as his towers rise upon the
Purí sands, so long will there be in India a perpetual
and visible protest of the equality of man before God.
His apostles penetrate to every hamlet of Hindustán
preaching the sacrament of the Holy Food.” The poor
* Madala Pánji, or Temple Chronicle, cited As. Res. xv. 290.
* Maháprasād, rice offered to Jagannāth, and then eaten by the pilgrims.
86 Z}/E AIO/ Y AWOOZ).
outcast learns that there is a city on the far eastern shore
in which high and low eat together. In his own village,
if he accidentally touches the clothes of a man of good
caste, he has committed a crime, and his outraged superior
has to wash away the pollution before he can partake of
food or approach his god. In some parts of the country
the lowest castes are not permitted to build within the
towns, and their miserable hovels cluster amid heaps
of broken potsherds and dunghills on the outskirts.
Throughout the southern part of the continent it used
to be a law, that no man of these degraded castes might
enter the village before nine in the morning or after four
in the evening, lest the slanting rays of the sun should
cast his shadow across the path of a Brähman. But in
the presence of the Lord of the World priest and peasant
are equal. The rice that has once been placed before
the god can never cease to be pure, or lose its reflected
sanctity. In the courts of Jagannāth, and outside the
Lion Gate, IOO,OOO pilgrims every year are joined in
the sacrament of eating the holy food. The lowest may
demand it from or give it to the highest.” Its sanctity
overleaps all barriers, not only of caste, but of race and
hostile faiths; and I have seen a Puri priest put to the
test of receiving the food from a Christian's hand.
Woe to him who denies the divine efficacy of the
Mahāprasād, the Great Offering ! A hundred tales
among the people warn priestly arrogance of the wrath
of a despised god. There came a proud man from
Northern India, who swore that he would look upon the
Lord of the World, but that he would eat no leavings of
* The limits now placed on this equality are explained towards the end
of the chapter. The above represents rather the ancient doctrine than the
present practice.
CATHOLICITY OF JAGANNATH. 87
mortal or immortal being. But as he crossed the bridge
outside the sacred city, his arms and legs fell off, and
there he lay on the road-side for two months, till a dog
came out of the town eating a fragment of the holy
food, and dropped some as he passed. The proud man
crawled forward on his stomach, and grubbing with his
mouth in the mire, ate the leavings, all slavered from the
jaws of the unclean animal. Thereupon the mercy of
the good lord Jagannāth visited him ; new limbs were
given to him, and he entered the holy city as a humble
disciple.” “God’s pity,’ says the chief apostle of Jagan-
náth, “knows neither family nor tribe.” “Not the learned
in the four holy scriptures, but the lowly man who believes,
is dear to me; to him be given, and from him be re-
ceived; let him be reverenced even as I am reverenced.”
Besides this perpetual appeal to the popular instinct,
the worship of Jagannāth aims at a catholicism which
embraces every form of Indian belief, and every Indian
conception of the Deity. Nothing is too high, and
nothing is too low, to find admission into his temple.
The fetishism and bloody rites of the aboriginal races,
the mild flower-worship of the Vedas, and every com-
promise between the two, along with the lofty spiritu-
alities of the great Indian Reformers, have here found
refuge. The rigid monotheism of Rámānuja in the
twelfth century, the monastic system of Rámānand in
the fifteenth, the mystic quietism of Chaitanya at the
beginning of the sixteenth, and the luxurious love-
worship of the Vallabhácháris towards its close, mingle
within the walls of Jagannāth at this present day. He
* I got this story from an Uriya servant.
* Iswarerkripá jäti kula náhi máne. Chaitanya Charitámrita.
* Name bhaktaschaturvedí, madbhaktah swapachah priyah,
Tasmai deyam tato gráhyam, sa cha pájyo yathá hyaham.
88 CATHOLICITY OF JAGAMMATH.
is Vishnu, under whatever form and by whatever title
men call upon his name.
But not content with thus representing Vishnu in
all his manifestations, the priests have superadded the
worship of the other members of the Hindu trinity in
their various shapes; and the disciple of every Indian
sect can find his beloved rites, and some form of his
chosen deity, within the sacred precincts. Scholars tell
us that, in pre-historic times the Hindu race fell into
polytheism by recognising God too vividly in His mani-
festations, and worshipping the work rather than the
worker. Jagannāth represents the final result of the
converse process. It exhibits the goal to which a highly
intellectual race painfully arrives after ages of poly-
theism, during which the masses were sunk in darkness,
while the higher spirits of each generation have been
groping after the One Eternal Deity. Noble concep-
tions of the Creator, and profound views concerning His
dealings with man, . are welded together with degrading
superstitions, and declare how vain, are the efforts of the
human intellect to search out God.
Here, then, is a great phenomenon in the inner
history of a nation, over which those who would study
the workings of the religious instinct in man's heart will
do well to pause. In order to understand what Jagan-
náth now is to the Hindus, it is necessary to learn what
he has for ages been. I purpose, therefore, to examine
stage by stage that complex growth of enchaining super-
stitions and of yearnings after truth, which, nourished by
the pilgrim bones of centuries, and watered by the tears
of millions of disciples, now spreads itself out in full-
grown luxuriance upon the Puri sands.
The very origin of Jagannāth proclaims him not
THE LEGEND OF JAGANAVATH. 89
less the god of the Brähmans than of the low-caste abori-
ginal races. The various accounts differ less in their
substance than in their details. The following story
of the Divine Log is one of the most popular legends
of Orissa, and was taken down for me upon the spot.”
For a long time in the golden age, men had been
seeking for the god Vishnu throughout the earth. So
the good king Indradyumna sent out Brähmans from
his realm of Málwa to the east and to the west, and to
the north and to the south. And those who went to the
west, and to the north, and to the south, returned ; but
he who went to the east returned not. For he who had
gone to the east had journeyed through the great jungle
till he came to the country of the Savars, the old people
of Orissa, and there he dwelt in the house of Básu, a
fowler of the wilderness; and Básu, seeing the man to
be a Brähman, had forced him by threats to marry his
daughter, and thus to bring honour to his tribe. This
the Brähman did, and abode in the villages of the ancient
people.
Now Bāsu was a servant of Jagannāth, the lord of
the world, and daily he went into the jungle to offer
fruits and flowers in secret to his god. But one morning,
moved by the prayers of his daughter, he took the
Brähman with him, binding his eyes by the way, so that
he might behold the lord Jagannāth in his holy place,
and yet that he should not know the way thither. Then
the Brähman, having received from his wife a bag of
mustard-seed, dropped it as he went blindfold through
* It is entitled the Dáru Brahma, and has a wide circulation in the
vernacular. Like most of the religious legends of the people, it is an adap-
tation from the Purānas. For printed accounts, see As. Res. xv. 317; Brij
Kishore Ghose, p. Io; Ward's History, Literature, and Religion of the
Hindus, ii. 163, quarto ed., Serampore 1815.
90 ZHE ZEGEND OF JAGAMMATH.
the forest till he reached the shrine, and the old man
unbound his eyes. There he beheld lord Jagannāth in
the form of a blue stone image,” at the foot of the
undying fig-tree. Presently the old man left him, and
went to gather the daily offering of flowers. Then the
Brähman prayed to the Lord of the World. And as he
poured out his heart, a crow that sat rocking herself
upon a branch above fell down before the god, and
suddenly taking a glorious form, soared into the heaven
of Vishnu. The Brähman, seeing how easy the path to
eternal bliss appeared to be from this holy spot, climbed
into the tree, and would have thrown himself down;
but a voice from heaven cried, ‘Hold, Brähman | First
carry to thy king the good news that thou hast found the
Lord of the World.’ *
At the same moment the fowler came back with his
newly gathered fruits and flowers, and spread them out
before the image. But, alas, the god came not, according
to his wont, to partake of the offering. Only a voice
was heard saying, ‘Oh, faithful servant, I am wearied of
thy jungle flowers and fruits, and crave for cooked rice
and sweetmeats. No longer shalt thou see me in the
form of thy Blue God.” Hereafter I shall be known as
Jagannāth, the lord of the world.' Then the fowler
sorrowfully led the Brähman back to his house, but the
Blue God appeared no more to that poor man of the
ancient people.
For a long time the fowler kept the Brähman captive
in the wilderness; but at last, moved by the tears of his
daughter, he allowed him to depart to tell that the Lord
20 The common chlorite of the Orissa hills, of which all the ancient
images now found in Orissa are made.
21 Níl-Mādhab.
THE ZEGEND OF JAGANNATH. 9I
of the World had been found. When the king heard the
good news he rejoiced, and set out with his army of
1,300,000 footmen, and a vast company of wood-cutters
to hew a road through the great jungle. So they jour-
neyed 800 miles, till they reached the Blue Mountain.
Then the king's heart swelled within him, and he cried,
‘Who is like unto me, whom the Lord of the World has
chosen to build his temple, and to teach men in this age
of darkness to call on his name P’ But the lord Jagannāth
was wroth at the king's pride, and a voice was heard
from heaven saying, ‘O king! thou shalt indeed build
my temple, but me thou shalt not behold. When it is
finished, then thou shalt seek anew for thy god.’ At
that same moment the blue image vanished from off the
earth.
So the king built the temple, but saw not the god;
and when the temple was finished, he found no man on
earth holy enough to consecrate it. Therefore King
Indradyumna went to heaven to beg Brahmá to come
down and consecrate the temple. But Brahmá had just
begun his devotions, and could not be disturbed. Now
the devotions of Brahmá last for nine ages of mortal
men; and while Indradyumna waited in heaven, many
other kings had reigned on earth. The city that he had
built around the temple had crumbled into ruins, and the
lofty fane itself was buried under the drifting sand of the
sea. One day, as the king of the place was riding along
the beach, his horse stumbled against the pinnacle of the
forgotten shrine. Then his servants, searching to find
the cause, dug away the sand, and there was the temple
of lord Jagannāth, fair and fresh as at the time of its
building.
So when Brahmá's devotions were over, and he
92 THE ZEGEND OF JAGAMMATH.
came down with Indradyumna to consecrate the shrine,
the king of the place claimed it as the work of his own
hands. Therefore Brahmá commanded that witnesses
should be heard, and first he called upon the crow. But
the crow was busy with her devotions, and cried, “Who
art thou that callest me?’ ‘It is I, Brahma, the master
of the Vedas; and dost thou, poor carrion-bird, dare to
despise my summons P’ Then said the ancient crow,
“Which Brahmá art thou ? I have seen a thousand
Brahmás live and die.” There was he with a thousand
faces, whose existence was as a period of five days to me.
Thou wast born but yesterday from the body of Vishnu,
and commandest thou me!' Then Brahmá entreated
the crow, and she declared that it was Indradyumna that
had built the temple.
But for all this, King Indradyumna found not the
god. So with austerities and penance he ceased not to
call upon Jagannāth, till the Lord of the World appeared
to him in a vision, and showed him his image as a block
of timber half thrown up from the ocean upon the sand.
Then the king, with his army and 5000 male elephants,
tried to drag the block with crimson cords to the temple;
but he could not, until, chidden for his presumption by
lord Jagannāth in a vision, he summoned Básu the
fowler to his aid. !
Thereafter the king gathered together all the car-
penters in his country, and gave them lands and villages
as the price for fashioning the block into an image of
lord Jagannāth. But when they put their chisels on
the wood, the iron lost its edge; and when they struck
* The legend speaks of Brahma with the last syllable short, as the one
supreme God; the crow, by lengthening the final syllable, replies to him as
Brahmá, one of the members of the Hindu triad.
THE ZEGEND OF JAGANNATH. 93
them with their mallets, the mallets missed and crushed
their hands; till at last the lord Vishnu came down in
the form of an aged carpenter, and by signs and wonders
declared his power unto the king. Him the king shut
up alone in the temple with the block, and swore that
no man should enter for twenty-one days, sealing the
doors with his own seal. But the queen longed to see
the face of the god, that he might redeem her life from
barrenness. So she persuaded her husband; and he,
opening the door before the end of the promised time,
found the three images of Jagannāth, and his brother
and sister, fashioned from the waist upwards. But Ja-
gannāth and his brother had only stumps for arms, while
his sister had none at all, and even so they remain to this
day. Then the king prayed to the god; and being asked
to choose a blessing, begged that offerings should never
cease in all time to come before the images, and that the
temple should ever remain open from daybreak until
midnight for the salvation of mankind. *.
“So shall it be,” said the vision. “But they are
matters which concern me. Ask for thyself.’ ‘ I ask,
then,' said the king, ‘that I may be the last of my race,
that none who come after me may say, I built this temple;
I taught men to call on the name of Jagannāth.” Thus
it fell out that the good king Indradyumna was the last
of his line. - - .."
In this legend at least two distinct stories are mixed
up. Its latter part probably refers to the exile of Ja-
gannāth during the Yavana occupation of Orissa, A.D.
318 to 473. The pious founder of the Lion dynasty,
who expelled the intruders, is still called the second
Indradyumna; and the rebuilder of the temple in A.D.
II98 also enjoys this title. The first part of the legend
94 AMAZYSIS OF ZEGENZO.
shadows forth the original importation of Vishnu-worship
by an Aryan king from the north-west, and its amalga-
mation with the aboriginal rites existing in Orissa. It
is worthy of note, that although a Brähman figures in
this as in all the religious legends of the Hindus, he is
not the principal person. An ancient text mentions that
Vishnu was specially the god of the kingly and warrior
caste,” and we find in this legend that it is the king who
plays the chief part in introducing his worship.
In another volume I have pointed out that every
Aryan family of ancient descent in Lower Bengal traces
its origin to Upper India.” So, when we come to analyze
the legends of Aryan faith, we find that the gods of the
lower valley of the Ganges begin with a migration from
the north. The salient points in such stories are always
the same. They consist essentially of a Brähman or
Rájput from Upper India, and of a race of herdsmen
or hunters in the great jungle of Lower Bengal. Every
ancient pedigree, whether of a family or a god, in Lower
Bengal, ring the changes on these very simple materials,
and proclaim in an unmistakeable manner that the Aryan
march through India was not entirely one of conquest.
In most of these legends the aboriginal race turns up
again and again, long after the first Aryan settlement
among them. Nor do the primitive tribes appear in-
variably as serfs or as hewers of wood, but sometimes
as warlike allies, or, as in the case of Básu the fowler,
in mysterious connection with the introduction of the
present Hindu faith.
In the foregoing legend we find the aboriginal
28 H. H. Wilson's Works, i. 2.
* Cf. “The Pandit's Chronicle of Beerbhoom, p. 426 of my Annals of
Rural Bengal, vol. i. 3d ed.
AAVAZYSIS OF ZEGEAVD. 95
people worshipping a blue stone in the depths of the
forest. But the deity has grown tired of the jungle
offerings of the primitive people, and longs for the
cooked food of the more civilised Aryan race. When
the Aryan element at length comes on the scene, the
rude blue stone disappears, and gives place to a carved
image. At the present hour, in every hamlet of Orissa,
this twofold worship co-exists. The common people
have their shapeless stone or block, which they adore
with simple rites in the open air; while side by side
with it is a temple to one of the Aryan gods, with its
carved image and elaborate rites. Some shapeless log,
or a black stone, or the red-stained trunk of a tree, is still
the object of adoration among the masses. I have ques-
tioned the villagers a hundred times about their religious
beliefs. But the answer has invariably been, ‘that the
common people have no idea of religion but to do right,
and to worship the village god.’
In the reply of the crow to Brahmá is preserved
an acknowledgment that the present Aryan system of
worship was preceded by religious cycles that have dis-
appeared. The Aryan king might come with his army
from the north, but he had to accept as his deity the
primitive god of the country. Even after the temple
had been built, everything was again at a stand-still,
until the fowler of the wilderness, although now one of
the lowest castes, reappears upon the scene. The poor
aboriginal bird-killer, whose blue stone image disap-
peared before the Brähmans and their elaborate rites,
has for hundreds of years been known by the name” of
* The etymology of Vásu-deva is explained in the Vishnu Purána, lib, i.
cap. 2, as ‘the god who dwells in all things, and in whom all things dwell’
(sarvatrásau samastam cha vasatyatra); from the root, ras, to dwell. Also
96 S/VA- WOACSA/IP.
Básu, an epithet from which the god Vishnu derives one
of his most august titles.
The worship of Vishnu was not, however, the first
form of the Aryan faith that penetrated these remote
jungles of the seaboard. In another chapter I shall
relate how, for centuries before and after the birth of
Christ, the rock caves of Orissa resounded with the
chants of Buddhist monks, hymning the praises of one
God. But about the fourth century of our era, Buddhism
in Orissa begins to lose its sharply marked identity, and
we become conscious that other forms of spiritual life
are struggling to evolve themselves. What were the
birth-throes of these new faiths, we know not; but three
centuries later we find the process complete. The great
City of Temples, Bhuvaneswar, dedicated to Siva, dates
from the seventh century. This worship incorporated the
doctrines of the Aryan conquerors with the rites of the
aboriginal races. The doctrines were spiritual, and it
kept them in the inner sanctuary for its Aryan priests.
Its rites were gross and bloody, and it paraded them in
its outer courts as a bait to the mixed populace. It fixed
its seat in the west of Puri district, where the mountains
and forest tracts of Central India slope down on the allu-
vial plain. There it struck its roots deep in the ignorance
in the Mahābhārata, see H. H. Wilson's note to the Vishnu Purána, vol. i.
p. 17, ed. 1864. Vásu, the name of the fowler in my legend, etymologically
means ‘the dweller.” It has probably been given to him by the Sanskrit
writer of the legend, by a reflex process from the name of his god Vásu-deva,
or because he is the typical aboriginal dweller in the land throughout the
story. The word is also used as a name for Vishnu, and the writer of the
legend may mean that the aboriginal fowler was himself Vishnu in an earlier
form. The legend as I have received it gives the first syllable long, thus,
Básu; and the initial v is pronounced 5 by the Uriyas, as by the Bengalis.
There are eight Vasus (with the first syllable short) in Hindu mythology,
viz. Soma, the moon ; Anila, the wind; Anala, fire; Dhava ; Dhruva; Praty-
usha ; Prabhāsa ; and Vishnu. I have taken the above from the Sabdakal-
padruma of Rájá Rádhá Kánta Dev, and the Bengali Sabdārtha Ratnamálá.
V/SHAVU. WORSHIP 97
and the fears of a people who knew God only by the
more terrible manifestations of His power; as a God
mighty indeed, but to be dreaded rather than loved. It
deliberately utilized the religious instinct of the abori-
ginal races—an instinct always morbidly sensitive among
forest tribes—to shut them out from God, and to enslave
them to man. And so it built for itself its vast City of
Temples around the sacred lake, a city which for twelve
centuries has lifted its thousand towers and pinnacles in
protest to the blue heaven against the priestly impiety
which founded the worship of God on the ignorance of
His people. -
But side by side with Siva-worship, we are dimly
conscious of another spiritual form struggling into life.
The worship of Vishnu likewise took its doctrines and
all its inner mysteries from the ancient Aryan faith, and
engrafted upon them rites which appealed to the imagi-
nations and the passions of a tropical race. Both Sivaism
and Vishnuvism were attempts to bring the gods down
to men. The former plunged boldly into the abyss of
superstition, and erected its empire without shame or
scruple upon the ignorance and terrors of the people.
The worship of Vishnu shrank from such lengths, and
tried to create a system wide enough and strong enough
for a national religion, by mixing a somewhat less base
alloy with the fine gold of Aryan spirituality. It was
a religion in all things graceful. Its gods are bright,
friendly beings, who walk and converse with men. Its
legends breathe an almost Grecian beauty. But pastoral
simplicities and an exquisite ritual had no chance against
a system like Sivaism, that pandered to the grossest
superstitions of the masses. The spiritual element in
Vishnu-worship has no doubt always existed among the
VOL. II. G
98 7"HE V/SHAVU SCAE/A7'UAEES.
Aryan settlements throughout India. But its popular
conquests have generally been subsequent to those of
Sivaism ; and this is the case in a very marked manner
in Orissa, the province with which I have now to deal.
In the eleventh century the Vishnuvite doctrines
were gathered into a great religious treatise. The Vishnu
Purána dates from about the year IO45 A.D.,” and pro-
bably represents, as indeed its name implies, ‘ancient’
forms of belief that had co-existed with Sivaism and
Buddhism for centuries. It derives its system from the
Vedas; not, however, in a direct channel, but filtered
through the two great epic poems. It forms one of
eighteen religious treatises which, under the name of
Purānas, or the Ancient Sayings, are devoted to the
mythology and legendary history of the Hindus. These
works especially extol the members of the Hindu Trinity,
now claiming the pre-eminence for Vishnu, and now for
Siva; but in their nobler flights always rising to a re-
cognition that both are but manifestations of one eternal
God. -
Interesting and valuable as these records are to
European scholars, they were but dry husks for a nation's
soul to feed upon. Their interminable dialogues run to
1,600,000 lines.” But we search through the unwieldy
mass in vain for any genuine sympathy with the people.
They embodied the esoteric faith which nourished Aryan
pride in secret, and which has produced that terrible gulf
between the Brähmans and the masses in modern India.
The Vishnu Purána, compiled barely 800 years ago,
starts with an intolerance equal to that of the ancient
* H. H. Wilson's computation, p. cxii. of Preface to the Vishnu Purána,
ed. 1864.
27 H. H. Wilson, Vishnu Purána, p. xxiv.
A&E FORM OF VISHWUV/SM 99
code of Manu. It still declares the priests to have
sprung from the mouth, and the low-castes from the
feet, of God.” Its stately theogony disdains to touch the
legends of the people. Its cosmography confines itself
to the Aryan world. It declares, indeed, that there is
one God; but this God is the God of the Brähmans, to
whom he gives the earth as an inheritance, and in whose
eyes the ancient races are as demons or wild beasts. In
the Vishnu Purána, Buddha is still an arch-heretic who
teaches the masses to despise the Veda, but whose dis-
ciples are eventually crushed by the bright Aryan gods.
It is true that in the concluding book, when treating of the
last Iron Age to which this world has now come, some
nobler idea of God's dealing with man gleams forth. In
that time of universal dissolution and darkness, the sage
consoles us by the fact, that devotion to Vishnu will
suffice for salvation to all persons and to all castes.”
Vishnuvism had to preach a far different doctrine
before it could become, as it has for ages been, the popular
religion of Orissa. These withered sticks of mythology
could never blossom forth into a national faith. Sivaism
had also its ancient sayings, and it outrivalled Vishnu-wor-
ship by a ritual singularly adapted to terrify and enchain
the masses. But about the middle of the twelfth century
a great change began to take place. Up to that time,
Vishnuvism had been the religion of the upper ranks.
Jagannāth, although unknown to the Vedas, had ever
been the companion of the ruling race in Orissa. We
find him sharing the flights of the priests, and appearing
in the dreams of kings. But from the twelfth century
a curious movement began. Vishnuvism in its turn
* Vishnu Purána, lib. i. cap. vi.
* Vishnu Purána, lib. vi. cap. ii.; H. H. Wilson, V. P. cxxxviii. 1864.
;
e
IOO BUILDING OF THE TEMPLE.
began to throw itself upon the people. Sivaism had
enlisted their ignorant terrors; Vishnuvism was soon to
appeal to the eternal instinct of human liberty and
equality. The first stirring of the waters commenced in
Southern India. There, Rāmānuja, about 1 150 A.D.,
persecuted from city to city, proclaimed the unity of God
under the title of Vishnu, the Cause and the Creator of
all. The preacher made converts from every class, but
it was reserved for his successors formally to enunciate
equality of caste before God as an article of the Vish-
nuvite faith.
And meanwhile the great temple of Jagannāth,
which now stands at Puri, was built. It was a last mag-
nificent assertion of autocratic devotion. In I I 74 A.D.
King Anang Bhim Deo, Lord of Elephants, ascended
the throne of Orissa. He ruled all the country from
the Hughly River on the north to the Godāvari on
the south, and from the forest frontier of Sonpur on
the west, eastward to the Bay of Bengal. This vast
kingdom he measured with rods, assigning nearly two-
thirds for the support of his armies and priests, while
more than one-third paid rent direct into the royal trea-
sury for the king's own pleasures. The whole extended
over forty thousand square miles.” But in the midst
of his grandeur he was struck down by a great cala-
mity. He unhappily slew a Brähman, and the rest of
his life became one grand expiation of the guilt. Tradi-
tion relates that he built sixty stone temples to the
gods; bridged ten broad rivers; dug forty great wells,
and encased them with solid masonry; constructed one
hundred and fifty-two flights of stairs on the river-banks
as bathing places and points of transit; founded four
* Stirling, As. Res. xv. 270.
- e ºf
º
* * e a
e º e
º " ." * @
BUILDING OF THE TEMPLE. I O I
hundred and fifty colonies of Brähmans upon lands
granted out of the royal demesne; and excavated one
million of tanks to protect the crops of the husbandmen.
To him appeared lord Jagannāth in a dream, and
commanded him to journey to the sands of Puri, and
there to call on his name. So the king in the twelfth
year of his reign journeyed to Puri, and offered up his
prayers. Thereafter he gathered around him his princes
and vassals, and all the chief men of his state, and said :
‘Hear, O chiefs and princes! It is known to you
that the kings of the ancient Lion Line ruled a wide
country, and enjoyed a revenue of fifteen hundred thou-
sand measures of gold. But by the grace of lord Jagan-
náth, the princes of my line have subdued many chiefs,
and peoples, and enlarged the kingdom, so that my
revenues are now three and a half millions of measures
of gold. Out of this I have assigned fixed sums for the
payment of my generals, for the captains of my horse
and of my elephants, for the priests, and for the temples
of the gods. Princes and chiefs touch not these grants,
lest ye suffer the penalty which the holy scriptures
denounce against those who take back that which has
been given. Above all, in the countries under your
charge, be merciful to the people. Be just to the hus-
bandmen, and exact no more than the established rates.
And now I have gathered together a great treasure.
Four millions of measures of gold have I taken from
the nations I conquered, and jewels to the value of eight
hundred thousand measures of gold besides. What can
I do better with this great treasure than build a temple
to the lord Jagannāth 2 Speak freely your minds with
regard to the work.’
And so the great temple of Jagannāth was built as
IO2 7"HE VISATAWUV/7′E RAEAPORMA 7TWOAV.
it now stands, all the chiefs and princes applauding the
king's speech. Gold and jewels to the value of a million
and a half measures of gold were set apart for the work,
being estimated at half a million sterling in the money
of our time. Fourteen years the artificers laboured, and
the temple was finished in A.D. 1198.”
At the end of the thirteenth century according to
some authorities, or at the end of the fourteenth accord-
ing to others, the great reformation which made Vishnu-
worship a national religion of India took place. The
early movement in Southern India had left behind it a
line of disciples. Rāmānand was the first in the inspired
descent to illustrate the doctrines in Northern India.
Whether he was the immediate disciple of the southern
teacher, or the fourth or fifth in the descent, matters
little to us. We only know for certain, that when the
first religious awakenings were taking place in modern
Europe, there appeared in Hindustán a prophet of note,
who wandered from place to place, preaching One God
to be worshipped in spirit and in truth, and choosing
twelve disciples, not from among the priests or nobles,
but from the despised castes. One of them was a
leather-dresser, another of them a barber, and the most
distinguished of them all was a weaver. The list shows
that every caste, without distinction, found free entrance
into the new faith. The life of a disciple was no life of
ease. He was called upon to forsake the world in its
literal sense, and to go about preaching or teaching, and
living on alms. His old age found an asylum in some
31 1198 according to Brij Kishore Ghose's Hist. Purſ, p. Io, and Mr.
Fergusson's Hist. of Architecture, ii. 592 ; but I 196 according to Stirling,
As. Res. xv. 269, which is probably a misprint for 1198, as the latter date is
Subsequently given at p. 315. The king's speech is abridged from As. Res.
xv. 27O-I.
THE WAVZ)/AAV REATORMA 77OAV. IO3
monastery of his sect. These foundations will be sub-
sequently described. In the meanwhile, it will suffice to
explain that they are religious houses, generally endowed
by some wealthy votary, in which dwell from four to
forty monks, presided over by a superior of the order.
Rāmānand's work upon earth was the proclamation
of the equality of man before God. The original founder
in Southern India had sufficiently declared the unity of
the Deity. Indeed, this doctrine had always been grasped
by the better spirits in every generation of the Sanskrit-
speaking race. But the southern teacher, while making
converts from all ranks, had addressed himself chiefly to
the pure Aryan castes. He wrote in the language of the
Bráhmans, and took their ancient scriptures as the subject
of his writings. The northern reformer had the courage
to trust his cause to the people. The literature of his sect
consists of practical treatises on the religion of daily life,
and they are written in the dialects familiar to the masses.
The waves of this reformation seem to have reached
the remote sands of Purí about the end of the fourteenth
century. Kabir, one of the twelve disciples of Rámánand,
carried his master's doctrine throughout Bengal. A
monastery called after his name exists in Purí at the pre-
sent day. As his master had laboured to gather together
all castes of the Hindus in one common faith, so Kabir,
seeing that the Hindus were in his time no longer the
whole inhabitants of India, tried to build up a religion
that would embrace Hindu and Muhammadan alike.
The voluminous writings of his sect contain the amplest
acknowledgment that the God of the Hindu is also the
God of the Musalmán. His universal name is The Inner,
whether he may be invoked as the Ali of the Muham-
madans, or as the Rāma of the Hindus. “To Alí and
IOA. THE WAVZ)/AAW RAE FORMAZZOAV.
Ráma we owe our life, and should show like tenderness
to all who live. What avails it to wash your mouth, to
count your beads, to bathe in holy streams, to bow in
temples, when, whilst you mutter your prayers or journey
on pilgrimage, deceitfulness is in your heart? The
Hindu fasts every eleventh day; the Musalmán on the
Ramazán. Who formed the remaining months and days,
that you should venerate but one 2 If the Creator dwell
in tabernacles, whose dwelling is the universe 2 The city
of the Hindu God is to the east, the city of the Musal-
mán God is to the west; but explore your own heart, for
there is the God both of the Musalmáns and of the
Hindus. Behold but One in all things. He to whom the
world belongs, He is the father of the worshippers alike
of Ali and of Ráma. He is my guide, He is my priest.”
The moral code of Kabir is as beautiful as his
doctrine. It consists in humanity, in truthfulness, in
retirement, and in obedience to the spiritual guide. In
humanity; for ‘life is the gift of God,' and ‘the shedding
of blood, whether of man or animal, a crime.” In truth-
fulness; for ‘all the ills of the world, and ignorance of
God, are attributable to original falsehood.” In retire-
ment; because the passions and perturbations of this
earth ruffle the tranquillity of man's soul, and interfere
with his contemplation of God. In obedience to the
spiritual guide; but the disciple is enjoined first of all
to examine well the life and doctrine of him who pro-
fesses to take charge of souls. “When the master is
blind, what is to become of the scholar 2 When the
blind leads the blind, both will fall into the well.”
* Sabda lwi., abridged from H. H. Wilson's Works, vol. i. p. 81.
* Idem, vol. i. p. 94.
** One of the 5000 Sákhis, or pithy sayings, of Kabir.
THE INDIAN REFORMAzzow. IOS
Kabir's teaching marks another great stride in the
reformation of Vishnu-worship. His master had asserted
the equality of castes, because he confused the deity and
the worshipper. He had regarded the devotee as but a
manifestation of the divinity, and no lowness of birth
could degrade the Godhead. As Vishnu had taken
the form of several of the inferior animals, such as the
boar and the fish incarnations, so he might be born
in a man of any caste.
But Kabir based his catholicity on no ancient fable.
“In the heart, where truth abides, there dwell I.’ His
respect for humanity was arrived at, therefore, not by
bringing down God to his worshipper, but by elevating
the heart of the worshipper to God. Loving legends
surround his life and wanderings. The Musalmáns
claim him as one of their own people. The low-caste
Hindus assert he was a weaver; the upper classes
believe him to have been a miraculously born child of
the Brähman caste. The virgin widow of a Brähman,
we are told, went with her father to visit the holy
Rāmānand. The sage, without remarking her widow's
garments, greeted her with the salutation suited to
married women, and wished that a son might be born
to her. The words of the holy man, once uttered, could
not be recalled. The young widow in due time bore
a son, which in an agony of shame she exposed by the
wayside, where it was found by a weaver and his wife.
Of Kabir's death it is recorded that both Hindus
and Musalmáns claimed the body; the former desiring
to burn it, and the latter to bury it, according to their
respective rites. While they wrangled over the corpse,
Kabir suddenly stood in the midst, and commanding
them to look under the shroud, vanished. This they did.
Ioé 7"HE WAVZ)/A W REAVORMA 7TWOAV.
But under the winding-sheet they found only a heap
of beautiful flowers, one half of which they gave to be
burned in the holy city of the northern Hindus, while
the other half was buried in great pomp by the Musal-
máns, and a tomb erected on the spot. His name lives
in the memory of the people, and pilgrims from Upper
India beg a spoonful of rice-water from the Kabir
monastery at Puri to this day.
The labours of Kabir may be placed between 1380
and 1420 A.D. In 1485 Chaitanya was born. As Kabir
was the Vishnuvite reformer of Hindustán, so Chaitanya
was the prophet of Orissa, and for twelve years laboured
to extend the worship of Jagannāth. Signs and wonders
attended him through life, and during four centuries he
has been worshipped as an incarnation of Vishnu. For
thirteen months the holy child lay in the womb. An
eclipse ended as he entered the world. On the lonely
shores of Puri he was visited by beatific sights and reve-
lations. On one occasion he beheld the host of heaven
sporting upon the blue waves, and plunged into the ocean
in a religious ecstasy, but was miraculously returned to
earth in a fisherman's net. After forty-two years of
preaching, he disappeared in A.D. 1527.
Extricating ourselves from the halo of legends which
surround and obscure the apostle, we know little of his
private life, except that he was the son of a Silhet Bráh-
man, settled at Nadiya, near Calcutta; that in his youth
he married the daughter of a celebrated saint; that at
twenty-four he forsook the world, and renouncing the
state of a householder, repaired to Orissa, and devoted
the rest of his life to the propagation of his faith. But
with regard to his doctrines we have the most ample
evidence. No caste and no race was beyond the pale
7"HE ZAVO/AAW RAE FORMA 7TWOAV. Io'7
of salvation. The Musalmāns shared his labours, and
profited by his preaching as well as the Hindus. He
held that all men are alike capable of faith, and that all
castes by faith become equally pure. Implicit belief and
incessant devotion were his watchwords. Contemplation
rather than ritual was his pathway to Salvation. Obe-
dience to the religious guide is the great characteristic
of his sect; but he warned his disciples to respect their
teachers as second fathers, and not as gods. The great
end of his system, as of all Indian forms of worship, is
the liberation of the soul. He held that such libera-
tion does not merely mean the annihilation of separate
existence. It consists in nothing more than an entire
freedom from the stains and the frailties of the body.
The liberated soul dwells for ever, either in a blessed
region of perfect beauty and sinlessness, or it soars into
the heaven of Vishnu himself, high above the myths and
mirages of this world, where God appears no more in
His mortal incarnations, or in any other form, but is
known in His supreme essence.
It is impossible to listen to an account of the
Chaitanya system without being reminded of that trans-
cendental Quietism in which the more beautiful spirits of
France, deeply penetrated by the Reformation, but still
clinging to the exquisite ancient faith, sought comfort.
As Madame Guyon likened the soul's journey to a river,
and analyzed its progress with almost morbid precision,
so Chaitanya formulated the states through which the
human spirit must pass towards a perfect communion
with God. The first religious stage is indifference to
the world,” such as was felt by the holy sages of yore;
the second is active service to God;” the third is a
as Sánti. * Dásya.
f
|
\
Io8 7 HE WAVD/AM Me EFORMA 7TWOAZ
personal friendship for the Deity;” the fourth is a
tender affection for Him, as the attachment between
parent and child;” the fifth is a passionate love, such
as the forest nymphs felt for their divine lover.”
The truth is, that all the more devotional races of
mankind have evolved some form or other of Quietism.
The Persian Sufis have their four degrees of spiritual
perfection." In the first, the disciple struggles to with-
draw his mind from this world by religious observances ;
in the second, he ascends from outward forms and cere-
monies to the inner worship of the heart; the third is
one of perfect sanctity; the fourth an absolute union in
thought and spirit with God. The Muhammadan Sufis
and Hindu Vishnuvites, more distinctly than Madame
Guyon, make the soul's journey to end in transcendental
beatitude and sinlessness even upon earth. Faith,” not
works, is the road to salvation ; and a passionate long-
ing after God, at times rising to heights of unearthly
ecstasy, at others swooning away into dreamy religious
voluptuousness, is the frame of mind after which all
should seek. Hand in hand with faith goes love. In
the earlier stages of spiritual life, such love as a servant
may have for his master, or a friend for a friend, will
suffice; but it should gradually ascend into that higher
affection which a father has for his children, ending at
last in the perfect love of husband and wife.
The followers of Chaitanya belong to every caste,
but they acknowledge the rule of the descendants of the
87 Sákhya. 38 Vätsalya.
89 Mádhurya. H. H. Wilson, Works, i. 164, from which volume the
materials for the foregoing account of the Indian reformers are chiefly
derived.
49 Introduction to the Chaitanya-Chandrodaya, edited by Bábu Rájendra
Lála Mitra. I854.
*l Bhakti.
REZ/GIOUS POSITION OF WOMEN. Io9
six original disciples.” The sect is open alike to the
married and the unmarried. It has its celibates and wan-
dering mendicants, but its religious teachers are gene-
rally married men. They live with their families and
dependants in little clusters of houses around a temple
to Vishnu,” and in this way the adoration of Chaitanya
has become a sort of family worship throughout Orissa.
In Purſ there is a temple specially dedicated to his name,
and many little shrines are scattered over the country.
But he is generally adored in connection with Vishnu;
and of such joint temples there are at present 300 in the
town of Puri, and 500 in the district. The worship of
Chaitanya extends throughout all Orissa; and I have
a long list of landed families who worship him with a
daily ritual in household chapels dedicated to his name.
At this moment Chaitanya is the apostle of the
common people in Orissa. The Brähmans, unless they
happen to enjoy grants of land in his name, ignore his
work. In almost every Brähman village the communal
shrine is dedicated to Siva ; but in the villages of the
ordinary husbandmen it is Vishnu who is worshipped,
and Chaitanya who is remembered as the great teacher
of the popular faith.
The death of this reformer marks the beginning of
the spiritual decline of Vishnu-worship. Chaitanya had
scaled heights denied to ordinary men. The only point
in which any real improvement has since taken place, is
with regard to the position of women in the religious
commonwealth. After the death of Chaitanya a sect
arose among his followers, who asserted the spiritual in-
* The Gosáins.
* In his form of Krishna. I generally use the word Vishnu in its
generic sense, as applied to all the incarnations of the god, to save the in-
troduction of unfamiliar Indian names in the text.
I IO CORAE UPTIONS OF HIWVO U FA/TH.
dependence of women.” In their monastic enclosures
male and female cenobites live in celibacy; the women
shaving their heads, with the exception of a single slender
lock.” The two sexes chant the praises of Vishnu and
Chaitanya together, in hymn and solemn dance. But
the really important doctrine of the sect is their recog-
nition of the value of women as instructors of the outside
female community. For long they were the only teachers
admitted into the zanánás of good families in Bengal.
Sixty years ago they had already effected a change for
the better in the state of female education, and the value
of such instruction was assigned as the cause of the sect
having so rapidly spread in Calcutta. Since that time
Vishnuvite female ascetics” of various sorts have entered
the same field. In some instances the bad have crept
in along with the good, and an effort recently made to
utilize them as an engine of public instruction failed.
A few years ago a female normal school was founded,
in the hopes of turning out a supply of highly trained
teachers, who would gain admission into the zanánás.
Female ascetics of the Vishnuvite orders were invited
to enter the institution; but, after a patient trial, it was
ascertained that their moral character had ceased to
command the respect which it formerly received. At
the end of 1868 ten remained in the school; but during
the past year nine of them were removed, upon careful
inquiry into their private life, and the tenth voluntarily
withdrew herself.”
* The Spashtha Dáyakas.
** H. H. Wilson's Essays, vol. i. p. 170. * Vairāginſs.
* The official details with regard to this interesting and once promising
institution at Dacca may be found in Appendix A of the General Report of
the Director of Public Instruction, L. P., for 1863-4, pp. 83–90; 1864–5, pp.
I55–158; 1865–6, p. 172 ; 1866-7, pp. 132–3; 1867–8, p. IoI ; and 1868–9;
ZO VE- WORSHIP I II
The most deplorable corruption of Vishnu-worship
at the present day, is that which has covered the temple
walls with indecent sculptures, and filled their innermost
sanctuaries with licentious rites. It is very difficult for
a person not a Hindu to pronounce upon the real extent
of this evil. None but a Hindu can enter any of the
larger temples, and none but a Hindu priest really knows
the truth about their inner mysteries. But between
Vishnuvism and Love-worship there is but a step, and
this step has been formally and publicly taken by a large
sect of Vishnuvites. -
As early as I 520 a teacher” arose in Northern
India, preaching that the liberation of the soul depended
not upon the mortification of the body, and that God was
to be sought, not in nakedness and hunger and solitude,
but amid the enjoyments of this life. The special object
of his adoration was Vishnu in his pastoral incarnation,
in which he took the form of the divine youth Krishna,
and led a glorious Arcadian life in the forest. The
legends surround him with all that makes existence
beautiful. Shady bowers, lovely women, exquisite viands,
and everything that appeals to the luscious sensuousness
of a tropical race, are mingled in his worship. His daily
ritual consists of eight services, in which his image is
delicately bathed, anointed with essences, splendidly at-
tired, and sumptuously fed. His great annual ceremony
in Lower Bengal is the Car Festival of Jagannāth, here-
after to be described. It is a religion of luxury and
systematic indulgence. The followers of the first Vish-
nuvite reformers dwelt together in secluded monasteries,
and especially in letter No. 2988, from Inspector of Schools, South-East
Division, to Director of Public Instruction, dated 4th December 1869.
P. I. R.
* Vallabha-Swamí.
II 2 A.O VE- WOA'SAH/A
or went about scantily clothed, living upon alms. But
this sect performs its devotions arrayed in costly apparel,
anointed with oil, and perfumed with camphor or Sandal.
It seeks its converts, not among weavers, or leather-
dressers, or barbers, but among wealthy bankers and
merchants, who look upon life as a thing to be enjoyed,
and upon pilgrimage as a means of extending their trading
enterprises.
In a religion of this sort great abuses are inevitable.
It was a revolt against a system which taught that the
soul could approach its Maker only by the mortification
of the body. It declared that God was present in the
cities and marts of men, not less than in the cave of the
ascetic. Faith and love were its instruments of salva-
tion, and voluptuous contemplation its approved spiritual
state. It delighted to clothe the Deity in a beautiful
human form, and mystical amorous poems make a large
part of its canonical literature. One of its most valued
theological treatises is entitled the Ocean of Love; and
although its nobler professors have always recognised
its spiritual character, to the common order of minds it
has become simply a religion of pleasure. The loves of
Rádhá and Krishna, that exquisite woodland pastoral,
redolent of as ethereal a beauty as the wild-flower aroma
which breathes in the legend of Psyche and Cupid, has
been materialized into a sanction for licentious rites.
Siva-worship, on the contrary, is a religion of stern
realities. Whatever it does, it does with a rigid seri-
ousness that is altogether a stranger to the luxurious
sensuousness of the worship of Krishna. Its shrines are
seldom disgraced by the obscenities which stand out in
imperishable stone from the walls of Vishnu temples.
Indeed, throughout Orissa I have found the absence or
f
A.O WE- WORSHIP II3
presence of prurient sculptures almost as good a criterion
of the sect to which a temple belongs, as the mystic
wheel of Vishnu, or the trident of Siva which surmounts
its tower. It is only fair, however, to state that both the
educated Brähmans and the uneducated masses deplore
these indecencies, or spiritualize them into solemn mys-
teries. So far as I can learn, they little affect the minds
of the worshippers. In a great crowd, such as constantly
streams in and out of Jagannāth, thieves and pickpockets
naturally ply their trade. But whatever may be the
private character of the priests, the only case of a great
impropriety absolutely known to have taken place within
the walls, was immediately visited by the ecclesiastical
exclusion of the parties for the rest of their lives.
I have watched the pilgrims in the city, and in a
hundred villages along the great high road that leads
to it. I have never seen better behaved assem-
blages of men and women; and the civil surgeon of
Puri, whose duties bring him into constant intercourse
with the pilgrims, reports to me that there are cer-
tainly not more improprieties among them than there
would be in European gatherings on an equally large
scale. *
It is this composite worship of deep spirituality and
sanctioned self-indulgence which for six centuries has
been gathering round the present temple of Jagannāth.
In the story of most of the leading Vishnuvite saints,
Jagannāth plays some part. The greatest of all of them
devoted his life to the spread of his worship; and an
Orissa tradition still relates how in 1 503, the king,” after
a public disputation, acknowledged himself subdued by
Chaitanya, and became his humble disciple. Even in
49 Pratāb Rudra Deo.
VOL. II. H
II.4. MEDIAE VAZ ZEGENDS OF JAGAMMATH.
the lives of northern saints, Jagannāth from time to time
appears upon the scene. The Beerbhoom poet Jayadeva,
whose Herdsman's Song is now the devotional work of a
great sect of his countrymen, abandoned his ascetic life
on account of a Brähman girl who had been dedicated to
Jagannāth. The god himself assisted the poet in his
writings; and when the sacred volume was finished, he
publicly claimed it as the work of his favoured servant.
For the king of Orissa, having heard of the fame of the
poem, composed another and called it by the same name.
The obsequious priests received it with rapturous adula-
tion, and placed it in the temple along with the original
work. But the lord Jagannāth stepped down from his
throne, and taking up both poems, hurled the Rájá's out
of the temple, and tenderly placed Jayadeva's in his
bosom.
It was not only of poets and Brähmans, however,
that Jagannāth was now the patron. Vishnuvism had
become the faith of from one-fifth to one-third of the
whole people of Bengal. Of one of the saints, a poor
butcher by caste, it is recorded that while on pilgrimage,
being tempted to adultery by a Brähman's wife, and
accused by her when he would not comply, his hands
were cut off. But the lord Jagannāth judged between
the innocent and the guilty, and restored the mutilated
limbs to his servant. At this moment the Vishnuvite
sects love to claim Puri, on however slender grounds, as
the birthplace of their founders, or to introduce it as the
scene of their labours on earth. I have already men-
tioned the monastery of Kabir, and hard by his estab-
lishment is a religious house of another northern sect, to
which all devout pilgrims from Upper India repair. At
the one they beg a piece of bread, and at the other a
ME ZO/A. VAZ ZAZGAZAVZ),S. 115
spoonful of rice-water, in remembrance of their respective
founders.”
In Orissa, among the common people, Jagannāth
reigns supreme. Different fiscal divisions claim, as a
precious hereditary right, the privilege of rendering
service to the god. The jungly highlands on the west
of the Chilká supply the timber for the Car Festival.
The lowlands on the north of the lake annually send
thousands of peasants to drag the sacred vehicle. The
inhabitants delight to explain the etymology of their
towns and villages, by referring their names to some
incident in the history of the image.” The royal line
has for centuries performed menial offices before the
image; and as the sweeper caste is the lowest in the
Hindu commonwealth, so the kings of Orissa have
reached the climax of religious humility, in their most
cherished title of Hereditary Sweeper to Jagannāth.
The devotion of centuries has long ago made Jagan-
náth a very wealthy god. The Muhammadans spared
so opulent a deity for the revenue that he could be
made to yield. All other idols in Orissa they smashed
in pieces; and the common saying at this day is, that the
noses and ears of the Hindu gods dropped off at the
sound of the Musalmán kettle-drum. But Jagannāth was
too lucrative a property to be roughly handled, and a
native historian informs us that they raised the enormous
sum of 4 IOO,OOO" per annum by licensing his worship.
If this statement be correct, the Musalmáns must have
taxed the priests as well as the pilgrims, as I find that
the net sum realized by the British Government, on its
* The Ma/º Dás Ād fužrd and Kaffſr AEA foránz.
* e.d. Mánikpatna, the ruby of Jagannāth.
* Nine lacs of Sicca rupees.
II6 JAGANNATH UNDER WATIVE RULE.
taking charge of the country, averaged only £6619 a
year.” The Marhattás succeeded the Musalmáns, and,
being Hindus, encouraged the worship, and richly en-
dowed the god. In 1755 they sanctioned a regular
payment for the support of the temple, estimated, when
we took possession of the country, as equal to a landed
estate with a rent-roll of 4, 1700 per annum.” During
the last twenty-four months of their rule, their total
money contributions amounted to 45000.” As we shall
afterwards see, the pilgrims were made to pay dearly for
the State liberality to their god.
This, however, represents but a small portion of the
wealth of Jagannāth. The monasteries connected with
the temple enjoy a revenue estimated by a Hindu in
1848 at 4, 20,000 per annum. We have a list of the
twenty-nine largest grants, which alone yielded 4, 14,540
a year. The present rental of the monasteries connected
with Jagannāth amounts, so far as I have been able to
ascertain, to £27,000 per annum ; and at the moderate
computation of fifteen years' purchase, represents landed
property to nearly half a million sterling.
But, as I have already stated, every family of any
importance in Orissa has dedicated a large part of its
estates to the gods. It is not Jagannāth alone who has
profited. The most moderate calculation that I have
seen values the abbey lands of Orissa at £50,000 a year.
* This represents the net receipts after all deductions for charges, care-
fully made up from the manuscript accounts for a period of twenty-one
years, ending in 1831. The average gross collections were £12,574.—
O. R. -
* The Sátáis Hazárí Mahal, literally the Twenty-seven thousand Rupees,
but returned as yielding only Rs. 17,420 in the Government papers. Brij
Kishore Ghose, pp. 9, 20, etc. ar " s
* Letter No. 1943, from Commissioner to Board of Revenue, 26th Aug.
1843.
THE MOMASTERIES OF OR/SSA. 117
This is the official return by a committee consisting
entirely of native gentlemen appointed to report on the
religious endowments of that province.
In every country, monastic licentiousness has fol-
lowed hard upon monastic wealth. Orissa has been no
exception to the rule; and since the day we took charge
of the country, a cry has gone up against priestly luxury
and vice. The enlightened part of the community has
now arrayed itself against the systematic abuse of reli-
gious endowments exhibited in almost every monastery.
It is not the poor or the discontented who are loudest
in their complaints, but men of education, position, and
of a sufficient degree of orthodoxy to represent public
opinion among the respectable Hindus. The native
governments of Orissa had more than once to interfere,
and to resume endowments which were so grossly abused.
In 1810, six years after our accession, misappropriation
had reached such a height as to require a legislative
remedy.” Endowments for pious uses were placed under
the supervision of the Board of Revenue, which was
made responsible for seeing that the funds were applied
to their proper purposes. This supervision by a distant
body in Calcutta, consisting of Christians and foreigners,
was necessarily of an unsatisfactory nature; and in 1863
the old regulation was repealed. The new law provided
that religious endowments should be administered either
by local committees of management or by trustees, and
endeavoured to guard against misappropriation by direct-
ing that any person interested might sue the committee
or trustees who abused their position. But no ‘person
interested’ has ever come forward thus to protect the
patrimony of the poor. Not a single suit has been filed,
- * Regulation xix. of 1810. Repealed by Act xx, of 1863.
II.8 7"HE MOAVAS 7'EP/ES OF OR/SSA.
and practically the committees and trustees have done
just as they pleased.
Meanwhile the public indignation has grown louder
every year. In 1860 a pamphlet was put forth by a
native gentleman who had visited all the larger monas-
teries of Orissa, and who was himself a landholder in
that province. He says : ‘Licentiousness, inhospitality,
and petty robbery are the daily vices that have crept
into them. When the abbots go out of their monasteries,
they pass with a retinue composed of elephants, horses,
and sometimes camels. Tom-tom players and per-
formers on the horn go actively along with them. They
never think of doing their duty. The monasteries hold
half the lands occupied by the landholders, but they
are of very little use to the public.’ ‘They have given
up their ancient hospitality. Pilgrims and sick men
never approach them, for fear of being rudely expelled
from their portals. The abbots have yielded to de-
grading carnal pleasures, and their disciples emulate their
vices.”
The reforming party among the Hindus would give
but a short shrift to such abuses. The pamphlet above
quoted recommends that the religious endowments of
Orissa should be classified according to the purposes
for which they were intended, and that these purposes
should be enforced by a domiciliary supervision of the
police. With regard to a little monastery on his own
estate, the author adopted an even more vigorous pro-
cedure. “I have a small village,’ he says, “in the country
of Cattack, of which I am the proprietor. In that village
is a religious house, to which was granted, by my pre-
* Discourse on the Maths of Orissa, by Kedar-Náth Datt, adridged,
pp. I, 5, 6. Calcutta, 1860.
MOZVASTYC A B USA.S. II9
decessors, a holding of rent-free land. The head of the
institution gave up entirely entertaining such men as
chanced to seek shelter on a rainy night. This came
to my notice; and I administered a severe threat to the
head of the house, warning him that his lands would be
cruelly resumed if in future complaints of inhospitality
were brought to my knowledge.’
In 1868 a committee was officially appointed to
report upon the religious endowments of Orissa. It
consisted entirely of natives of the province, eye-
witnesses and ear-witnesses of the facts they had to
collect; and who, by a residence in Purí itself, had
studied the working of the system at its centre, be-
fore starting out to investigate its intricate ramifica-
tions. They found that the endowments consisted of
three classes. In the first class, the deeds granted the
lands solely for charitable purposes. In the second, the
charters devote certain lands to provide food for the
local idol. The third class of endowments is for both
purposes, and directs the income to be distributed partly
in charity, and partly to be spent in the purchase of the
god's food. Practically, however, all monasteries in
Orissa of the first class have also grants of the second
sort ; that is to say, foundations for charitable uses
have invariably acquired lands for the worship of the
gods as well. “There is little room to doubt,’ say the
committee, ‘that the endowments in general were made
for the benefit of the poor and the helpless.’ For the
most part, they lie along the great road to Jagannāth, or
in the town of Puri, and seem to have been specially
intended for the poorer pilgrims who visit the shrine.
‘The religious houses, as originally established,’
continue these native gentlemen, “might be compared
I2O - MOMAS 7/C AB USA.S.
with Christian monasteries, as far as the characters of
the managers and the associates, and, in fact, of all the
inmates, went. The abbot led a life of celibacy, bore
the highest character for piety, and was wholly devoted
to the service of God and man. He lived in the
simplest style, denying himself even the common com-
forts of life. This is not the picture of an imaginary
abbot. There exist, even in this day, instances of such
management, though from their rarity they can only be
taken as exceptions.
“Very different is the state of things at present.
The high style in which they live, their expensive equi-
pages, and large and costly retinue, not to say anything
of the pleasures and luxuries in which they indulge, to
the neglect of their proper duties, tend, as we think, to
show that they are not as they ought to be. Besides
these, there are the facts of direct and indirect alienations
of trust property, and the large expenses of unnecessary
lawsuits. We believe that there is enough in what we
have shown, to produce moral conviction as to the exist-
ence of abuses too great in extent, and too flagrant in
character, to be suffered any longer to remain unre-
medied. Such is our conviction; and we need hardly
state, after the representations already laid before Govern-
ment, what the public feeling on the subject is, a feeling
which is one of honest indignation at what is considered
a gross abuse of trust and a public wrong.”
The truth is, that the monastic institutions of Orissa
answer the objects for which they were founded no
* Report of Committee, dated 25th March 1869, paras. 21 and 22,
abridged. That the monasteries of India were once very different from
what they are now, is clear from H. H. Wilson's testimony. He describes
the abbots in 1828 as “men of talents and respectability.’ Works, i. 53,
ed. I862.
MOMASTYC WEAZ7 H. - I2 I
better in the nineteenth century, than the monastic in-
stitutions of England answered their purposes in the
sixteenth. But whatever may be done in Orissa, there
will be no spoliation of religious endowments. The
English Government of India has ever disdained to
enrich itself by the confiscation of charitable lands. The
proposals for their reform have come entirely from the
natives themselves. Of such proposals, some tend to a
general revision of the grants, and their appropriation
to really charitable uses, such as medical dispensaries,
hospitals, and schools for the poor. The more moderate
party confines its suggestions to the establishment of a
central committee of management in Orissa, with powers -
of visitation and control over the local boards.” They
desire that this committee should represent the en-
lightened and public-spirited part of the community.
They expressly declare against the members being paid,
‘being persuaded that none worth having on such com-
mittees would think of accepting any remuneration for
trouble taken in the cause of religion.’”
The amount at stake is large enough to make a
Government and a people ponder well before they com-
mit themselves. Fifty thousand pounds, the annual rental
of the religious lands in Orissa, represent at least an in-
come of a quarter of a million a year in England. Esti-
mating the value of the land at fifteen years' purchase, a
great property worth three-quarters of a million sterling
is at stake. Allowing for the different purchasing power
of money in Europe and in the rural parts of India, this
sum may be set down as of equal magnitude in Orissa
to 44,OOO,OOO sterling at home.
* Report of Committee, dated 25th March 1869, para. 30. B. S.
* Idem, para. 32.
I 2.2 JAGAMMATH UNDER EAWGZISH RULE.
The English Government has respected the patri-
mony of Jagannāth not less scrupulously than it has
conserved the general religious endowments of Orissa.
We simply took over charge of the country from the
Marhattá intruders, and the Company bound itself to
uphold all rights and privileges as it found them. Jagan-
náth soon made his claims heard. Not satisfied with
being maintained in all their grants, the priests pestered
the British officers with demands for special allowances.
A few months after our accession, while the whole land-
holders of Orissa were in a tremor as to how the new
Government would deal with their rights, the Brähmans
calmly insisted upon ‘a variety of articles as presents,
in order to avert the famine and mortality which are
dreaded from an adjutant bird having alighted upon the
spire of the goddess Bimalá, and of her shawl having
been wet by her perspiration.’”
Practically, the British decided that all disburse-
ments hitherto made for charitable uses should be
continued on the scale which the orthodox Marhattá
Government had established.” Among these costly
bequests, the superintendence of the temple of Jagannāth
was the chief. During the years that preceded their
expulsion, they had paid from 4,3000 to 45000 from their
treasury, to make good the deficit between the receipts
and the charges of the establishment. Lord Wellesley
expressly enjoined our troops, when they started to
occupy the province in 1803, to respect the temple and
the religious prejudices of the Brähmans and pilgrims.
At the same time, our officers were to make no arrange-
* Letter to J. Hunter, Esq., Collector of Jagannāth, from the Commis-
sioners, dated 19th September 1804. P. R.
* Letter from Commissioners to Collector, dated 23d March 1805. O. R.
JAGAMMA TH UAWDEAE EAWGZZSA RUZZ. I23
ments that would hamper Government in any subsequent
reform of temple abuses.” Our General communicated
these orders to the priests of Jagannāth when he entered
the province; and a deputation of Brähmans accordingly
came into the camp, and placed the temple under our
protection, without a blow being struck.”
The first effect of our occupation was temporarily
to suspend the tax on pilgrims, as we found the system
under which the Marhattás had levied it to be grossly
oppressive. At all fords and passes the unhappy pilgrims
had to pay toll. Every governor along the road levied
as much as he could extort; and one chief fixed the
impost in his district at the enormous rate of 4 I, 9s.
for each foot-passenger.” With regard to the temple,
we simply engaged to take the place of the late Govern-
ment.” The Marhattás, however, had granted no fixed
sum, but had annually made up the difference between
the receipts and the expenditure of the temple. For the
first four years we followed the same plan, and struggled
to thread our way through the endless maze of chicanery
in which the temple accounts were involved. Practi-
cally, there was a deficit of £3000 a year, which the ruling
power had to make good." In 1807 the Government
endeavoured to get rid of the minute supervision of
idolatrous rites which this system involved.” A year
later it formally vested the temple superintendence in
the representative of the ancient royal line of Orissa,
* Letter No. 1943, from Commissioner to Board of Revenue, dated
26th August 1843.
64 Zalemz.
* Calcutta Review, vol. x. p. 218.
* Letter No. 1943, above cited.
* Total expenditure, Sa. Rs. 65,999; temple receipts, Sa. Rs. 30,884;
Government grant, Sa. Rs. 29,355, the balance being disallowed.
* Upon Mr. Webb's Report, dated 19th November 1807.
I 24 JAGANNATH UNDER EAVGZISH RULE.
whom the Marhattás had so grievously oppressed.”
The total allowance was fixed at 4.6OOO." This sum
was granted, however, only on the understanding that it
would be absolutely spent in the maintenance of the
temple.
Meanwhile Government reimbursed itself by a
pilgrim-tax, similar to that which had been always
levied by the native governments, but of a much lighter
character. It stationed guards at the two entrances
to the town, who classified the pilgrims and levied the
rates. The richest sort, known as the Red Pilgrims,
paid from 12s. to 4 I sterling a head.” The commonalty
paid 4s. ; but all religious devotees, carriers of holy
water, and bona ſide inhabitants of Orissa,” went free.
By exempting merchants and hucksters of every sort, it
took care not to let the tax interfere with trade. All
poor pilgrims who should declare their inability to pay
the tax in the prescribed form were also exempted;” and
practically, only two-thirds of the registered number
paid. The registered number itself seldom represented
one-half the actual total that crept into the city un-
perceived.
If the Musalmán historians are accurate in their
returns, the tax thus levied by the Company was barely
one-fifteenth of what the people had formerly paid.
Nevertheless it formed an important item in our revenue
from Orissa. During the twenty-one years ending 1831
it yielded a balance of 4 139,000, or £6619 per annum,
69 Sanad to Rájá of Khurdhá, dated 1808.
79 Sa. Rs. 56,342. 9.8, ‘exclusive of broadcloth for decorating the cars.”
Letter No. 1943, above cited. -
71 Regulation iv. of 1806, secs. 3 to 6.
** I.e. residents between the Baitaraní and the Ganjám Rivers.
7° Regulation iv. of 1806, sec. 9.
PZZGRIM-7AX ABO LISHED. I25
after deducting £5955 a year from the gross returns
for the temple expenses and charges.” It was felt,
however, that the money thus made was to a certain
extent the price of a State sanction to idolatry. Chris-
tian missionaries ceased not to protest against the impiety
of keeping open, as it were, a great emporium of pagan
rites, and making a profit from the customers. In 1840
the Company removed this stain from its administration.
It abolished the pilgrim-tax, and made over the entire
management of the temple to the Rájás of Khurdhá, the
representatives of the ancient royal line. At the same
time, it maintained the pledges that the Marquis of
Wellesley had solemnly given. The priests had placed
their temple under our protection on the strength of
those pledges. In 1840, therefore, the Government,
while utterly withdrawing itself from the management,
and refusing thenceforward in any way to recognise the
shrine, or to levy a tax from its devotees, declined to
interfere with the ancient grants. The money allow-
ance had been from time to time reduced, as several
functions of the administration—the police, for example,
which had formerly been defrayed by the temple—passed
under the regular authorities. But the good faith of the
English Government was scrupulously maintained ; in-
deed, so scrupulously as to give offence to many Christian
men both in India and at home. The annual allowance
was afterwards converted into a grant of land, worth
about 4,4000 a year. All money payments from the
treasury, and all State interference, of whatever sort,
have ceased.
It is difficult to form anything like an accurate esti-
** The total yield was at the rate of £12,574; the annual charges,
4,5955. Abolished by Act x. of 1840.
I 26 INCOME OF JAGAMMATH.
mate of the present income of Jagannāth. Accepting
the computation of the rent-roll of the monasteries con-
nected with the temple at 427,000, and adding £4000 as
the present value of the lands granted by the State, we
have a total of 431,000. This sum, however, represents
but a fraction of his actual income. The whole length
and breadth of India is the patrimony of the priests.
The different provinces are allotted to different heads of
houses, who claim the right of acting as spiritual guides
to the pilgrims from their respective regions. These high
ecclesiastics cover the country with their emissaries, who
preach the sanctity of pilgrimage, and not a day passes
without long trains of footsore travellers arriving at the
shrine. At the Car Festival, food is cooked in the
temple kitchen, for 90,000 devotees; at another festival
for 70,000; and on the morning of one of their solemn
full moons, 40,000 pilgrims wash away their sins in the
surf.” The number that daily flocks in and out of the
holy city never falls short of 50,000 a year, and some-
times amounts to 300,000. This is the published com-
putation of a native gentleman who had spent his life on
the spot.
No one comes empty-handed. The richer pilgrims
heap gold and silver and jewels at the feet of the god,
or spread before him charters and title-deeds, conveying
rich lands in distant provinces. Every one, from the
richest to the poorest, gives beyond his ability, and many
cripple their fortunes for the rest of their lives in a frenzy
of liberality. Thousands die on the way back, from not
having kept enough to support them on the journey.
But even when the unhappy pilgrim has given his last
rupee, the priests do not suffer him to depart: some
* Brij Kishore Ghose, pp. 46, 51.
OFFERINGS TO JAGAAWWATH. 127
shrine still remains to be visited, some ceremony to be
witnessed, or some blessing to be obtained. The de-
votee, in a fever of apprehension lest any of the objects
of his pilgrimage should remain unaccomplished, gives a
bond to be paid on his return home. An engagement of
this sort is so inviolable, that the priests do not even
think it needful to take it upon stamped paper. The
poor shorn pilgrim probably never reaches his native
country. But the next time a pilgrim-hunter visits the
dead man's village, he produces the bond, and it is paid
without cavil. -
The value of these offerings can never be known.
Some have stated it to me as high as 470,000. But I
think this is excessive, although it should be remembered
that, according to native historians, the Muhammadans
managed to extract 4, IOO,OOO from the pilgrims before
they entered the city at all. A moderate computation
estimated the offerings to the priests at twice the gross
sum which the British officers realized as pilgrim-tax; and
now that the tax is withdrawn, and the pilgrims enter the
city so much the richer, the oblations cannot fall much
short of three times the amount. This would yield a
yearly sum of 437,OOO, which, added to the 440OO de-
rived from the temple lands, and to the revenues of the
religious houses, valued at 427,OOO, make the total in-
come of Jagannāth not less than £68,000 per annum.
A religious society, so ancient and so wealthy, natu-
rally gathers around it a vast body of retainers. A quarter
of a century ago there were as many as 6000 male adults,
priests, warders of the temple, and pilgrim guides. The
number has probably increased since then ; and including
the monastic establishments, their servants and hired
labourers, along with the vast body of pilgrim-hunters
I 28 HOUSEHOLD OF JAGAMMATH.
who roam through every province of India, it is probable
that not less than 20,000 men, women, and children live,
directly or indirectly, by the service of lord Jagannāth.
The immediate attendants on the god are divided into
thirty-six orders and ninety-seven classes. At the head
is the Rājā of Khurdhá, the representative of the ancient
royal house of Orissa, who takes upon himself the lowly
office of sweeper to Jagannāth. Decorators of the idols,
strewers of flowers, priests of the wardrobe, bakers,
cooks, guards, musicians, dancing-girls, torch-bearers,
grooms, elephant-keepers, and artisans of every sort,
follow. There are distinct sets of servants to put the
god to bed, to dress him, and to bathe him. A special
department keeps up the temple records, and affords a
calm literary asylum to a few learned men. The baser
features of a worship which brings God down to men,
and aims at a sensuous realization of the Eternal, by en-
dowing Him with human passions and a human form,
appear in a band of prostitutes who sing before the
image.
The sacred enclosure is nearly in the form of a
square, protected from profane eyes by a massive stone
wall 20 feet high, by 652 feet long and 630 broad.
Within it rise about 120 temples, dedicated to the
various forms in which the Hindu mind has imagined its
god. In the list I count no fewer than thirteen temples
to Siva, besides several to his queen, the great rivals of
Vishnu. The nature-worship of primitive times is repre-
sented, even in this most complex development of modern
superstition, by a temple to the sun. But the great
pagoda is the one dedicated to Jagannāth. Its conical
tower rises like an elaborately carved sugar-loaf, 192 feet
high, black with time, and surmounted by the mystic wheel
PLAN OF TEMPLE OF JAGANNATH
AT PURI
Presented to the Author by Babu Rādhikā. Prasād Mukaiji Ass" Eng. DPW.
(Growand, Plazv )
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A TOWERED SANCTUARY CONTAIN ING ! Dolls
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C Pi LLARED HALL FOR DANCING GIRLS
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ANZSCRIPTVOAW OF 7'EMAPZAZ. I 29
and flag of Vishnu. Outside the principal entrance, or
Lion Gate, in the square where the pilgrims chiefly throng,
is an exquisite monolithic pillar which stood for centuries
before the Temple of the Sun, twenty miles up the coast.
The temple of Jagannāth consists, Hke all the larger
shrines in Orissa, of four chambers opening one into the
other. The first is the Hall of Offerings, where the
bulkier oblations are made, only a small quantity of
choice food being admitted into the inner shrine. The
second is the Pillared Hall, for the musicians and dancing-
girls. The third is the Hall of Audience, in which the pil-
grims assemble to gaze upon the god. The fourth is the
Sanctuary itself, surmounted by the lofty conical tower.”
There sits Jagannāth, with his brother Balabhadra and
his sister Subhadrā, in jewelled state. The images
are rude logs, coarsely fashioned into the form of the
human bust from the waist up. On certain festivals the
priests fasten golden hands to the short stumps which
project from the shoulders of Jagannāth. The want of
arms has been already accounted for in the legend of
Básu the fowler, but the priests give a more spiritual
explanation. The Lord of the World, they say, needs
neither hands nor feet to work his purposes among men.
The service of the temple consists partly in a
daily round of oblations, and partly in sumptuous cere-
monials at stated periods throughout the year. The
offerings are simple enough : fruits and flowers, and the
various articles of food in use among a primitive people.
Rice, pulse, clarified butter, milk, salt, vegetables, ginger,
* These halls, beginning as above with the outermost, are called respec-
tively, (I) Bhog Mandir, (2) Nát Mandir, (3) Jagamohan, (4) Bara Deul, the
holy cell itself. For the dimensions on page 128 I am indebted to Bábu
Rájendra Lála Mitra. Those given by Stirling and by Brij Kishore Ghose
are slightly inaccurate.
VOL. II. I
I3o DAILY SERVICE OF JAGANAVATH.
and cocoa-nuts, are offered to the images and eaten by
the priests. A list of the items, made up by a Hindu
gentleman, gives their aggregate cost at 44, 8s. 4d. a
day, and the table of the idols is entered in the temple
accounts at 4, 1572 a year."
Four times every day the priests clear the sanctuary,
and close the tower gates while the god is at his meals.
At the door stand Vishnuvite ascetics, waving large fans
and singing his praises. In the Pillared Hall a choir
of dancing-girls enliven the idols' repast by their airy
gyrations, while a few favoured servants attend him in
his inner shrine.
The offerings are bloodless. No animal yields up
his life in the service of Jagannāth. The spilling of
blood pollutes the whole edifice, and a set of servants
are maintained to hurry away the sacrificial food that
has thus been contaminated. Yet so deeply rooted is
the principle of compromise in this great national temple,
that the sacred enclosure also contains a shrine to Bimalá,
the ‘stainless’ queen of the All-Destroyer, who is every
year adored with midnight rites and bloody sacrifices.
Twenty-four high festivals enliven the religious year.
They consist chiefly of the Vishnuvite celebrations, but
freely admit the ceremonials of the rival sects. A vein
of the old aboriginal rites runs through them all. At the
Red Powder Festival, a picturesque boat procession of
the gods about Easter on the sacred lake, devotees to the
number of 40,000 indulge in Öháng and other intoxicating
drugs to a degree that shocks the pilgrims of purer
Aryan descent from Upper India.” Vishnu and Siva
77 Brij Kishore Ghose, pp. 26 and 28.
78 The Chandan Játrá lasts three weeks in the month of Baisãkh, and
reaches its climax on the twentieth day. The local details of these cere-
FESTIVAZS OF JAGAAVNATH. I3 I
enjoy equal honours in the ceremony. The wild age
is yearly commemorated in the abduction” of the fair
nymph by the enamoured god, a primitive form of
marriage per raptionem, acknowledged by ancient Hindu
law. The Aryan advance through India is celebrated
on Rāma's birthday, on which the god appears in the
dress and arms of the Sanskrit hero who marched to
the southern jungles of the peninsula, and slew the
cannibal king of Ceylon. At the Bathing Festival,”
when the images are brought down in great pomp to
one of the artificial lakes, a proboscis is fastened to their
noses so as to give them the look of the elephant god
of the aboriginal tribes, Ganesa. The Supremacy of
Vishnu is declared, however, in the festival of the
slaughter of the deadly Cobra-da-Capello,” the familiar
of Siva and his queen. The indecent rites that have
crept into Vishnuvism, and which, according to the spirit
of the worshipper, are either high religious mysteries
or simple obscenities, are represented by the Birth
Festival,” in which a priest takes the part of the father,
and a dancing-girl that of the mother, of Jagannāth, and
the ceremony of his nativity is performed to the life.
But the Car Festival is the great event of the year.
It takes place, according as the Hindu months fall, in
June or July, and probably owes its origin to a period
long anterior to the temple itself. We have seen how
Vishnuvism at Puri is but the successor of the older
Buddhistic creed. The Chinese traveller Fa Hian gives
monials I take chiefly from Brij Kishore Ghose, whose long residence in
Purſ best entitles him to speak.
* Rukminſ-haran-ekádasí.
80 Snán Játrá.
* Kálí-damana.
* Janam.
I32 CAR FESTIVAL OF JAGAMMATH.
a curious account of the yearly procession of the Sacred
Tooth from its regular chapel to a shrine some way off,
and of its return after a stay there. This was in the fifth
century A.D.; but the account applies so exactly to the
Car Festival at the present day, that one of the most
accurate of Indian observers pronounces the latter to
be ‘merely a copy.” Certain it is, that in its greatest
ceremonials, as in its leading doctrines, the worship of
Jagannāth bears the impress of the ancient Buddhistic
faith.
For weeks before the Car Festival, pilgrims come
trooping into Puri by thousands every day. The whole
district is in a ferment. By the time the great car has
risen to the orthodox height of forty-five feet,” the temple
cooks make their calculations for feeding 90,000 mouths.
The vast edifice is supported on sixteen wheels of seven
feet diameter, and is thirty-five feet square. The brother
and sister of Jagannāth have separate cars a few feet
smaller. When the sacred images are at length brought
forth and placed upon their chariots, thousands fall on
their knees and bow their foreheads in the dust. The
vast multitude shouts with one throat, and, surging
backward and forward, drags the wheeled edifices down
the broad street towards the country-house of lord Jagan-
náth. Music strikes up before and behind, drums beat,
cymbals clash, the priests harangue from the cars, or
* History of Architecture, ii. 590, by James Fergusson, F.R.S., to whose
industry and genius we owe the best account alike of the temples and of the
rivers of Bengal. Mr. Fergusson does not seem to have quite understood
the interior plan of the larger Orissa temples, but no European is permitted
to enter them, and I owe it to Bábu Rájendra Lála Mitra that I have been
able to explain their four chambers. From the publication of Bábu Rájendra
Lála Mitra's work on Orissa, an accurate knowledge of that style of Hindu
architecture will date.
** Brij Kishore Ghose, p. 39.
THE CAR FESTIVAZ. I33
shout a sort of fescinine medley enlivened with broad
allusions and coarse gestures, which are received with
roars of laughter by the crowd. And so the dense mass
struggles forward by convulsive jerks, tugging and sweat-
ing, shouting and jumping, singing and praying, and
swearing. The distance from the temple to the country-
house is less than a mile; but the wheels sink deep into
the sand, and the journey takes several days. After
hours of severe toil and wild excitement in the July
tropical sun, a reaction necessarily follows. . The zeal
of the pilgrims flags before the garden-house is reached;
and the cars, deserted by the devotees, are dragged along
by the professional pullers with deep-drawn grunts and
groans. These men, 42OO in number, are peasants from
the neighbouring fiscal divisions, who generally manage
to live at free quarters in Puri during the festival.
Once arrived at the country-house, the enthusiasm
subsides. The pilgrims drop exhausted upon the burn-
ing sand of the sacred street, or block up the lanes with
their prostrate bodies. When they have slept off their
excitement, they rise refreshed and ready for another of
the strong religious stimulants of the season. Lord
Jagannāth is left to get back to his temple as best he
can ; and in the quaint words of a writer half a century
ago, but for the professional car-pullers, the god “would
infallibly stick’ at his country-house.
In a closely-packed eager throng of a hundred thou-
sand men and women, many of them unaccustomed to
exposure or hard labour, and all of them tugging and
straining to the utmost 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
I34 SAEZAZ/MMOZAZYOAW UAVKAVO WAV.
instances have always been rare, and are now unknown.
At one time several unhappy people were killed or
injured every year, but they were almost invariably cases
of accidental trampling. The few suicides that did occur
were for the most part cases of diseased and miserable
objects, who took this means to put themselves outjof
pain.” The official returns now place this beyond doubt.
Indeed, nothing could be more opposed to the spirit of
Vishnu-worship than self-immolation. Accidental death
within the temple renders the whole place unclean. The
ritual suddenly stops, and the polluted offerings are
hurried away from the sight of the offended god. Ac-
cording to Chaitanya, the apostle of Jagannāth, the de-
struction of the least of God's creatures was a sin against
the Creator. Self-immolation he would have regarded
with horror. The copious religious literature of his sect
frequently describes the Car Festival, but makes no men-
tion of self-sacrifice, nor does it contain any passage that
could be twisted into a sanction for it.” Abul Fazl, the
keen Musalmán observer, is equally silent, although from
the context it is almost certain that, had he heard of the
practice, he would have mentioned it.
So far from encouraging self-immolation, the gentle
doctrines of Jagannāth tended to check the once universal
custom of widow-burning. Even before the Govern-
ment put a stop to it, our officials observed its compara-
tive infrequency at Purſ. It is expressly discountenanced
in the writings of the Vishnuvite reformers, and is
stigmatized by a celebrated disciple as ‘the fruitless
union of beauty with a corpse.'
* Stirling, As. Res. xv. 324. Calcutta Review, x. 235. Report of Statis-
tical Commissioner to the Government of Bengal, 1868, part ii. p. 8. Purſ
Police Reports. Lieutenant Laurie's Orissa, 1850.
* H. H. Wilson's Works, i. 155, footnote.
THE EXCLUDED Zow caszes. I35
It would be well for Jagannāth if these old calumnies
were the only charges which his priests had to answer.
Lascivious sculptures disfigure his walls, indecent cere-
monies disgrace his ritual, and dancing-girls with rolling
eyes put the modest female worshippers to the blush.
The priests give a spiritual significance to these most
questionable features of modern Vishnuvism, and a
devout Hindu no doubt looks on them with different
eyes from ours. To the pure, all things are pure. But
these are not the sole corruptions of the faith. The
temple of Jagannāth, that col/uvio religionalme in which
every creed obtained an asylum, and in which every
class and sect can find its god, now closes its gates
against the low-caste population. I have tried in vain to
trace the history of this gross violation of the spirit of the
reformed Vishnuvite faith. Even at the present moment
no hard and fast line exists between the admitted and
the excluded castes. I have taken down lists of the
latter from several natives of Puri, but each list materi-
ally differs from all the others; and I am told that the
priests are much less strict to mark the disqualification of
caste in pilgrims from a distance than among the non-pay-
ing local populace. Speaking generally, only those castes
are shut out who retain the flesh-eating and animal-life-
destroying propensities and professions of the aboriginal
tribes.
A man must be a very pronounced Non-Aryan to
be excluded. Certain of the low castes, such as the
washermen and potters, may enter half-way, and, stand-
ing humbly in the court outside the great temple, catch a
glimpse of the jewelled god within. But unquestionable
Non-Aryans, like the neighbouring hill-tribes or forest
races, and the landless servile castes of the lowlands,
136 7AIE EXCA, UDED ZO W CASTES.
cannot go in at all. The same ban extends to those
engaged in occupations either offensive in themselves, or
repugnant to Aryan ideas of purity: thus, wine-sellers,
sweepers, skinners, corpse-bearers, hunters, fishers, and
bird-killers. Básu the fowler would now be driven
from the doors of the temple dedicated to his god.
Criminals who have been in jail, and women of bad
character, except the privileged temple girls, are also
excluded: with this difference, however, that a criminal
may expiate the defilement of imprisonment by penance
and costly purifications; but a woman once fallen can
never more pass the temple gates.”
* I have made up the following list of excluded castes, partly from
the statements of the Bráhmans, and partly from those of the low castes
themselves :—I. Christians ; 2. Muhammadans; 3. Hill or forest races;
4. Báuris; 5. Savars; 6. Páns; 7. Háris (except to clean away filth);
8. Chámárs; 9. Doms and Chandáls; Io. Chiriá-Márs (bird-killers);
II. Sials (wine-sellers); I2. Gokhás (fishermen); 13. Siulas (fishermen);
14. Tiyars (fishermen); 15. Nuliás (Telinga boatmen); 16. Pátrás (low-
caste cloth-makers); 17. Kandrás (village watchmen); 18. Common pros-
titutes; 19. Persons who have been in jail, but with right of expiation ;
20. Washermen; 21. Potters; but these last two may enter the outer court.

CH A P T E R IV.
THE PILGRIMS OF JAGANNATH.
THE name of Jagannāth still draws the faithful from
a hundred provinces of India to the Purí sands.
This yearning after holy places seems, indeed, to form
part of the universal religion of mankind. To gaze upon
the scenes amid which the Deity has dwelt, to bathe in
the rivers that once laved his mystical incarnate frame,
to halt at noonday under hoary trees beneath which the
divine presence has reposed, to pray upon the mountain
hallowed by his lonely communings, and to behold in the
everlasting rock the footprints of the god, are longings
which have, at one period or another, filled the imagina-
tion, and stirred the innermost heart of all noble races.
From that ancient night on which the ladder was let
down from heaven, and the angels ascended and de-
scended before the sleeper on the pillow of stones at
Bethel, till the time when the true cross began to give
off its inexhaustible splinters to the Christian world,
and thence down to the present hour, a strip of sand
and rock has been regarded with passionate tenderness
by the august dynasty of religions to which our own
belongs. In the wildest period of mediaeval history,
savage nations forgot their feuds, and rushed hand in
hand to the rescue of those distant shrines. In their
defence, army after army reddened the Syrian sands
I37

138 THE A*/AEG RIM HIGH-A’OA D.
with their blood. Even in this unemotional age, a cease-
less stream of pilgrims from Asia, from Europe, from
America, from the infidel parts of the Turk, and from the
torrid mountains of Abyssinia, still pours into the Terra
Sancta at the great festival of the Christian year. Its
most solemn shrine is parcelled out in jealously guarded
inches to the long separated sections of the primitive
church. The coldest of the Teutonic creeds cannot
contemplate those scenes untouched, while the Southern
forms of Christianity abandon themselves to paroxysms
of emotion.
This longing after shrines forms a very important
feature in the national character of the Hindus. Day
and night throughout every month of the year, troops
of devotees arrive at Puri, and for 300 miles along the
great Orissa road every village has its pilgrim encamp-
ment. The parties consist of from 20 to 300 persons.
At the time of the great festivals these bands follow so
close as to touch each other; and a continuous train of
pilgrims, many miles long, may often be seen on the Puri
high-road. They march in orderly procession, each party
under its spiritual leader. At least five-sixths, and often
nine-tenths of them, are females. Now a straggling
band of slender, diminutive women, clothed in white
muslin, and limping sadly along, announces a pilgrim
company from Lower Bengal ; then a joyous retinue
with flowing garments of bright red or blue, trudging
stoutly forward, their noses pierced with elaborate rings,
their faces freely tatooed, and their hands encumbered
with bundles of very dirty cloth, proclaims the stalwart
female peasantry of Northern Hindustán. Ninety-five
out of a hundred are on foot. Mixed with the throng are
devotees of various sorts, some covered with ashes, some
THE A*/ZGA2/M H ZGACA’OAZO. I39
almost naked, some with matted, yellow-stained hair, and
almost all with their foreheads streaked with red or white,
a string of beads round their necks, and a stout staff in
their hands. Every now and then, covered waggons
drawn by the high-humped bullocks of Upper India,
or by the smaller breed of Bengal, according to the
nationality of the owner, creak past on their wooden
wheels. Those from the Northern Provinces still bear
traces of the licentious Musalmán rule, by being jealously
shut up. The Bengali husband, on the other hand, keeps
his women good-tempered, and renders pilgrimage plea-
sant, by piercing holes in the waggon-hood, through which
dark female eyes constantly peep out. Then a lady in
coloured trousers, from some village near Delhi, ambles
past on a tiny pony, her husband submissively walking
by her side, and a female domestic, with a hamper of
Ganges water and a bundle of dirty cloth, bringing up
the rear. Next a great train of palankeens, carrying a
Calcutta banker and his ladies, sweeps past. I met one
consisting of forty palankeens, with 32O bearers and
about fifty luggage-carriers, whose monotonous chant
made itself heard far off in the silent night. But the
greatest spectacle is a north country Rájá with his
caravan of elephants, camels, led horses, and swordsmen,
looking resigned and very helpless in his sedan of state,
followed by all the indescribable confusion, dirt, and
noises of Indian royalty. -
The great spiritual army that thus marches its hun-
dreds, and sometimes its thousands of miles, along burn-
ing roads, across unbridged rivers, and through pestilent
regions of jungle and swamp, is annually recruited with as
much tact and regularity as is bestowed on any military
force. Attached to the temple is a body of emissaries, called
I4O THE PIZGR/M-HUAVZ.E.R.S.
pilgrim-hunters, or pilgrim-guides, according as a friendly
or a hostile view is taken of their functions, numbering
about 3OOO men, who visit every province and district of
India in search of devotees. Each of the leading priests
keeps up a separate set of these men, sending them to
the province of which he enjoys the spiritual charge, and
claiming the profits of the disciples they bring in. They
wander about from village to village within their allotted
beats, preaching pilgrimage as the liberation from sin,
and sometimes using arguments as worldly, and drawing
pictures as overstrained, as those by which the flagging
devotion of Europe was lashed into zeal during the later
crusades.
The arrival of a pilgrim-hunter is a memorable event
in the still life of an Indian village. There is no mis-
taking the man. The half-bald shaven head, the tunic of
coarse dirty cloth, the cap drawn over the ears, the palm-
leaf umbrella, the knapsack on the back, and the quid
of narcotic leaf which he chews and rolls in his cheek as
he strides forward, proclaim the emissary of Jagannāth.
He seldom shines in public exhortation, but waits till
the men have gone out to the fields, and then makes a
round of visits to the women. Skilled in every artifice
of persuasion, he works upon the religious fears and
the worldly hopes of the female mind; and by the time
the unsuspecting husbands come home from their work,
every house has its fair apostle of pilgrimage. The
elder women and some of the aged fathers of the hamlet
long to see the face of the merciful god who will remit
the sins of a life, and are content to lay their bones within
his precincts. Religious motives of a less emphatic sort
influence the majority. The hopes of worldly reward for
a good deed swell the number. The fashionableness of
MOZYVES OF P/ZG R/MAGAZ. I4I
pilgrimage, and that social self-complacency which springs
from being in the mode, attract the frivolous. The young
are hooked by the novelty of a journey through strange
lands. Poor widows catch at anything to relieve the
tedium of their blighted existence; and barren wives long
to pick up the child-giving berries of the banyan tree
within the sacred enclosure, and to pour out the petition
of their souls before the kindly god.
The shut-up, aimless life of Indian women gives a
peculiar charm to the enterprise. The arrival of a
pilgrim-hunter sends a general flutter through the whole
zanánas of the district, and a hundred little female heads
beat wildly against the wires of their cages. In parties of
thirty pilgrims I seldom counted more than five men,
and sometimes not more than three. The best autho-
rities I have consulted give the proportion of males at
ten per cent., and one native writer puts them at less
than five in a hundred." The first part of the journey
is pleasant enough. Change of scene, new countries,
new races, new languages, and a world of new customs
and sights, await the travellers from Upper India. A
good part of the distance is now accomplished by rail-
way, and the northern pilgrims can thus get over their
first IOOO, or even 1400 miles, if they chose to travel
straight through, in three days. But generally they walk
from 300 to 600 miles, and long before they have reached
the holy city their strength is spent. The sturdy women
of Hindustán brave it out, and sing songs till they drop ;
but the weaker females of Bengal limp piteously along
with bleeding feet in silence, broken only by deep sighs
and an occasional sob. The pilgrim-hunter tries to keep
* Letter from Sri. B. in the Som Prakās, a Bengāli weekly, dated 18th
May 1868 (6th Jyaistha 1278, Bengali era).
I42 THE PIZGR/MS A 7" AURI.
up their spirits, and insists, with a necessary obduracy,
on their doing a full day's journey every day, in order
that they may reach in time for the festival. Many a
sickly girl dies upon the road; and by the time they
reach Puri, the whole party has its feet bound up in rags,
plastered with dirt and blood. I have counted bands in
which nine out of every ten were lame.
But, once within sight of the holy city, the pains and
miseries of the journey are forgotten. They hurry across
the ancient Marhattá bridge with songs and ejaculations,
and rushing towards one of the great artificial lakes,
plunge beneath its sacred waters in a transport of re-
ligious emotion. The dirty bundles of rags now yield
their inner treasures of spotless cotton, and the pilgrims,
refreshed and robed in clean garments, proceed to the
temple. The pilgrim-hunter makes over the flock to his
priestly employer, and every hour discloses some new
idol or solemn spectacle. As they pass the Lion Gate a
man of the sweeper caste strikes them with his broom
to purify them of their sins, and forces them to promise,
on pain of losing all the benefits of pilgrimage, not to
disclose the events of the journey or the secrets of the
shrine.
In a few days the excitement subsides. At first
nothing can exceed their liberality to their spiritual guide.
But thoughts of the slender provision remaining for the
return journey soon begin to cool their munificence, and
the ghostly man's attentions slacken in proportion. Before
a week is over money altercations commence, which in
process of time resolve themselves into an acrimonious
haggling over every shrine, and the last few days of their
stay are generally devoted to schemes for getting out of
the holy city with as few more payments as possible.
THE A/ZGR/MS A 7" A UAE Z. I43
Every day the pilgrims bathe in one of the sacred
lakes. These vast artificial sheets of water are embanked
with solid masonry, honeycombed by time, and adorned
with temples rising from the edge or peeping from be-
neath masses of rich foliage. At the principal one 5000
bathers may be seen at once. On the masonry banks,
which are formed into one continuous flight of steps all
the way round, a good mile in length, there is sometimes
not an inch of standing room to be had. Here, as in
every spot where the common people congregate, the
primitive adoration of local divinities and village gods
makes its appearance. In this centre of Vishnu-worship,
half-way down the grand flight of steps to the lake,
stands a venerable banyan tree, the abode of an ancient
sylvan deity, whom the pilgrims propitiate by sticking
red flowers into the crevices of the weather-beaten
trunk. -
Not far off is the garden-house of Jagannāth, whither
the three sacred images are drawn during the Car
Festival. I have mentioned that the Chinese travellers
in the fifth century describe a similar ceremonial of
the Buddhists. But I suspect that both the Buddhists
and the later worshippers of Jagannāth caught the idea
from those older woodland rites, of which traces survive
in every hamlet of Bengal. To this day each district has
some secluded spot in the jungle, whither the villagers
flock once a year to adore the genius loci, in the shape of
a log, or a lump of clay, or a black stone, or the trunk
of a tree.* I believe the Car Festival is only a very
pompous development of this primitive hankering after
forest devotions, skilfully incorporated with the incidents
* For an interesting example, see my Annals of Rural Bengal, vol. i.
(The Ethnical Frontier), p. 131.
I44. - * 7 HE GA 7TE OF HEA VEAV.”
of the legendary life of Krishna, who was himself essen-
tially a woodland god.
The garden-house stands at the end of a long,
broad, sandy avenue, somewhat under a mile in length,
which runs direct from it to the temple. It is surrounded
by a massive wall, about twenty feet high, and castellated
at the top, like the fortresses of Northern India. The
principal gateway looks towards the temple, and is a
handsome structure with a fine pointed roof adorned
with lions in the most conventional style of Hindu sculp-
ture. Inside one catches glimpses of long straight walks
and groves of bright evergreen trees, with an ancient
shrine at the end of the vista. A glory of tropical
foliage, vocal with birds, overtops the lofty wall with
every shade of green, from the slender-stemmed, feathery
elegance of the coronetted palm, to the solid masses of
the mango, and the hoary majesty of the banyan tree.
Another place visited by all pilgrims is the Swarga-
Dwóra, the Gate of Heaven. The devotee threads his
way through the deep-sunk narrow alleys of the town, with
their thatched huts of wattle or mud gaily painted with
red and yellow gods, till he reaches the shore. There,
on the south of the city, he comes on a region of sand-
hills bordered by temples and tombs behind, and with
the surf-beaten beach in front. No distinct boundaries
mark the limits of the Gate of Heaven. It runs about
a quarter of a mile along the coast, or ‘as much as may
be occupied by a thousand cows.” In the background
the lofty tower of Jagannāth rises from the heart of the
city; and in the intervening space little monasteries
cluster, each in its own hollow between the sandy hills,
with a green patch of cultivation at the bottom watered
* Brij Kishore Ghose, p. 51.
* 7"HE GATE OF HEA WEAV.” I45
from a deep masonry well. Sometimes an outlying rood
or two is reclaimed, with infinite labour, from the sandy
slopes, and fenced in by a curious wall made of the red
earth pots in which the holy food is served out to the
pilgrims. The sacred rice can only be placed in a new
vessel, and every evening thousands of the unbroken
pots are at the disposal of any one in want of such
slender building materials.
Here the pilgrims bathe. At the great festival, as
many as 40,000 rush together into the surf; and every
evening silent groups may be seen purifying themselves
for their devotions under the slanting rays of the sun. It
is a spot sanctified by the funeral rites of generations.
The low castes who bury their dead, dig a hasty hole in
the sand, and the hillocks are covered with bones and
skulls, which have been washed bare by the tropical
rains, or dug up by the jackals. During the famine of
1866, thousands thus found an indiscriminate sepulture.
But long before that time, the place had been known as
a magazine of mortality, in which corruption reigned with
all its emblems of sovereignty exposed to view.
The respectable Hindu, with his sensitive shrinking
from personal contamination, and from the details of
human decay, resolves the frame into its elements by
means of incremation. Every evening, the funeral pyres
may be seen glancing across the water, while groups sit
sadly around in the fitful light. Devotees from every
province of India come hither to do the last offices for a
brother, or a parent, or a wife. I have talked to many
pilgrims in this shrine of death; and so far as one man
can judge of the inner life of another, some of them had
drawn very near in their hearts to God.
One little group came to bury their mother. They
VOL. II. K
I46 A PV/GRAM FUWEAEAZ.
had journeyed with a pilgrim band from the far west,
beyond the limits of British India, and had visited the
great shrines at Allahābād, Benares, and Gyá upon the
way. They had done as much of the distance as they
could by railway; but they had walked about 500 miles
besides. The journey had taken three months. One-
sixth of them had already died; and several had been so
disabled as to require to finish their pilgrimage in a
bullock cart. But the oldest woman in the party—a
brave up-country matron—had never flinched. She had
constantly urged them forward, in order, she said, that
she might reach the holy city before she died. The
same day she arrived, she prevailed upon the priests to
conduct her to the temple, where she gazed in silent
rapture on the god. Next morning she fell ill. The
other pilgrims began to recover their strength, but she
gradually declined; and now her sons had come to burn
her body on the sands. She had reached the Gate of
Heaven at last. They laid down the bier at the edge
of the sea, till the ripples wetted the vermilion-sprinkled
yellow shroud. A green leaf had been placed in her
girdle, and another on her breast. Then, with all her
ornaments around her arms and ankles, they laid her
on the pile, and in a few minutes the forked flames
flashed up into the skies.
Disease and death make havoc of the pilgrims.
During their stay in Puri they are badly lodged and
miserably fed. The priests impress on them the impro-
priety of dressing food within the holy city; and the
temple kitchen thus secures the monopoly of cooking for
the multitude. The eatables served out chiefly consist
of boiled rice. Peas, pulse, clarified butter, sugar, and
rice are also made into a variety of confections. The
THE HO/ Y FOOD. - I 47
charges seem to be reasonable enough; a mess of rice
sufficient for two men costing three half-pence, except
during the festivals, when the vast number of customers
enables the cooks to raise their prices. Before being
offered for sale it is presented to Jagannāth in the outer
hall, but within sight of the image, and thus becomes
holy food. When fresh it is not unwholesome, although
the pilgrims complain of the cooking being often very
bad. But, unfortunately, only a part of it is eaten fresh,
as it is too sacred for the least fragment to be thrown
away. Large quantities of it are sold in a state danger-
ous even to a man in robust health, and deadly to the
way-worn pilgrims, half of whom reach Puri with some
form or other of bowel complaint. “When examined
after twenty-four hours, even in January,’ writes one of
the leading sanitary authorities in India, 'putrefactive
fermentation had begun in all the rice compounds, and
after forty-eight hours the whole was a loathsome mass
of putrid matter, utterly unfit for human use. This food
forms the chief subsistence of the pilgrims, and the sole
subsistence of the beggars who flock in hundreds to the
shrines during the festival. It is consumed by some one
or other, whatever its state of putrefaction, to the very
last morsel.’ “ --
The only kinds of holy food not reported as utterly
putrid at the end of forty-eight hours were the sweet-
meats; and as the pilgrims carry these condiments to
their distant homes, ample time is allowed for the process
of putrefaction to complete itself. Dr. Mouat describes
them as ‘a compound of dead flies, rancid butter, and
dirty sugar;' and although I have seen many specimens
of a better sort, I perfectly agree with his conclusion,
* Report of Dr. Mouat, Inspector-General of Jails.
148 - 7 HE AES7. HOUSES OF PURI.
that ‘it is difficult to imagine any regimen better calcu-
lated to aid the crowding and filth in their evil influence
on the human frame.’
But bad food is only one of many predisposing
causes to diseases which the pilgrims have to encounter.
The low level of Puri, and the sandy ridges which check
its natural drainage towards the sea, render it a very dirty
city. Each house is built on a little mud platform about
four feet high. In the centre of the platform is a drain
which receives the filth of the household, and discharges
it in the form of black stinking ooze on the street out-
side. The platform itself becomes gradually soaked with
the pestiferous slime. In many houses, indeed, a deep
open cesspool is sunk in the earthen platform; and the
wretched inmates eat and sleep around this perennial
fountain of death. Those whose experience of foul
smells is confined to cities in the temperate zone, can
form no idea of the suffocating stench which such cess-
pools throw off in a tropical temperature between 85°
and Ios” during seven months of the year. Nor is there
any outlet for the deadly gases that bubble up from them
day and night. As a rule, the houses consist of two or
three cells, leading one into the other, without windows or
roof-ventilation of any sort.”
In these lairs of disease, the unhappy pilgrims are
massed together in a manner shocking to humanity. The
town contains 6363 houses, with a resident population of
about 25,000 souls.” But almost every citizen takes in
pilgrims, and there are not less than 5000 lodging-
houses in the city. The scenes of agony and suffocation
- * Report of Dr. D. B. Smith, Sanitary Commissioner for Bengal, part i.
p. 2, 1868
* Idem, p. 5.
A/ZGRIM ZODG/NG-HOUSES. I49
that take place in these putrid dens baffle description.
“I was shown one apartment,’ says Dr. Mouat in the
Report above cited, ‘in the best pilgrim hotel of the
place, in which eighty persons were said to have passed
the night. It was 13 feet long, IO feet 5 inches broad,
with side walls 6% feet in height, and a low pent roof
over it. It had but one entrance, and no escape for the
effete air. It was dark, dirty, and dismal when empty,
and must have been a pest-house during the festival. In
this house occurred the first case of cholera of the last
outbreak. If this be the normal state of the best lodging-
house in the broad main street of Puri, it is not difficult
to imagine the condition of the worst, in the narrow,
confined, undrained back-slums of the town.’ -
“I went into a house in the town this afternoon,'
says the curt, official diary of the police superintendent.
“Above forty-five pilgrims were putting up, men and
women. The place had only two doors, no windows.
One of the doors was locked. This place measured 12
by 20 feet. Certainly not more; and in this place no
less than forty-five persons were crammed. The stench
was overpowering, and the heat like an oven. No
wonder the people are attacked with cholera.” Else-
where he reports, ‘the space allowed per head to be just
as much as they can cover by lying down.' But even
this is not always given. ‘The poorer up-country pil-
grims submit to crowded rooms,' writes the magistrate,
“but the Orissa pilgrims crowd into a room, till it would
be difficult to introduce another person.’
These calm, official statements tell a moré terrible
* Extracted from the Diary of the Deputy Inspector-General of Police :
first circle, for the week ending 16th November 1867. Quoted from Sani-
tary Commissioner's Report.
I5o A/ZGR/M ZOZ)G/WG-HOUSES.
story than could be conveyed by any amount of sensa-
tional writing. Indeed the mere abstract figures of the
space supplied, and the accommodation required, disclose
an amount of human suffering sickening to contemplate.
In estimating the value of the oblations, I have given the
number of devotees as stated by the native head clerk of
the district. He computed the numbers that attend the
Car Festival at 90,000, and considered that sometimes.
as many as 300,000 visited Purſ in the course of the
year. Nor is there any reason to consider these esti-
mates excessive. The old registers during the period
when the tax was levied, notoriously fell below the truth;
yet I find that in five out of the ten years between 1820
and 1829, the official return amounted to between one
and two hundred thousand. The pilgrims from the south
are a mere handful compared with those who come from
Bengal and Northern India, yet it has been ascertained,
that 65,000 find their way to Puri, across the Chilká
Lake, in two months alone.” Along the great north road
the stream flows day and night. As many as 20,000
arrive at a favourite halting-place between sunrise and
sunset.” As many as 96.13 were actually counted by the
police leaving Puri on a single day, and 19,209 during
the last six days in June. This is the number absolutely
ascertained to have departed; and probably many more -
slipped off unperceived. In looking over the records
of the reverend missionaries in Orissa, I find the estimate
of the pilgrims present at the Car Festival alone, in some
years as high as i45,OOO.
There can be little doubt therefore that 90,000
* Proceedings of Madras Government, 20th December 1864. Public
Works Department, No. 422, para. 6. - - -
* Statement of the Rev. Mr. Bachelor, quoted Sanitary Commissioner's
Report, part ii. p. 48. - . .
PIZGRIM ZODGING-HOUSES. I5I
people are often packed for weeks together in the 5000
lodging-houses of Puri. In some of them the over-
crowding falls short of Suffocation by scarce a hair's
breadth. Indeed, the official reports of the sweltering
masses crammed within certain measured square feet
seemed so horrible and so incredible, that the Inspector-
General of Jails instituted an experiment in a prison ward
to test the possibility of the statements. Throughout
the whole city we find an average of eighteen human
beings packed into each house, consisting of two, or at
the most three, stifling cells without windows, at a tem-
perature which, for seven months, is often as high as
Ios" in the shade, and seldom below 90°.
At certain seasons of the year, this misery is miti-
gated by sleeping out of doors. In the dry weather the
streets of Puri look like a great encampment without the
tents. The spiritual army slumbers in regiments and
battalions. The same cotton garment which they wear
during the day, serves to wrap them from head to foot
at night. Tiny rush-lights glimmer amid the prostrate
groups, but every face is so completely enveloped in the
white cloth that a child might seek its parent all night
long across the ghastly expanse of mummies. The
soaking dews are unwholesome enough, but as long as
the people can spend the night outside, some check exists
to the over-crowding of pilgrims by rapacious lodging-
house keepers. How slight this check practically proves,
may be judged of from the fact that the official reports
before cited are specially selected as referring to the
season when people can sleep out of doors with impunity.
But the Car Festival, the great ceremony of the year,
unfortunately falls at the beginning of the rains. The
water pours down for hours in almost solid sheets. Every
I52 A PURI STREET SCENE, 1841.
lane and alley becomes a torrent or a stinking canal which
holds in suspension the accumulated filth heaps of the hot
weather. The wretched pilgrims are now penned into
the lodging-house cells without mercy. Cholera invari-
ably breaks out. The living and the dying are huddled
together with a leaky roof above, and a miry clay floor
under foot, “the space allotted per head being just as
much as they can cover lying down.'
The steps that are being taken by Government to
mitigate these horrors will be subsequently explained.
Meanwhile, it is only fair to say that they have already
had some measure of success, and that miserable as the
lot of the pilgrim still is, it was once infinitely worse.
There is no need to refer to the pest-houses of Mecca,
or to the Easter pilgrim-ships of the Levant. We have
descriptions, by unimpeachable eye-witnesses, of the
streets of Puri in former times, which the most distant
generation will be unable to read without a shudder.
They are so incredibly horrible that I do not venture to
put them into my own words. Here is a picture of the
city in 1841. Corpse-fields lay around the town, in one
of which, the traveller ‘counted between forty and fifty
bodies besides many skeletons which had been picked by
vultures. The birds were sitting in numbers on the
neighbouring sand-hills and trees, holding carnivorous
festivity on the dead; and the wild dogs lounged about
full of the flesh of man. But the streets and lanes of the
town, as well as the large road, presented many scenes of
the most appalling misery and humiliation. In several
instances, poor, deserted women, quite naked, formed a
dam to the insufferable filthiness of a thousand bodies,
washed down the narrow streets by the sudden showers.
Here they lay, throwing about their arms in agony, im-
ZHE RETURN JOURNEY. I 53
ploring a little water of the heedless passers-by, who
formed a half-circle around them for a moment and
passed on. They had rolled about till they had lost
their clothing, which was discernible at a small distance,
beaten by the battering rain till it had mixed with the
sand and mud. Others lay quiet enough, covered over
by their cloth, except perhaps their feet and hands,
having apparently died without much struggling. Others
again, in their last extremity, with their clothing soaked,
and their skin white with the soddening rain, had crawled
under the partial shelter of some house or shed, awaiting
in apparent insensibility their last moment.” “I have
visited the valley of death,’ wrote the Bishop of Calcutta
in 1838. “The horrors are unutterable.’
On the return journey the misery of the pilgrims
reaches its climax. The rapacity of the Puri priests and
lodging-house keepers has passed into a proverb. A
week or ten days finishes the process of plundering, and
the stripped and half-starved pilgrims crawl out of the
city with their faces towards home. They stagger along
under their burdens of holy food, wrapped up in dirty
cloth, or packed away in heavy baskets and red earthen
pots. The men from the Upper Provinces further en-
cumber themselves with a palm-leaf umbrella, and a
bundle of canes dyed red, beneath whose strokes they
did penance at the Lion Gate. As the Car Festival,
which attracts the great mass of devotees, falls at the
commencement of the rains, they find every stream
flooded. Hundreds of them have not money enough
left to pay for being ferried over the network of rivers
in the delta. Even those who can pay have often to
sit for days in the rain on the bank before a boat will
* Letter to Lord Fitzgerald and Vesci, on Jagannāth, 1843, pp. 12, 13.
I54 THE RETURN JOURNEY.
venture to launch on the ungovernable torrent. At a
single river an English traveller counted as many as
forty festering corpses, over which the kites were battling
with blood-stained beaks, and the dogs with dripping
fangs. -
The famished, drenched throng toils painfully back-
ward, urged by the knowledge that their slender stock
of money will only last a very few weeks, and that after
it is done, nothing remains but to die. The missionaries
along the line of march have ascertained that sometimes
they travel forty miles a day, dragging their weary limbs
along ‘till they drop from sheer fatigue.” Hundreds
die upon the roadside. Those are most happy whom
insensibility overtakes in some English station. The
servants of the municipalities pick them up and carry
them to the hospitals. Horrible stories are told of the
fate of wretched women who fall behind or get separated
from their company. In 1868 a writer in a vernacular
paper asserted that a band of reprobates from Central
India frequented Puri for the purpose of kidnapping
females, and selling them into the Musalmán zenanas of
the far west. The same writer declares that the priests
entice unhappy girls into their protection, and consign them
to a life of vice. From what I could learn, and I have
made diligent inquiries, these statements appear to have
been exaggerations at the time, and have now ceased to
contain a grain of truth. But the records of the Orissa
Lunatic Asylum disclose only too conclusively the fate
which many a female pilgrim undergoes.”
Even those who reach home contract diseases from
* The Rev. A. F. Lacroix, quoted in Sanitary Commissioner's Report,
part ii. p. 48. ... •
* Som Prakás, 18th May 1868.
THE RETURN JOURNEY. I55
exposure by the way that cripple them for the rest of
their lives. They crowd into the villages and halting-
places along the road, blocking up the streets, and creat-
ing an artificial famine. The available sleeping-places
are soon crammed to overflowing, and every night thou-
sands have no shelter from the pouring rain. Miserable
groups huddle under trees. Long lines, with their heads
on their bundles, lie among the carts and bullocks on
the side of the road. The bridges are paved with their
sodden bodies. It is only the fortunate first comers,
however, who get so dry a bed. The steep slopes of the
road embankments are next taken up.” But hundreds
have to sit upon the wet grass, not daring to lie down,
rocking themselves to a monotonous chant, something
between a whimper and a moan, through the long dismal
night. “It is useless to rise and go away,’ writes an
eye-witness.” “Where can they go 2 Every house is
full. They are soaked to the skin in a few minutes.
Their hair mixes with the mud in which they lie, and
they await the morning to continue their dismal journey.
But many of them rise no more. These are then left
to die, forsaken and alone, by the roadside.’
It is impossible to compute with anything like pre-
cision the numbers that thus perish. The lowest esti-
mate I have seen was by a native official, whose book
is conceived in a spirit most favourable to Government.
He reckons the deaths in Puri and on the way at 10,000
a year. The largest estimate I have seen is by the late
Bishop Wilson, whose well-poised mind was little likely
to accept or to propagate exaggerations. He calculated
* Rev. Mr. Lacroix, cited Sanitary Commissioner's Report, part ii.
p. 49. - .
* Rev. Mr. Mullens, abridged.
I56 THE HOM/CIDAZ PIZGRIMAGE.
the number at 50,000. My own inquiries among the
poorer pilgrims lead me to believe that the deaths in the
city and by the way seldom fall below one-eighth, and
often amount to one-fifth of each company; and the Sani-
tary Commissioner for Bengal confirms me in this view.
Among the richer devotees, who travel in bullock carts
or by palankeen, the losses, so far as I could ascertain,
do not exceed the ordinary contingencies of a long
journey performed in the most trying season of the
Indian year. But, on the other hand, outbreaks of
cholera take place, which, although now controlled to
Some extent by science, spare neither rich nor poor.
Indeed, few pilgrims from the distant provinces of Upper
India attend the great Car Festival in midsummer, ex-
cept the very fanatical who first make their arrangements
for dying on the road. While the population of Lower
Bengal flocks to this ceremonial, the northern devotees
content themselves with a cold weather pilgrimage to the
Swinging Festival in March, and even then the deadly
hot season catches them before they regain their native
villages. It is impossible, I think, to reckon the total
number of the poorer sort who travel on foot at less than
84,000. It is equally impossible to reckon their deaths
in Purí and on the road at less than one-seventh, or
12,000 a year. Deducting 2000 from these for the
ordinary death-rate, we have a net slaughter of IO,OOO
per annum. Every year, therefore, this homicidal enter-
prise massacres six times more men than Plassey, which
won for us India, and Waterloo, which redeemed for us
Europe, put together cost the British troops, in missing
and slain.” The computation is exclusive of the deaths
* Treatise on Ambulances, by Deputy Inspector-General Longmore.
By Authority. P. 495, etc. -
TOTAZ PROHIBITIO/W IMPOSS/BZÄ2. I57
among the richer pilgrims, who do not travel on foot,
So far as political arithmetic is possible in India, the
evidence goes to show that IO,OOO peasants yearly sacri-
fice their lives to a pilgrimage to Jagannāth.
It may well be supposed that the British Govern-
ment has not looked unmoved on this appalling spectacle.
Nothing but a total prohibition of pilgrimage, however,
would put a stop to the annual massacre. But such a
prohibition would be a signal infringement of the tenure
by which we hold India, and would be regarded by
I5O,OOO,OOO of British subjects as a great national wrong.
It would close one of their recognised avenues of salva-
tion, an avenue which generations of devout Hindus trod
for centuries before England emerged into European
history, and which has descended as a precious heirloom
to the Indian races of the present day. A prohibition of
pilgrimage in Bengal would amount to an interdict on one
of the most cherished religious privileges of the people.
The subject has from time to time come up for
official discussion; and in 1867 a last effort was made to
enlist the educated classes against so homicidal a practice.
Circular letters were sent to every division of Bengal,
and the utmost influence of the higher officials was
brought to bear. The Viceroy, while disclaiming any
wish to interfere with the religious feelings of the people,
urged them to consider the ‘exposure, disease, and death,’
which pilgrimage to Jagannāth entails.” But the answers
which came in from every part of Bengal admitted of no
hope. All that remained was to institute a system of
sanitary surveillance and quarantine, which should reduce
the inevitable loss of life to a minimum.
* Letter dated Simla, 21st August 1867, to the Secretary to the Govern-
ment of Bengal,
158 - AREVENTYPE MEASURES.
Such measures are of three kinds,--the first being
directed to lessen the number of pilgrims; the second to
mitigate the dangers of the road; and the third to pre-
vent epidemics in Puri. Anything like a general pro-
hibition of pilgrimage would be an outrage upon the
religious feelings of the people. But in seasons of
cholera or of other great calamity in Orissa, it would be
possible to check the pilgrim stream, by giving warning
in the Government Gazette, and through the medium of
the vernacular papers. Thousands of devotees would
put off the enterprise to another year. It is very difficult,
however, to give such warnings before the month in
which the pilgrims usually start. But in extreme cases
they might be stopped upon the road, and turned back
before they entered Orissa. This was done in the
famine year 1866, and native public opinion supported
the action of Government. But it could not be too dis-
tinctly understood, that such an interference is only
justifiable under extreme and exceptional circumstances.
The second set of preventive measures can be
applied with greater safety, and with more certain results.
Thousands of pilgrims every year die upon the journey
from exhaustion and want of food. Nor does there seem
any possibility of lessening the number of deaths from
these causes. But until very recently, some thousands
also died of diseases which, if taken in time, are under
the control of medical science. Within the last few years
pilgrim hospitals have been established along the great
roads; and, as I have already said, if a devotee is so
fortunate as to drop within a municipality, he is imme-
diately picked up and cared for. I can bear testimony to
the vigilant humanity of the English officers who carry
out this good work. I have seen a magistrate ride
MED/CAM, PA 7TROL. 159
through the noisome native quarter of his town, rapidly
scrutinizing each body of pilgrims, and singling out those
who, unless immediately provided for, would have sunk
upon the next stage. Nor can I pass over the devotion
with which the Civil Surgeon of Puri has organized and
maintained a medical patrol along the road. In the
height of the cholera season, when the floods had turned
the whole delta into a malarious swamp, this gentleman,
at the hourly risk of his own life, rode up and down the
highway amid torrents of rain, and every day gathered
a harvest of disease-stricken wretches, who would have
perished within the next twenty-four hours. Such a
patrol, if maintained throughout the whole of Orissa,
might annually save hundreds of lives. But it would
cost a large sum of money; and at present it has only
been established in the immediate vicinity of Purſ—the
locality which requires it most.
Against such a patrol it may very fairly be argued,
that it is unjust to charge the general taxpayer with the
cost of preserving men from dangers which they delibe-
rately make up their minds to incur. Orissa is financially
a poor Province; and it stands in such urgent need of
public works to save its own population from floods and
famines, that it has nothing to spare for sentimental
efforts to protect men from the consequence of their own
acts. Even if such a patrol were instituted, and if pilgrim
hospitals were established every few miles along the road,
the devotees would seldom. enter them, except at the last
extremity. The surgeons justly complain that they rarely
get a pilgrim patient until he is beyond the reach of aid.
I have seen unhappy wretches crawling along with death
looking out of their faces, who nevertheless refused to
avail themselves of medical advice as long as conscious-
16o PIZGRIM Hospiz.AZS
ness continued. It becomes therefore a very grave
question, how far officials are justified in trying to force
their assistance on those who will not help themselves.
In cholera seasons, the Government owes such measures
to the public health of the Province. But in ordinary
years, the pilgrim hospitals which it already maintains at
a considerable expense, seem to be all it can properly do.
The difficulty would disappear if the pilgrims as a
class could be charged for the conveniences provided for
them. But it is impossible to invent any form of impost to
be levied from them, which would not be misinterpreted
into a pilgrim tax, and a sanction to idolatrous rites.
Such an impost, however, would simply be a sanitation
cess. The pilgrims annually endanger the public health
of the Province, and might be fairly charged with the
cost of preventive measures. A small rate levied at the
two entrances to Puri City would suffice. Unhappily,
however, no amount of argument would at present con-
vince the natives that such a cess was not a revival of the
pilgrim tax in its original form. The idea of a special
cess has therefore been abandoned; and the only mode
in which the Government has deemed it possible to make
the pilgrims contribute to the sanitation charges which
pilgrimage involves, is by slightly raising the ferry rates
on the Orissa rivers. In practice, this proves a trouble-
some and an unfruitful source of revenue. The devotees
from the south have no rivers to cross, and are therefore
altogether exempted; while those from the north, if they
only avoid the Government ferries, may travel hundreds
of miles without coming on a single toll-bar.
There exists, however, another means of decreasing
the danger of the road besides medical patrols and
pilgrim hospitals. The large towns along the route
SAM/ZARY CORDOMS ROUVO ZO WAVS. 161
always contain the elements of cholera; and, indeed, that
disease is seldom wholly absent from any Indian city.”
The arrival of the pilgrim stream is, year after year, the
signal for the ordinary sporadic cases to assume the
dimensions of an epidemic. Cattack, the capital of
Orissa, suffered so regularly and so severely from the
passage of the pilgrim army, that the doctors, having
tried everything else, at last determined to shut the
devotees entirely out of the city. The result upon the
public health has been marvellous. Police are stationed
at the entrance to the town, and warn the pilgrims that
they must skirt round the municipal boundaries. A sani-
tary cordon is thus maintained, and Cattack is now free
from the annual calamity to which it was for centuries
subject. *
This inexpensive quarantine might easily be applied
to other municipalities along the pilgrim highway. The
devotees suffer no inconvenience; for as soon as the
change in their route is known, little hamlets of grain-
sellers set up outside the cordon. Indeed, the pilgrims
would be the gainers by the change, in so far as they
could purchase their food free of Octroi, or other munici-
pal charges, where such charges exist.
But though much may be done upon the road, more
could be done in Puri itself. That city becomes annually
a centre from which disease and death radiate throughout
the Province. Whatever theory individual medical men
may entertain regarding the origin of cholera, their united
testimony proves that the returning bands from Jagan-
náth carry it, stage by stage, along the pilgrim highway.
Yet it was only in 1867” that a health officer was ap-
* The proposal was due to the Honourable Mr. Strachey. Letter No
312, to Secretary to Government of India, dated 29th May 1867.
VOL. II. L
162 SAAWZZAZYOAV ZAV PUR/.
pointed for Puri; and from that year a marked improve-
ment dates. But sanitation involves a power of spending
money, and the health officer's hands are tied for want
of funds to give effect to any organized system of con-
servancy. Puri is an indigent city; or rather, the only
classes that can be subjected to local rates are unable to
pay them. The pilgrims would support a wealthy com-
munity of grain merchants, but for the fact that the temple
cooks claim the monopoly of supplying their food. The
first thing that strikes a stranger on entering the town is
the scarcity of rice-shops. The pilgrims buy scarcely
anything in the market. Whatever little store of rupees
they may have knotted in their girdles, goes exclusively
to the priests and cooks of Jagannāth ; and any attempt
to interfere with these privileged classes, or to make
them contribute to a local conservancy rate, would be
denounced as a temple tax. It thus happens, that al-
though Puri is a very rich city, it is a very poor one for
fiscal purposes. The revenue officers cannot pry into
the hoarded treasures of the sanctuary, nor reach the
priestly coffers into which the wealth of Bengal annually
pours.
Yet it must be remembered that, without sanitary
measures, Puri will remain a pest-house whence streams
of disease constantly issue. First of all, it is absolutely
necessary to check the over-crowding in the lodging-
houses. To this end it has been proposed to form a
pilgrim encampment on the sands outside the town.
| Such a camp would consist of moveable wooden or iron
huts, for ‘no power can prevent a large body of natives
from polluting the ground on which they dwell.’” The
huts would be purified and kept in store during seven
* Memorandum by Dr. Mouat, Inspector-General of Jails.
A ZODGZAWG-HOUSE BIZZ. . I63
months in the year, and put up on the approach of any
of the great festivals. A well-regulated camp of this
sort might afford a perfect solution of the difficulty. But
it would be very costly to Government. Carpenters and
artificers would have to be brought from Cattack, as the
local supply is entirely taken up by the priests for the
construction of the cars, or other works connected with
the festivals. It would involve a separate conservancy
staff, with separate hospitals and latrines, and a distinct
police establishment. It is doubtful, moreover, whether
sufficient space could be found for such shifting camps,
free from inundation, or at least from excessive damp-
ness, without preliminary and very costly drainage
works.”
Another proposal is to regulate the pilgrim inns of
Puri by special legislation. Puri is essentially a city of
lodging-houses, with a distinct set of dangers and abuses
of their own. In 1866 a Bill was introduced into the
Bengal Council for the better regulation of such estab-
lishments.” In 1867 an amended Act was based upon
it.” The first had been too searching and cumbrous.
The second confined itself exclusively to the prevention
of over-crowding, and omitted provisions regarding con-
servancy, infectious diseases, and water supply. In 1868,
therefore, the Sanitary Commissioner submitted a new
Act, which endeavoured to avoid both extremes. It
provided for the appointment of a health officer, who
should inspect the lodging-houses, and report on them
to the magistrate. No such house was to be opened
* Wide Jagannāth Report of Sanitary Commissioner of Bengal, part i.
p. I2. 1868.
* Known as Mr. Prinsep's Bill, introduced 15th December 1866, and
referred to a Select Committee of the Council.
* Known as Mr. Schalch's Bill.
164 SAAWIZATION UNDER DIFFYCUZZYES.
without a licence; and licences were to be granted only
upon a certificate from the surgeon, stating the suit-
ability of the tenement for the purpose, and the number
of persons which it could properly accommodate. Except
in cases where the lodging-house keepers were persons
of known respectability, their establishments were to con-
tinue under the surveillance of the health officer, and
penalties were provided, for wilful over-crowding, and
similar breaches of the licence.
This Act would unquestionably put an end to the
present abuses. But if suddenly introduced, it would
intensify rather than mitigate the sufferings of the pil-
grims. At present these unhappy people have at least
the choice of half-suffocation under a roof, or of exposure
to the rain outside. The Bill denies them the first alter-
native. Its passing would be the instant signal for turning
out two-thirds of the pilgrims into the streets, and the effort
to secure better accommodation for them would deprive
the greater proportion of them of any shelter whatever.”
In an English town, capital would immediately rush into
the vacuum, and make the supply equal to the demand.
But in India the law of supply and demand, although
perfectly to be relied on in the long run, acts very slowly,
and by cryptic or indirect processes. The mere fact of
Government having interfered in the matter, would raise
a thousand wild rumours and suspicions. In proportion
as the Act was stringently enforced, would be the neces-
sity for additional lodging-houses. But, unfortunately,
in proportion to the increased necessity would be the
panic, and the local aversion to enter upon the trade.
It only remains to prepare the minds of the people for
* Vide Mr. Raban's Report to Government; Sanitary Commissioner's
Report, iii. Io. 1868.
SAM/ZAZYON UZVDEAE ZO/AEFIC ULTIES. I65
the measure, and to introduce it with moderation and
caution. -
Meanwhile it might be possible, by quarantine, to
prevent the Purſ epidemics spreading into the adjoining
Provinces. Choleraic infection remains for a very short
time about the human body. A very able, and a recent
writer on the subject, limits the period to three days,
and declares six days’ quarantine an absolute guarantee
against any mishap.” But even a week of medical sur-
veillance would involve arrangements as costly as a pil-
grim encampment to the Government, and as irksome as
the Lodging-house Bill to the devotees.
I have dwelt on this subject at some length, because
it fairly represents the difficulties which sanitation has to
encounter everywhere throughout India. In no country .
does the public health more urgently demand the aid of
that science. But the ignorance, prejudices, and sus-
picions of the people on the one hand, and the vast
demands upon the revenue for more visibly and perhaps
more urgently needed public works on the other, do not
leave sanitation a chance. Medical men are driven from
one project to another, as each is found to be either too
costly to Government, or too opposed to the superstitions
of the natives. And yet it must not be forgotten that
countries far beyond the Himálayas have an interest in
the matter. It has been absolutely established that
cholera is exclusively propagated in India, and that
“every outbreak of the disease beyond the confines of
British India may be traced back to Hindustán.” Year
after year the surgeons report that the disease issues
* Treatise on Asiatic Cholera, by Surgeon C. Macnamara, section ix.
p. 479, etc. London, 1870. *
* Idem, p. 332.
I66 SAAWZTA 7TWOW UWDER O/AEF/CUZZYES.
forth from Purſ city, and is carried by a continuous chain
of human beings into the adjoining Provinces. Some-
times it slays its legions, as in the famine year, when it
cut off thirteen per cent in the Cattack Jail, in spite of
medical treatment, and at least twice or thrice that rate
among the neglected outside population. Sometimes it
does but little harm. But it never wholly ceases.
“America, Europe, and the greater part of Asia, may
justly blame India for all they have suffered from
cholera,’” and India can blame Puri for annually sub-
jecting whole Provinces to the chance of the epidemic.
These over-crowded, pest-haunted dens around Jagan-
náth may become at any moment the centre from which
the disease radiates to the great manufacturing towns of
France and England. The devotees care little for life
or death, nor is it possible to protect men against them-
selves. But such carelessness imperils lives far more
valuable than their own, and the authority I have already
cited declares ‘that Europe has a right to demand” the
necessary preventive measures at the hands of the Indian
Government. - -
Meanwhile much has been done. Pilgrim hospitals
stand with their doors open day and night. In seasons
of epidemic, a medical patrol does its work of mercy to
those who drop upon the road. Well-regulated ferries
enable the returning pilgrims to cross the flooded rivers;
and crowds of fever-stricken wretches no longer sit day
after day in the pouring rain, expending the last few
coppers that remain between them and starvation. The
story of the traveller who counted forty corpses upon the
* Treatise on Asiatic Cholera, by Surgeon C. Macnamara, section ix.
p. 323. London, 1870.
* Idem, p. 481.
SAAVZZAZYOAV UAVZ) EAE ZX/FFYCZWZZZZS. 167
banks of a single stream is now a story of thirty years
ago. But much as has been done, more remains to do.
One of man's most deadly enemies has his lair in this
remote corner of Orissa, ever ready to rush out upon the
world, to devastate households, to sack cities, and to
mark its line of march by a broad black track across
three continents. The squalid pilgrim army of Jagan-
náth, with its rags and hair and skin freighted with
vermin and impregnated with infection, may any year
slay thousands of the most talented and the most beauti-
ful of our age in Vienna, London, or Washington.

C H A P T E R V.
ORISSA UNDER NATIVE RULE.
IN this chapter I have proposed to myself the task of
interesting the English reader, in the obscure revo-
lutions by which a strip of the Indian coast has passed
from an uninhabited jungle into a British province. No
part of Bengal has attracted less notice from the historian
or from the scholar. Its hard fate has been to lie be-
tween two fertile presidencies, unclaimed and uncared
for by either. Till its great agony in 1866 touched the
heart of the English people, Orissa was of less account
in the empire than a single wealthy district of Bengal
or of Madras. The tempests of conquest and the tidal
waves of nations that have swept across the rest of India,
rarely overtopped the ridges which wall out these shores.
Sanskrit literature, with its pre-historic panorama of the
upper valley of the Ganges, reaches the last of its slow
moving scenes far to the north of Orissa. No curious
mosses nor antique forms of life from its coast have found
their way into the amber of the Vedic hymns. The
great Epic itself, with its bright nucleus in Hindustán,
and its broad comet-like tail curving downwards in
streams of light to the farthest point of the peninsula,
sheds not a momentary flicker over Orissa. In modern
times, seen at even a less remote distance than that from
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THE AESSENZZAZS OF AZSZORY: #69
which English writers on India have viewed the province,
its history seems to be little more than an interminable
list of kings and of confused dynastic changes. With
these changes, however, I shall but sparingly trouble the
reader. But their effect upon the people, and the re-
volutions they have wrought in human existence and
human beliefs; the struggles by which a race, buried in
its primitive jungles, has from time to time painfully cast
its skin and assumed new forms of life; above all, the
stages by which diverse ethnical elements have grown
together into the composite rural communities of the
present day, these are the arguments of this book.
Ancient history too often appears like one of the me-
diaeval cities of the Low Countries, visible far across the
plains, but of which the traveller discerned nothing but
the minster-spire, the prince's schloss, and an occasional
flash of steel upon the walls. Yet priests, and kings, and
soldiers were no more the sole inhabitants of the ancient
world than they are of our own. They only happened
to wear clothes very easily seen at a distance. If we
can get near enough to the town, a great din of obscure
industry strikes our ears; and for each stately edifice that
towers above the walls there are a thousand swarming
habitations, too low to be seen from without, but which
make the city within.
The sources of this chapter consist partly of notices
in ancient Sanskrit works, partly of the itinerary of a
Chinese traveller, and partly of fragmentary passages in
the Musalmán chroniclers. But fortunately these are not
all. The sandstone caves of Orissa form materials of
history as imperishable as the solid mountains themselves.
Such memorials were till lately the subjects of vague.
wonder rather than of intelligent inquiry. Their walls
17o MA 7TERMAZS OF OR/SSA HISTORY.
and galleries are charged with stories of ancient life,
which they in vain struggled to utter by time-effaced
inscriptions and dimly sculptured biographies. The men
and women and passions of a pre-historic age eye us
from the rock; some of them in wild scenes of action,
with their teeth set, and hands uplifted to deal an eter-
nally suspended blow, as if the life-blood still shot through
their veins. Others gaze sorrowfully out of their stony
sockets, as though charged with some solemn secret, but
pass along in spell-bound procession, wistfully waving
their arms, and remaining for ever dumb. We scarcely
advance beyond this remote period, when the lamp in
the muniment-room of Jagannāth begins to shed its dim
but never extinguished light. And, once within historic
ground, the difficulty is, not to find materials, but to
control them, and to bring them within the limits which
can properly be assigned to them in this work.
Our earliest glimpses at Orissa disclose an unex-
plored maritime kingdom, stretching from the mouth of
the Ganges to the mouth of the Krishná. It was a
long narrow strip of coast, everywhere shut out from the
Indian continent by a wide terra incognita of mountains
and forests. Under the name of Kalinga it appears in
the list of countries so frequently reproduced in Sanskrit
writings, and generally in one stereotyped order, coming
immediately after Lower Bengal, as if adjoining it, in
the same way as the Lower Provinces of Bengal are in-
variably placed after the northern ones." It formed one
of the five outlying kingdoms of ancient India,” with its
capital situated about half-way down the coast, and still
Vishnu Purána, iv. 18; Bhāgavata, etc., quoted Tattwabodhinſ Patriká,
vol. ii. 175, 176. Calcutta, 1769, Sak.
* Anga, Banga, Kalinga, Suhma, and Pundra.
PRE-HISTORIC ORISSA—ITS BOUNDARIES. 171
surviving in the present city of Kalingapatnam. We
soon, however, become conscious of this territory being
divided into two parts. The name Kalinga is applied
more distinctively to the delta of the Godāvarſ, while
the delta of the Mahánadí, on the north, gradually stands
out as a separate country. The line of demarcation was
loosely fixed, and even as late as the Musalmán period,
not always recognised. But the mountain spurs which
run down to the sea on the south of the Chilká Lake
formed a well-defined natural boundary. A wide de-
batable land existed between the two kingdoms, on the
north of which dwelt an Uriyā-speaking people, while
the south was inhabited by Telugu races, as at the pre-
sent day. A fitful connection, however, was kept up
between the two. The southern division, from time to
time, sent forth settlements into the north, and gave some
of the most important dynasties to Orissa. On the
other hand, the Uriyá language held its own for centuries,
almost to the walls of Kalingapatnam itself.” It is still
the vernacular of the peasantry for about thirty miles
south of the natural boundary, although the Telugu of
the courts and State schools is gradually pushing it north-
wards. I have noticed, however, that while the southern
Telugus call the inhabitants of this intermediate country
Uriyās, the natives of Orissa call them Telugus, and the
* Lassen, whose minute knowledge of Indian districts strikes me with
respectful admiration wherever I have gone in Bengal, places the linguistic
boundary at Chicacol. It is now farther north. Indische Alterthumskunde,
vol. i. p. 183, Bonn 1847. In references to the different volumes of this
work, I invariably refer to it as bound in the Library of the Asiatic Society,
Calcutta. The Deputy Collector of Ganjām, Mr. Lyons, who has been
upwards of ten years in the district, informs me that the linguistic change
begins to be very distinctly felt at Itchhápur. Up to that point, the peasantry
and small landholders still speak Uriyā; but I noticed that not only the
official classes, but also the better sort of shopkeepers, and, in general, all
large merchants, use a mixed dialect of Uriyā and Telugu.
172 AAVC/E/W7 AWAMES OF OR/SSA.
pandits of Bengalº still describe Kalinga as including all
the country from Jagannāth to the river Krishná. The
native Government of Orissa practically acknowledged
the natural boundary as the political one, treating as
foreigners all devotees who came from the southern side
of the Ganjām River, and levying a ten per cent. higher
tax from them. This distinction found legislative recog-
nition in our earliest Pilgrim Law, three years after the
country passed under British rule.”
The northern kingdom, that thus looms hazily forth
on the horizon of history, was known as Odra, or Utkala.
Scholars and pandits have long wrangled over the deri-
vation of these words. Odra is the aboriginal name,
and survives in the present (Odra-desa) Orissa. The
people themselves connect it with the little red jungle
rose of the same name, and reverence that flower as one
of the five blossoms of heaven (mandār). But Hindu
ingenuity has not failed to find an Aryan root for it.
They interpret it to signify Filth,” and support this deri-
vation by texts which prove that the Uriyā tribes ranked
low in the estimation of Sanskrit writers. Lassen, with
much ingenuity, would make it mean The Northern
Country, and appeals to its geographical position in the
ancient kingdom of Kalinga." Its second name, Ut-Kala,
is unquestionably Sanskrit, and affords a more fertile
theme for Hindu ingenuity. The orthodox insist that
it means The Glorious Country; lexicographers suggest
that it may only be the Land of the Bird-killers; and an
* Sabdartha Chintámani, p. 539, by Brahmávadhuta Sri Sukhánanda
Náth.
* Regulation IV. of 1806, sec. 9.
* From unda, dirt, with the affix rak. Sabdartha Chintámani, p. 442.
* As a prákrit form of Auttara, from uttara, north. Indische Alterthums-
kunde, vol. i. p. 186, note 2.
7 HE ZAND-MAK/AWG. AGES. - I73.
admirable student of the modern Aryan tongues inter-
prets it as The Outlying Strip.” There is, therefore, a
large choice from which the reader will please to select
the derivation he likes best.
Little is known regarding this kingdom before the
sixth century B.C.; probably owing to the fact of its being
almost uninhabitable. It consisted of a densely wooded
delta, where the process of land-making was going on
with a vigour that rendered it even more unfit for human
settlements than the Gangetic sea-face at the present
day. The Mahánadí wriggled through a region, half
mud, half water, and all jungle, into the Bay. The
shallowest parts were swamps, the deepest parts were
brackish lakes, and from time to time the river writhed
itself out of its former bed into new channels, twisting
backwards and forwards over the delta in snake-like con-
volutions; turning ſens into deep lakes; silting up inland
seas into shallow marshes; toiling slowly and ceaselessly
till the firm earth stood up out of the waters, ready for
man. Two thousand years ago, the process went on
much faster than now. Every mile that the land
pushes itself into the Bay of Bengal, its rate of progress
decreases. At present, indeed, the Mahánadi has to
cross so broad a delta that almost all the silt which it
brings down the gorge above Cattack is deposited before
it reaches the sea, and but little remains as materials for
the land-manufacture at its mouths. The inundations
and catastrophes of Orissa in our days bear the same
relation to those of ancient times, which the impotent
grumblings of an extinct crater do to the lava streams
of a living volcano.
It ceases to be a matter of surprise, therefore, that the
* See note at the beginning of the foregoing Chapter III.
I74 THE OR/SSA OF 7:HE ANCIEAVZ.S.
only features of ancient Orissa still distinctly discernible
from this distance are the all-enveloping jungle, and the
frequent shifting and rising of the land. The earliest
legends speak of kings hunting over the sites of buried
cities, and stumbling against the pinnacles of forgotten
shrines. The first Aryan settlers, from the north, found
Orissa buried under forests and tall grasses.” In the
eighth century A.D., we find the Chilká Lake a fine inland
sea, crowded with ships from distant countries, and shut
out from the adjoining kingdom, on the south, by a forest
of many days’ journey." It now lies between two fertile
districts, and is barely deep enough to float a rowing-
boat. In the fourteenth century, Orissa remained the
only part of India unexplored by the Musalmáns. It is
described as “a tract of forest which extended nearly
from the mouth of the Ganges to that of the Godāvari,
something less than 500 miles in length, and ran inland
for a depth of from 300 to 400 miles.’ When at length
the Musalmáns tardily penetrated into this terra incog-
niţa, they found it so cut up by rivers, and so strong in
mountain and jungle fastnesses, that they asserted their
authority only in the longest-settled and oldest-formed
part of the delta. The hills on the west, and the sea-
board districts on the east where the process of land-
making still went vigorously forward, they left under the
native chiefs. Even after the Musalmáns had effected
their settlements, the country was so little adapted for
military movements on a large scale, that its governors
frequently asserted their independence, and defied the
viceregal troops. The Muhammadan conquerors gladly
* Brij Kishore Ghose's Hist. Purſ, p. 34.
* Julien's Histoire de la vie de Hiouen-thsang, traduite du Chinois,
p. 184, ed. I853.
THE ABOR/G/AWAZ RACES. I75
got rid of the scarcely accessible province as a bribe to
the Marhattás. Even at the present day it has not been
deemed wise to subject the mountainous inland jungles
to regular British control; and the mouths of the Mahá-
nadi still creep through a region of unbroken forest,
thirty miles broad, to the sea.
The first human inhabitants that we can discern in
Orissa, are hill tribes and fishing settlements belonging
to the non-Aryan stock. Their descendants still survive
and perpetuate their ancient names. Among them, the
Savars and the Kandhs have preserved their ethnical
identity most intact. The Kandh tribe will form the
subject of a separate chapter. The Savars” appear in
very early Sanskrit writings, and are spoken of by them.
with even more than usual detestation. As the Südras,
or aboriginal tribes who had been subdued into the ser-
vile caste of the Aryan commonwealth, sprung from the
feet of Brahmā, so the Savars and other forest races who
successfully withstood the invaders, proceeded from the
sweat of a cow.” They were goblins, they were devils,
they were raw-eaters, they were man-eaters ; and the
Vishnu Purána has concentrated the national antipathy
towards them, in its picture of a dwarfish race, with flat
noses, and a skin the colour of a charred stake. Another
sacred text assures us that they were as black as crows,
with tawny hair, red eyes, a chin jutting out, short arms
and legs, and the typical flat nose. A third Sanskrit
Sage adds a protuberant belly, drooping ears, and an Ogre
11 Variously pronounced Savar, Sabar, Saur, or Sar. As a curious
specimen of the disintegration of a word, the name is still spelt Savara in
the police reports of Ganjam district; Sourah in the collectorate records ;
and Saur, Sur, or Sar, in the official documents of the adjoining district of
Purſ. - -
* Mahābhārata, quoted Muir's Sanskrit Texts, vol. i. p. 391, ed. 1868.
176 WARRIOR AAVO PIRAZTE Z R/BES.
mouth.” They seem to have made their individuality
very strongly felt in ancient India. The beginning of
their territory long marked the last point of the Aryan
advance. They are spoken of as “border tribes” who
resisted the Sanskrit invaders, scattered armies, and
earned for themselves the title of ‘the terrible Savars.”
Their name even found its way into Greek geographies,”
and the ancient kingdom of Kalinga was known to the
distant islands of the Indian archipelago, while still a
terra incognita to northern India.
Even the fisher tribes who lived upon the shore,
and are now pounded down into a low caste of the Hindu
community, have never amalgamated with it. Some of
them continue at this moment to bury instead of burning
their dead. They are still excluded from the Temple of
Jagannāth, and, till within historical times, their pirate
galleys were the scourge of the Bay of Bengal. The
Chinese traveller who visited Orissa in the seventh cen-
tury, was warned not to face the resistless fleets of these
‘demons;’ and instead of taking ship for Ceylon, he
proceeded by the long and dangerous land route." He
describes the inhabitants of Orissa as tall of stature,
black skinned, of rude habits, and speaking a clear ring-
ing language different from the tongues of inner India.”
They are exactly what we might expect the people of a
delta to be, who had settled long enough to acquire the
dark colour of a damp tropical region, but who had not yet
* See also Sec. III. of Chap. II. of Mr. Carmichael's excellent Account
of the District of Vizagapatnam. Madras, 1867.
* Aitareya Brähmana; Sanskrit Texts, i. 483, ed. 1868.
* Mahābhārata; Sanskrit Texts, i. 393.
* Mr. Carmichael's District of Vizagapatnam, p. 86.
* Histoire de la vie de Hiouen-thsang, par Stanislaus Julien. Paris,
1853, p. 183.
* Indische Alterthumskunde, vol. iv. p. 3.
B UDZ) HIST SETTLEMEAV7'S MAW OR/SSA. 177
lost the manly forms which they brought from their
ancient highlands. -
The Aryan hatred of these forest races rendered
the country detestable to Sanskrit writers, and Orissa
long held a very different reputation as regards sanctity
from that which it enjoys at the present day. It was
essentially an impure country. Its people are denounced
as having forsaken religious rites, and sunk to the lowest
caste known to the Aryan community.” Its impurity
passed into a proverb, ‘He who goes to Orissa, must
cleanse himself from the pollution.” This abhorrence
of Orissa has left its mark even upon the stories of Por-
tuguese merchants and of casual voyagers. Throughout
the sixteenth century, many hundred years after Puri
had become the Jerusalem of the Hindus, English tra-
vellers believed in a country on the Orissa coast, ‘peopled
by men who had horses' heads, and fed on human
flesh.”
In the midst of these wild tribes dwelt communities
belonging to another stock, and representing a very dif-
ferent stage of civilisation. No Sanskrit story has come
down to us of the first Buddhist migration to this remote
shore. Brähmanical literature views them with an abhor-
rence greater, if possible, than that with which it regarded
the forest races. It never even mentions their names,
and they themselves have left behind them no writings
of their own. A Sanskrit text informs us, indeed, that
a holy sage in the north had five sons, each of whom
* Manu, Chap. x. Sl. 44. Ed. Devendranáth Thákur. Saß, I788.
* Jyotishtattwa devala bachanam, quoted in Tattwabodhinſ Patriká;
vol. ii. p. 180, Sak, 1769. The proverb, however, also applies to Bengal and
the whole of Kalinga. -
* Mr. Talboy's Wheeler's History of Madras, from Official Records.
3 vols. Madras, 1861. Vol. i. p. 7.
VOL. II. M
178 CAVE DWEZZINGS
founded a military kingdom beyond the Aryan territory.
One of them conquered, and gave his name to Kalinga.”
No evidence survives to fix the date of this expedition.
Nor do the Buddhist settlements in Orissa, when first
they come in sight, bear in any respect the character of
a military occupation. They themselves have long passed
beyond the reach of historical inquiry. But their rock
habitations survive, and they were certainly not the
abode of regal or warlike pomp. They form the earliest
historical monuments in Orissa; and are found in many
places among the mountains that divide the alluvial strip
from the interior table-land. The subdivision of Khurdha
is rich in such relics. In Puri District, I explored two hills
completely honeycombed with cells and temples; and a
beautiful peak that overlooks the Mahánadi at the point
where it issues from its gorge, is perforated with antique
dwelling-places, cut in the solid laterite. Hard by, are
inscriptions which lift the veil from the forgotten phase
of human life that calmly ebbed away century after cen-
tury in these caves. Their sculptured galleries belong to
a more recent date, but even the most elaborate, and pro-
bably the most recent of them, cannot be placed after the
first century A.D. -
The earliest inscription is unquestionably that pre-
served on the Dhauli rock, dated the tenth or twelfth
year after the consecration of Asoka, or about two hun-
dred and fifty years B.C. Colossal statues of Buddha are
found in the recesses of the mountains, and form impor-
tant materials towards an art history of Orissa. The
sanctity of such hill-retreats has survived the faith which
consecrated them. Long after Buddhism had been driven
across the sea, the shrines of another religion, and temples
* Dirgha-Tamasá, Anga Banga Kalinga Suhma Pundrākhyam, Váleyam Kshetramajanyata.
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SHRINE-HILLS. I79
of other gods, rose amid these lonely fastnesses.” Vish-
nuvite cenobites, Sivaite ascetics, and aged mystics, who
believe that long solitude and penance have freed them
from the chains of the body, and raised them above all
rituals and creeds, crawl about the hill-sides which the
Buddhist monks tenanted 2000 years ago. Indeed,
so infectious is the passion for religious retirement in
Orissa, that even the Musalmán invaders yielded to
the spell, and have left a mosque on a solitary crag
2500 feet above the world of labour and strife below.”
Any sketch, however brief, of Buddhism would be
out of place in this work. The history of a religion which
formed the mightiest protest against the caste-debasement
of man, and against the materializing of God, known to
the ancient world, and which at this moment is the living
belief of one-third of the human race,” belongs to a
region of scholarship into which a district annalist has
no entry. In a subsequent volume, when treating of
Behar, the birth-place of the creed, I hope to be able
to supply some local colouring-matter to European
historians of Buddhism. At present I have only to deal
with it as one of the two first forms of human existence,
* A detailed account of some of the most important, and, so far as I
know, hitherto undescribed, of these shrine-hills, will be found in my Statis-
tical Account of Cattack. Stirling gives an admirable description of Khand-
giri and Udayagiri in As. Res. vol. xv. Lieut. M. Kittoe contributes
some valuable notes to the Journal of the As. Society, vols. vi. and vii. Mr.
James Fergusson may be with advantage consulted in his ‘History of Archi-
tecture, vol. ii., and in the introductory essay to his ‘Tree and Serpent
Worship.’ Babu Rajendra Lala Mitra's forthcoming work on the Archaeology
of Orissa, will contain everything that could be desired by the antiquarian
or the student of art history. In the following pages, I have, therefore, con-
fined myself to a general description, and omitted, with one exception, the
measurements, and other technical notes which I made on the spot.
** Assiagiri.
* 31°2 per cent., or a little over the number of Christians, who form 30°7.
Max Müller's Lecture on the Vedas. Chips. i. 23. Ed. 1867.
I8o THE BUDDAIST HERMITAGES.
which we can indistinctly discern on the horizon of
Orissa history; a form which continued to flourish in
that province until the tenth century A.D., and which
has left its impress upon the religious beliefs and customs
of the people at this hour.
The Buddhist hermits of Orissa seem at first to
have held a position somewhat analogous to that of the
missionaries who first taught Christianity to the wild
tribes of Prussia. Like them, they started from the
centre of their faith, after it had attained to stately pro-
portions, and had subdued the more civilised parts of
the continent to its influences. Like them also, they
seem to have carried with them a love of the beautiful
in God's works as well as in their conceptions of His
being, which led them to fix their abodes in the most
exquisite retreats of nature. Their principal settlement
was at Khandgiri, nearly half-way between Purí and
Cattack, and about twelve miles to the west of the pre-
sent high road. Two sandstone hills” rise abruptly out
of the jungle, separated by a narrow gorge, one end of
which is enclosed by a low ridge that connects the cliffs,
while the other extremity is screened by a noble banyan-
tree, and groves of fruit-bearing mangoes. Massive slabs
of laterite once formed a paved path across the ravine,
and rose in flights of stairs up either hill. The peaks
are a rabbit-warren of caves and temples cut out of the
rock. The oldest of them consist of a single cell, scarcely
larger than a dog's kennel. Several are shaped into
strange distorted resemblances of animals. One has
from time immemorial been known as the Snake Cave,
another as the Elephant Cave, a third as the Tiger Cave.
The last stands out from the rock in the form of a
* Khandgiri and Udayagiri.
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A HAAWDG/AEI AAVZ) UZOA YAG/AEA. 181
monstrous wild beast's jaw, with nose and eyes above, and
the teeth overhanging the entrance to the cell. Others
are more elaborate, and contain several chambers sup-
ported by pillars, and shaded from the sun by a verandah
in front. Sculptures of the Hindu deities are carved in
relief upon the walls, or on slabs of chlorite fixed into the
sandstone. These figures, however, belong to a compara-
tively recent date, and with the exception of a few worn
and blunted representations of the sacred tree of Buddha,
the oldest of them cannot be placed before 600 A.D.
A little temple of the Jains, the religious descendants
of the Buddhists, now crowns the top of the western hill.
It stands upon a masonry platform, beneath which the
whole country spreads in a varied panorama. A belt of
woodland hems in the sacred mounts on all sides; but on
the south it soon gives place to rice-fields, variegated by
promontories of the Khurdhá Hills, which jut out darkly
on the bright green plains. On the west, the jungle ascends
by rolling undulations, culminating in scattered ridges
and peaks. On the north, the unbroken forest spreads
far to right and left, till it ends in an horizon of lofty
mountains on the other side of the Mahánadſ. To the
eastward, at a distance of five miles, the great Tower
sacred to Siva raises its black head above an expanse
of mango groves, with a thousand lesser shrines swarm-
ing around its base. I saw no priest in the temple at
the top; only an empty vestibule, and an empty sanctuary
with a high altar, which is decorated with flowers at
stated festivals, when trains of devotees defile through
the jungle, and worship with a curious mixture of modern
superstition and antique rites.” The stillness was only
* The temple is dedicated to Paresnáth, but a Brähman priest from
Bhuvaneswar comes over to officiate.
182 THE PR/MYZYVAE SAAWZDSZ OAVE CEZ/.S.
broken by the cooing of doves, and the occasional whirr
of a hawk. At intervals, the tinkling of wooden buffalo-
bells rose from the forest below, and more rarely a faint
cock-crow from some distant hamlet. The slopes and
precipices were one glory of laurel-like foliage and bright
flowers, and the February sun shone down in its calmest
and brightest beauty upon all.
. These sandstone hills in Orissa exhibit what are
believed to be the very earliest memorials of Buddhis-
tic life. The small single cells cut in the inaccessible
precipices, utterly destitute of ornament, and crumbling
from long exposure to the air, represent the first human
dwellings yet discovered in India. The most recent
date which, so far as I know, has been assigned to them
is 200 B.C.” But an admirable native scholar places even
the more elaborate of the adjoining chambered monas-
teries in the third century before Christ. The single
cell caves of Orissa are certainly very much older than
anything I saw in Bombay; so much older, indeed, as
to belong to an entirely different period. They are
holes rather than habitations, and do not even exhibit
those traces of primitive carpentry architecture which
the earliest of the western specimens disclose. Some
of them are so old that the face of the rock has fallen
down, and left the caves in ruins. The men who, year
after year, crouched in these holes, and cramped their
limbs within their narrow limits, must have been sup-
ported by a great religious earnestness, little known to
the Buddhist priests of later times. Such cells, however,
soon give place to more comfortable excavations, shaded
by pillared verandahs, and lighted by several doors.
These appear to have been intended for the religious
** Fergusson’s Hist. Architecture, ii. 493. Ed. 1867.
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THE QUEEN'S MOMASTERY 183
meetings of the brotherhood. Some of them are very
roomy, and have apartments at either end, probably for
the spiritual heads of the community; small, indeed, when
compared with the temple chambers, but greatly more
commodious than the primitive single cells.
The temples in their turn are succeeded by still more
elaborate excavations. Of these, the most important is a
two-storied Monastery known as the Queen's Palace.” It
consists of two rows of cells, one above the other, shaded
by pillared verandahs, with a court-yard cut out of the
hill-side. Two stalwart figures, in shirts of mail down
to the knees, stand forth from the wall as guards. One
of them wears boots half-way up to the knee; the other
seems to have on greaves, the feet being naked, but the
legs encased in armour. Whoever excavated this and
the neighbouring monasteries, had very much more
advanced ideas of comfort than the ancient hermits who
cut out the first holes in the rock above. The court-
yard opens towards the south, and is lined on the other
three sides with rows of chambers. On the right and
left appear to be the cooking-room and common dining-
hall. The verandahs are commodious, and the rock
brackets, which extend from the pillars to support the
intervening roof, are finely sculptured. The favourite
form of ornamentation in Orissa is one common alike
to European and Indian art; the curve of the brackets
being skilfully taken advantage of to represent the swell-
ing bosoms and delicately retreating heads of beautiful
women. The upper story contains four large cells,
each fourteen feet long by seven broad, and three feet
nine inches high. The verandah outside is about sixty
feet long by ten broad, and seven in height. Each cell
29 The Rání-ntir.
184 A SCULPTURED BIOGRAPHY (200 B.C.?)
has two doors, and at either end is a rock lion; by no
means the conventional monster of the Hindu temples
of the twelfth century A.D., but done with some spirit
and fidelity, as if the artist had really seen the animal
he tried to depict. *
Altogether the Queen's Palace represents a very
different phase of Buddhism from that which consigned
its votaries to uncomfortable holes in rocks. The great
Bombay Monastery at Kárli prefers the splendour of
its temple to the comfort of the devotees. I could not
but contrast its magnificent pillared hall with the adjoin-
ing narrow cells in which the monks passed their lives.
But the Queen's Palace in Orissa belongs neither to the
period in which the Buddhist missionaries and hermits
devoted themselves to meditation in solitary holes of
the rock, nor to that other period when the religion had
built for itself a stately system of worship, and had
gathered its devotees into religious houses. It must have
been excavated at a time when the creed had acclima-
tized itself to the air of royal ante-chambers, and repre-
sents fashionable Buddhism not many centuries before
its fall.
The upper verandah of the Queen's Monastery is
adorned with a sculptured biography of its founder. The
first tableau, worn almost level with the rock, seems to
represent the sending of presents which preceded the
matrimonial alliances of the ancient dynasties of India.
A running figure stands dimly out, apparently carrying
a tray of fruit. The second appears to be the arrival
of the suitor. It delineates the meeting of the ele-
phants, and a number of confused human forms, one
of whom rides on a lion. From the third tableau the
biography becomes more distinct. It represents the
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A HUAVTING SCENE (200 B.C.?) 185
courtship. The prince is introduced by an old lady to
the princess, who sits cross-legged on a high seat, with
her eyes averted, and her arms round the neck of one of
her maidens below. The fourth is the fight. The prince
and princess, each armed with swords and oblong shields,
engage in combat. The fifth is the abduction, depicting
the princess defeated and carried off in the prince's arms,
her sword lost, but her shield still grasped in her hand.
The prince holds his sword drawn, and is amply clothed.
The princess is scantily draped, with her hair done up
in a perpendicular chignon, rising from the top of her
head, and a long tress falling over her bosom to her
waist. She wears heavy anklets. The sixth is the hunt.
A tree forms the centre of the piece, on one side of
which the prince and princess are shooting at a bounding
antelope; while a led horse stands near, and attendants
armed with clubs. The prince draws his bow in the
perpendicular fashion of the English archers. It is about
two-thirds his own height. A lady looks down upon
the chase from the tree. A court scene follows, in which
the prince sits on a throne on the left, with attendants
holding fans on either side. Dancing girls and musicians
are grouped in front, and the princess appears on a
throne on the extreme right. The eighth and ninth
tableaux are effaced. Three scenes of dalliance between
the prince and the princess follow, and the series in
the upper story ends in a mysterious running figure
with a snake twisted round him. The lower verandah
exhibits the sequel. A convent scene discloses the prin-
cess retired from the vanities of life, sitting at her cell
door in the upper story of a sculptured monastery, with
her ladies, also turned ascetics, sitting at separate doors
in the lower one. The remaining tableaux, four in
I86 A ROCK EPIC (200 B.C.?)
number, represent the prince, princess, and courtiers as
hermits, with their hands on their breasts in an attitude
of abstraction, freed from human passion, indeed even
from the necessity of religious observances, and wrapt in
contemplation of the Deity.
Throughout, the prince is generally fully dressed,
with a cotton garment falling from his girdle, but leaving
the leg bare from the knee. The lady wears a head-
dress something like the Prince of Wales' feathers, with
her hair done up in a towering chignon, such as was
fashionable in 1868. A scroll of birds and beasts and
leaves runs the whole way along. The battle and hunt-
ing scenes are given with much spirit, the animals being
very different from the conventional creatures of modern
Hindu art.
Higher up the hill, and facing the south, is a smaller
monastery or temple, known as the Ganesa Cave, from
a figure of the elephant-headed god inside—evidently a
work of much later date than the original cells. The
pillared verandah exhibits the exquisite bracket sculptures
already mentioned. The inside wall of the verandah is
adorned with a series of tableaux, that seem to give a
different version of the same story which is told on the
frieze of the Queen's Monastery. In the first scene, a lady
watches over her husband, who is sleeping under the
sacred Buddhist tree. In the second, a suitor makes ad-
vances to the lady, who turns her head away. He has seized
one hand, and she seems to be in the act of running from
him, with her other arm thrown up as if crying for help.
The third is the battle. The husband and the lover (or
perhaps it is the lady and her suitor) fight with oblong
shields and swords. In the fourth, the warrior carries
off the vanquished princess in his arms. In the fifth, the
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successful paramour is flying on an elephant, pursued by
soldiers in heavy kilts. The prince draws his bow in the
English perpendicular fashion, as in the previous series,
and a soldier has cut off the head of one of the pursuers.
The sixth is the home-coming. The elephant kneels
under a tree, the riders have dismounted, and the lady
hangs down her head, as if in shame or sorrow. The
seventh represents their home-life. The lady stands with
her hand on the prince's shoulder, while he has one arm
round her waist, and in the other hand grasps his bow.
The series ends in a scene of dalliance.
The Vishnuvite ascetic, who lives in a little cottage
at the foot of the hill, as a matter of course declared that
the tableaux represent the abduction of Sitá, and the
expedition of Ráma to Ceylon. But whatever may be
the story which these sculptures record, it is certain that
they do not take their scenery or their heroine from the
Rāmāyana. The whole plot is reversed. The epic
relates how a Sanskrit princess was carried off by the
demon King of Ceylon, but it does so only as a means
of introducing the conquest and slaughter of the cannibal
monarch, and the return of the lady in triumph. The
abduction, in short, was a failure. In this rock biography,
on the other hand, the rape is a perfect success, and
Helen and Paris live happily together ever afterwards.
But, indeed, the details of the story preclude the possi-
bility of its being derived from the Rāmāyana. In the
one case the suitor comes in the form of an aged ascetic,
and accomplishes his crime by treachery; in the other
he appears as a valiant warrior, who fights for his princess
and wins her.” After the abduction, the Rāmāyana re-
* The original Rámāyana, which still maintains its hold on the popular
affections, speaks of no encounter between Sità and Rāvana; but a later
I88 AºA'/7 OME OF OR/SSA AAVZVAZ.S.
presents the ravisher as a ten-headed or hundred-headed
monster, who carries the lady in a magical car through
the air, and is regarded by her with abhorrence. In the
sculptured biography the prince and princess escape on
an elephant, hotly pursued. Subsequently he wins the
affections of the lady, and after a life of courtly pleasures
and sylvan amusements, both parties retire from the
pomps of this world, and end their days in a Buddhist
convent. The Rāmāyana, on the other hand, closes with
a frightful domestic tragedy, and the hero drowns him-
self in despair.
It is impossible to fix the date of the Queen's Mo-
nastery with anything like historical precision. But we
can come near enough to it for all practical purposes.
The ancient annals of Orissa divide themselves into
three long chapters, one of which is wholly obliterated
by time, and the other two are more or less effaced.
The first begins with the legendary Aryan conquest,
when one of the five sons of the northern sage hived
forth from the Sanskrit pale and founded the kingdom
of Kalinga, probably at least eight centuries before Christ.
The second dates from the death of Buddha, 543 B.C.,
and consists of Ceylonese legends of the sacred tooth,
and a more or less mythical account of the first settle-
ments of Buddhism in Orissa. The third opens with the
publication of Asoka's edicts, about 250 B.C., and closes
with the accession of the Long-haired or Lion Dynasty,
in A.D. 474. With regard to the first era we know
version thinks it more moral to represent her as resisting the ravisher by
force of arms. This is the Asitá or Satakandha Rámāyana, which increases
Rávana's heads from ten to a hundred ; and which, with all the licence of
the modern Hindu imagination, exaggerates the horror of his appearance,
thereby making him still more unlike the hero of the sculptured biography.
The Asitá Rámáyana is comparatively little known among the people, at any
rate in Lower Bengal.
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Z}/E 7/7 RAEAE ERA.S OF BUZ) ZXAZSM. 189
nothing, and the two latter will be fully treated of further
on. At present it will suffice to say that the single cell
caves seem to belong to the second, or from 543 to 250
B.C., and the Queen's Monastery to the third. It repre-
sents a period when Buddhism had become the established
religion of the country, and had at its disposal the wealth
of kings and queens. On the other hand, the ablest
Bengal antiquarian now living pronounces its architectural
style, and the inscription which adjoins it, to be anterior
to the Christian era.” It may, therefore, be placed be-
tween 250 and IOO B.C., to which period the other elabo-
rate excavations also belong.
The sandstone caves, as a whole, represent ten
centuries of human existence (500 B.C. to 500 A.D.).
They form the relics of three distinct stages through
which Buddhism passed; from the period when its first
missionaries started out on their perilous work to the
time when, full-blown and victorious, it had become
the religion of queens and kings. The first was the
Ascetic Age, and is represented by the single sandstone
cells, scarcely bigger than the lair of a wild beast, and
almost as inaccessible. The second, or Ceremonial Age,
has left its relics in the pillared temples where the
brethren were wont to meet, with commodious chambers
for the spiritual heads attached to them. The third,
or Fashionable Age of Buddhism, achieved its highest,
although not its latest effort, in the two-storied Queen's
Palace, built at a time when the whole resources of a
kingdom were at the disposal of the religious fancies of
royalty; and when art, having lost its monastic tone, had
* Babu Rájendra Lála Mitra has so thoroughly gone into the subject of
the Orissa Caves, and his work is expected so shortly, that I content myself
with acknowledging my obligations to him, without venturing to anticipate
his own exposition of the evidence on which this conclusion is based.
I90 OR/SSA (543 B.C.)
learned to turn even a convent's walls into a record of
human pomp. . -
These great changes in the status of Buddhism
represent long periods of time. Indian literature is
silent with regard to the cave-dwellers of Orissa, and
gives us no clue to their origin, or to the era of their
first settlements. But the sacred books of Ceylon supply
the defect.” The story takes us back to the time when
Orissa formed part of the ancient kingdom of Kalinga,
and when an emperor of the Lunar race still reigned in
Northern Hindustán. It relates how, immediately after
the obsequies of Buddha in 543 B.C., one of his disciples
was commanded to carry the Sacred Tooth to Kalinga.
If the Sanskrit name of the monarch who received it”
could be trusted, it would indicate that the Orissa tribes
had already been subjected to Aryan rule. He wor-
shipped the sacred relic with great pomp, and appointed
a splendid festival in its honour. But the disputes be-
tween Brähmans and Buddhists which convulsed Nor-
thern India, reached even these remote shores. Some
of the Orissa princes devoutly adored the tooth ; others
rejected it; and some returned as converts to its miracu-
lous powers. One of the last, with the intolerance of
a proselyte, drove out the Brähmans, and proclaimed
that his subjects should worship according to the royal
command. The Brähmans carried their complaints to
the Sanskrit King in the north, who is represented as
holding a sort of imperial rule over all India, while
Orissa appears as a subordinate, although not a sub-
ject, kingdom. The Emperor sent one of his tributary
8* Dáthádhátawanso, chaps. ii. iii. and iv.; Journal of As. Soc. of
Bengal, vol. vi. pt. ii. p. 860 et seg. Calc. 1837.
* Brahmadatta.
OR/SSA (250 B.C.) I9 I
princes to subdue the Orissa Buddhist, and to bring
‘the piece of human bone.’ The invader, however,
was converted at the sight of the sacred tooth, and the
two princes proceeded with it to the imperial court.
There the Emperor in great wrath commanded his
priests to destroy it. It was thrown into the fire; beaten
on an anvil ; trampled into the earth by elephants ;
plunged into the city sewers. But in vain. It emerged
from the flames as a lustrous flower; it sunk into the
anvil and defied the blows of the mallet; it rose out of
the earth as a lotus with pistils of silver and petals of
gold; and the sewer instantly turned into a celestial
lake, covered with lilies, and vocal with honey-bees.
The Brähman priests tried every art of destruction, and
a Vishnuvite sage makes himself especially conspicuous
in his efforts to counteract the influence of these failures
on the royal mind. At length the Emperor proclaims him-
self a convert to Buddhism, and his whole people receive
‘the piece of human bone' as a precious relic of the god.
Orissa next emerges into history about three cen-
turies later, or 250 years B.C. Since that year a rocky
eminence on the bank of the Dayá River, about a day's
journey to the south of the Queen's Monastery, has borne
an inscription long illegible to the Hindus, but at last
deciphered by English scholarship.” It consists of eleven
* It is to be regretted that the invaluable inscriptions contained in the
Asiatic Researches, and Journals of the various societies, have not been re-
printed in a collected form. Mr. Prinsep's decipherings are the glory of
Anglo-Indian scholarship. I have implicitly followed his readings, with such
lights, however, as Lassen's Indische Alterthumskunde throw upon them.
The four volumes of the Asiatic Society’s Journal for 1837–1838 are a mine
of wealth as regards the history of Orissa. The following are the principal
inscriptions which I have collected from Mr. Prinsep's writings for this part
of my work –
I. The Asoka Edicts on the Dhauli Rock, 250 B.c. .
II. The Khandgiri Inscription, representing a later Buddhism, IOO A.D. (?)
I92 Z}/E AE UDZ) HZSZYC CZVZZAS ZX/2Z.
edicts promulgated by Asoka, the Buddhist Emperor of
Northern India, with two others apparently added by
the local Prince of Orissa. The eleven are almost iden-
tical with similar inscriptions published throughout the
length and breadth of India, from the southern slopes of
the Himálayas to the central Vindhya range, and from
Gujrát on the west to the shores of the Bay of Bengal.”
During 2000 years these graven rocks have proclaimed
the unity of God, and the religious equality of man amid
an idolatrous and caste-ridden race. But for at least four-
teen centuries they have done so in an unknown character,
and almost in an unknown tongue. They have at length
been made to speak and to disclose that ancient Civitas
Dei, by which holy men in the East struggled to reclaim
the world centuries before the rise of the Christian re-
public.
They start with prohibiting the shedding of animal
blood, whether for food or for religious sacrifices; and
incidentally give a little picture of the imperial house-
keeping. Formerly, they say, in the great dining-hall
and temple of the heaven-beloved King, many hundred
thousand animals were slain for meat. They proceed to
describe an organized system of medical aid throughout
the whole kingdom, and in the conquered provinces as far
south as Ceylon. This institution provided advice and
III. The Buddhist Merchants’ Inscription near Aswastama.
IV. The Udayagiri Inscriptions, also Buddhistic.
v. The first Sivaite Inscription, A.D. 617.
VI. The first Jagannāth Inscription, circ. tenth century A.D.
vii. The Gangá Vansa Inscription, A.D. 1132.
VIII. The Bhuvaneswara Slab, Vishnuvite, circ. eleventh century A.D.
Ix. Second Sivaite Inscription, twelfth century A.D.
* Vide Asiatic Society's Journal for 1838, vol. vii. part i. art. vii. p. 219
to 282, and vol. vii. p. 156 to 167. The eleven Edicts of the Cattack In-
scription are word for word the same as eleven of the fourteen Edicts at
Girnar in Gujrát.
7"HE BUZ) DH/STYC CZWZZAS DEA. I93
drugs for all living creatures; for the brute creation not
less than for men.” Wells were also to be dug, and trees
to be planted along the roads, for the refreshment of
travellers and beasts of burden. They then proclaim a
public humiliation every fifth year, and enumerate the
cardinal virtues of the Buddhistic code,-obedience to
parents; charity to all men, especially to the priests; the
non-sacrifice of animals, and reverence for the vital
principle in man or brute; dutiful service to the spiritual
guide and the propagation of the true creed. The king
appoints missionaries to go forth to the utmost ends of
the earth and ‘intermingle with all the hundred grades
of unbelievers for the establishment of the faith and for
the increase of religion. They shall mix with Brähmans
and beggars, with the poor and the rich, to bring them
unto the righteousness which passeth knowledge.’ These
are the exact words used. They shall deliver ‘those
bound in the fetters of sin’ by declaring the truths that
procure the ‘final emancipation which is beyond under-
standing.’ ‘Among the terrible and the powerful shall
they be mixed, both here and in foreign countries; in
every town and among all the kindred ties even of
brotherhood and sisterhood, everywhere !’
The edicts then go on to regulate the household life
of the people. They speak of a system of moral sur-
veillance greatly more searching than that of the censor
morum in the primitive age of Rome, or than the
domestic jurisdiction exercised by the elders in Puritan
Massachusetts, or by the kirk-session in Presbyterian
Scotland. They remind one of the minute supervision
of Mr. Ruskin's ideal church. Overseers watched over
each stage of the citizen's life, from the cradle to the
* This Edict is given separately on page 159 of vol. vii. Journ. As. Soc.
VOL. II, N
194 BUDDHIST BISHOPS OR OPERSEERS.
grave. No circumstance, however private, escaped their
scrutiny. A staff of inspectors was appointed ‘for every
season, for behaviour during meals, in domestic rela-
tions, in the nursery, in conversation, and on the bed of
death.” Care was taken, however, that these overseers
should not degenerate into spies; and the king solemnly
declares that he has instituted the system not for his
own gain (through fines or penalties), but for the eternal
salvation of his people. The Greeks who travelled in
the train of Alexander to India bear witness to the good
faith in which the inspectors did their work. Arrian
ranks them as the sixth class in the Indian common-
wealth, and calls them by the same name which the early
Christians applied to their spiritual overseers, and which
now survives in the title of Bishop. “The Episcopi,’ says
Arrian, “take cognizance of whatever happens, whether
in the town or the country, and report it to the king
where the Indians live under regal rule, and to the
magistrates where they govern themselves. They are
forbidden to carry unfounded tales, nor indeed have any
of the Indians been taxed with the vice of falsehood.”
The next tablet consists of a prayer for the spread
of the faith, and that all unbelievers may be brought
to repentance and peace of mind.' But it contains
nothing like a hint at religious persecution, and speaks
of “every diversity of opinion’ being blended together
‘in undistinguishing charity.’ The king then contrasts
the hunts and feasts and gaming parties of former sove-
reigns with the more spiritual enjoyments which he has
inculcated on his subjects. The world, he says, seeks
pleasure in many ways, -in marriage, in offspring, and
‘in foreign travel;' but true happiness is to be found in
* Indicae, cap. xii.
THE BUDPHISZYC SUMMUM Bowvw. I95
virtue alone, in “kindness to dependants, reverence to
spiritual teachers, humanity to animals, alms-giving to
the priests.”
t Such was the moral code of Buddhistic India two
hundred and fifty years before Christ. But there remain
two other tablets, distinct from the general series of
Asoka's Edicts, and which seem to lay down local laws
of the sovereign.” They partake of a political character,
and begin by proclaiming the penalties for murder.
Capital punishments were unknown, but the man-slayer
expiated his crime in perpetual imprisonment. Much
stress is laid upon the individual will of the monarch,
who appears to enjoy that despotic authority which is
less characteristic of ancient than of mediaeval India.
‘This I publicly proclaim,” he says, “and I will carry it
into effect, for my supreme will is irresistible.” They
Soon, however, glide into the religious admonitions cha-
racteristic of Buddhism. “Much longing after the things
of this life is a disobedience. Not less so is the labo-
rious ambition of dominion in a prince. Confess and
believe in God, who is the worthy object of obedience.
Strive ye to obtain this inestimable treasure.’
We have, therefore, a picture of an ancient kingdom
governed by a code which elevates the moral duties of
man into legal obligations, a kingdom which professedly
took its religion from a superior monarch in the north,
and which submissively published his edicts, but which
in its turn was ruled by a prince who combined a
* Devānampriya, the “Beloved of the Gods,” in the city of Tosali.
For a disquisition as to the geographical identity of this place, see Journal
As. Soc. vii. 449 et seq. It appears to be either near the Vindhya range, or
‘in the Nāga country’ (possibly Nágpur P). But Devanámpriya is also the
name of the great Buddhist proselytizing monarch of Ceylon in the Páli
records.
196 A BUD/DHIST BIOGRAPHY (50 A.D.P).
paternal oversight over the households of his people,
with the authority of an absolute monarch. Such was
Orissa in the third century before Christ. We catch a
glimpse at the patriarchal age in the very act of dissolv-
ing into the despotic era which followed. -
The next inscription is some hundreds of years
later, but so far as the evidence goes to show, not much,
if at all subsequent to the beginning of our own era.
The abrupt introductory clause of Asoka's Edicts has
developed into a regular invocation, and the grammatical
inflexions hold an intermediate place between the very
ancient and the mediaeval inscriptions. In a short bio-
graphy of one of the kings of Kalinga,” it relates how,
after a youth passed in manly sports, and matured by
nine years' study, he ascended the throne in his twenty-
fourth year. The new monarch chose the Brähmanical
faith, but afterwards called together ‘the Buddhist priests
of Eastern Kalinga who had settled there under the
ancient kings.’ These he established in a college, and
learned from them ‘the sacred law.” He engages in
great public works, rebuilds the city walls that had been
destroyed by a storm, constructs a reservoir of cool
water for the poor, and builds for himself a magnificent
palace. Musicians and dancing girls beguile his leisure,
but the inscription describes him as ‘still inclining to
virtue,' amid the delights of youth. He next appears
in the character of a warrior, and marries the daughter
of a hill prince. Afterwards ‘inclining to charity,' he
* Named Aira. For an attempt to identify whom, see Journal As.
Soc. vi. Io95. In an appendix to this volume, I shall give for the first time
a complete list of the Orissa kings, compiled from the temple archives of
Jagannāth. But intricate disquisition, with a view to connecting these
monarchs with the kings named in the inscription, would be out of place in
the text of this work.
40 ‘Vyavasthā.’
OR/SSA DELINEATED (50 A.D.P). 197
converts the spoils of his enemy into alms. Nor is an
occasional glimpse wanting of him in his judicial capacity.
He imprisons a wicked king in a cavern, and condemns
‘the murderer to labour.” At length, ‘finding no glory
in a country which had been the seat of the ancient
princes, and reflecting’—(here a break takes place), he
appears to go on pilgrimage, and distributes charities
innumerable. Finally, “he causes to be constructed sub-
terranean chambers and caves containing temples and
pillars.’
This and others of the inscriptions prove, in the
opinion of the scholar to whom we owe their decipher-
ings, that Kalinga was at that time an emporium of
trade. We know from other sources, that shut out as
Orissa was from the general polity of India, it boasted
of fabrics which it could send as valuable presents to the
most civilised monarchs of the interior. So fine was the
linen which the Prince of Kalinga sent to the King of
Oudh, that a priestess who put on the gauzy fabric in
public was accused of appearing naked.” The rock in-
scriptions speak of ‘navigation' and ‘ship commerce’ as
forming part of the education of the Prince. Besides
the Buddhist port of Tamluk, it could be predicated that
the Chilkä Lake must have been very much deeper at
that remote period than now ; and if it were only deep
enough at present for ships, it would form one of the
finest harbours in the world. Year by year we see the
delta pushing itself out into the sea, unconsciously bearing
witness to the truth of a long undeciphered inscription,
which speaks of caverns that are now fifty miles from the
shore as hollowed by the wind and waves, and ‘Ocean-
* Csoma's Analysis of the Dulva. As. Res. xx. 85; Journal As. Soc.
vi. I837. -
198 THE 7'EMPZAF AAECHIVES.”
born.’ When, therefore, we hear of its monarch, eighteen
hundred years ago, being educated in maritime trade;
when we find that it had transactions with Java and the
islands of the Indian Archipelago in pre-historic times;”
when the Chinese traveller of the seventh century speaks
of the Chilkä as ‘a great lake, the harbour for ships from
distant countries; and when we find the factories on the
coast of Orissa a favourite resort of the early European
traders with Bengal, the chain of evidence is complete.
There can be no doubt that Orissa, shutout from the rest of
India by forests and mountain ranges, developed relations
with countries across the sea. Its misfortune at present
is, that while the hilly background still walls it out from
the inner continent, its rivers have silted up and isolated
it, by their bars and mudbanks, from the rest of the world.
The first local legend of Orissa refers to an invasion
from the sea. It is now time to turn from the cave-
dwellings and inscriptions of the Buddhists to the Brāh-
manical archives of Jagannāth. These curious records
consist' of piles of palm-leaves neatly cut, and closely
written over with a sharp iron pen without ink. Their
contents have been three times investigated, and I am
inclined to believe that all the really historical matter has
now been extracted.” We owe the most successful of
* See further on, and the Tattwabodhinſ Patriká, vol. ii. p. 179. Cal-
cutta, I769. Saß. -
* The first investigation was made by Mr. Stirling's pandits, and the
result is preserved in his admirable description of Orissa in the fifteenth
volume of the Asiatic Researches. The second was by Bhabánſcharan
Bandopädhyāya, author of the Purúshottama Chandriká, the Bengali work
from which I have chiefly derived my materials. The third was by Rájendra
Lálá Mitra, who inspected the temple archives in 1868, and arranged for
their being copied. It is perhaps a matter of regret to scholars rather than
to historians, that the priests did not permit the work to go on after the
learned antiquarian's departure; and, so far as I am aware, there is at present
absolutely no duplicate of these curious memorials (the Mádalá Pánji).
THE TEMPZE ARCAHIVES. I99
these researches to a learned Calcutta Brähman, who
published an epitome of the palm-leaf writings in Ben-
gali in 1843. He informs us that he spared neither
labour nor expense; and as one of the most devoted of
the modern worshippers of Jagannāth, he had special
opportunities for the work. I cannot withhold my tribute
to the conscientious toil to which the work of this ad-
mirable scholar bears witness." It contains, however,
rather the germs of history than an historical narrative.
It furnishes a list of a hundred and seven kings of
Orissa from 3 IoI B.C. to the British accession in 1803
A.D., with the exact dates of their reigns. This list I
venture to relegate to an appendix. The names may
be very useful to numismatists and decipherers of in-
scriptions; but they are the milestones of history rather
than history itself.
Indeed, the very exactitude of the dates is one of
the chief difficulties in using them. For, as already
hinted, the early annals of Orissa are marked off by
periods rather than by dates, and for many a weary
stage without any dates whatever. We know absolutely
nothing about Orissa prior to the Buddhistic settlement,
except that it was wholly unknown to the writers of the
Veda; that it was known only as a wild outlying strip,
peopled by barbarians, to the writers of the Epics; that
** He entitles his work the ‘Purúshottama Chandriká arthát Sri
Kshetradhámer Bibaran.’ The first twenty-two pages consist of an account
of the four Regions of Pilgrimage in Orissa, done from personal observation,
and illustrated by passages from the Purúshottama Māhātmya, and the
Kapila Sanhitá. The main body of the work is entitled ‘Mádalá Panjiká
arthát Kaliyug prabartan abadhi, Sri Sri Dhāme prati-dibasſya brittánta.
yáháte likhitahaya tähár nam Mádalá Pánji kahe táhá haité uddhrita.” It
is derived from the palm-writings direct, and is fuller and more carefully
done than Stirling's excellent sketch. It is now becoming a rare work even
in Bengal. The copy I have used belongs to Babu Joykissen Mukarji of
Uttarpárá.
2OO THE PALM LEAF RECORD (3101–822 B.C.)
at some time previous to Asoka (250 B.C.) it was colo-
nized by Sanskrit-speaking communities; and that the
Buddhist legend of 543 B.C. assigns to it a Sanskrit-named
king. But such meagre items by no means satisfy the
temple chroniclers of Jagannāth. We owe something,
however, to their forbearance. They pass over the first
three ages of the world in silence. They furnish no
details touching the 1,728,000 years when the whole
world was virtuous; nor with regard to the 1,296,000
years when three-quarters of it were virtuous; nor even
with regard to the 864,000 years when half of it re-
mained virtuous; but good-naturedly start with the com-
mencement of the present era, in which three-fourths
of mankind are lapsed in wickedness, or from 3 IOI
years B.C.
During these three thousand years twelve kings
reigned in Orissa, averaging a little more than two hun-
dred and fifty years apiece. The first three of them
are well known monarchs of the Mahābhārata, and they
divided among them no fewer than 1294 years.” At
whatever period the Aryan settlement took place in
Orissa, we may conclude, therefore, that it did not start
from Northern India, the seat of these kings, before
1807 B.C. The first king with any pretensions to being
a local monarch reigned from 1807 to 1407 B.C. It is
only in the time of his successor, however, or between
1407 and IO37 B.C., that we begin to catch any faintest
glimpse of Orissa. During this reign the Sanskrit colo-
nists are said to have pushed their way down to the
Godāvari River, but it is not till we reach the sixth
monarch of the list that we hear of the capital city being
founded. This brings us down to between Io 37 and
* From 3101 to 1807 B.C., according to the Purúshottama Chandriká.
THE PAZM-LEAF RECORD (822–250 B.C.) 2OI
822 B.C., and we may place the foundation of the Aryan
sea-coast kingdom of Kalinga within these two dates.
But in whatever century the Sanskrit-speaking race
arrived, there can be no question regarding the route by
which they travelled. The local legends point to the
same conclusion as the inductions of European scholars,
and prove that the Aryan colonists marched down the
valley of the Ganges, and skirting round Bengal, reached
Orissa, and through it the Madras coast.” Between 822
B.C. and the Christian era, seven monarchs ruled over
Orissa; but being local kings, they have only the meagre
, allowance of 125 years each.
The last 500 years of this period were those in
which Buddhism effected its settlements in Orissa. The
Ceylon texts place the advent of the Sacred Tooth in
Purí at 543 B.C. They probably antedate this event,
however, as European researches now render it doubtful
whether the first missionary efforts of Buddhism must
not be placed half a century later. But it is a curious
coincidence that the temple archives record an invasion
from the north between the years 538 and 421 B.C., which
is the very period to which the Ceylonese chroniclers
assign the Buddhistic conquest of Orissa. The Palm-
leaf Record calls the new arrivals Yavanas, a word
which is sometimes translated as Mughuls, and some-
times as Greeks. One thing is certain, they came from
the north. The next three reigns were disturbed by
similar invasions,” and as a matter of fact the Buddhist
texts of Ceylon, and the Brähmanical archives of Jagan-
náth, alike declare that the five centuries before Christ
were centuries of northern invasion, and of great con-
* Indische Alterthumskunde. -
* Purúshottama Chandriká, pp. 24, 25.
202 CHARACTERISTICS OF ORISSA BUDPHISM.
fusion in Orissa. Successive waves of colonists from
the north allowed the country no rest. Buddhism and
Brähmanism in turns claimed the supremacy among the
Aryan settlers, but those settlers as a body steadily
increased in numbers and in power, and imposed their
language and their religion upon the people of the land.
Notwithstanding the Ceylon legend which depicts Orissa
as the theatre of a great religious revival immediately after
the death of Buddha, no local memorials of Buddhism
bear witness to its existence before 300 B.C.
Before entering on the Christian era it may be well
to say a few words with regard to the tolerant light in
which Buddhism appears in these Orissa inscriptions.
The popular notion in Europe is that this religion forms
a cataclysm in the history of India, a violent and total
upheaval which subverted the social relations, and raised
the military races and the low-castes by the degradation
of the Brähmans. To a certain extent this is true. But,
as on the one hand nothing can be more absolute than the
declarations of the royal authority which the Orissa In-
scriptions contain, so, on the other, nothing can be more re-
spectful than the manner in which they speak of the priestly
classes. They specify Brähmans by name as objects of
profound reverence and of liberality. They strongly
assert their claims, and place obedience to the religious
guide among the cardinal virtues. Although breathing
from first to last the spirit of freedom, and contemplating
all races and castes as subjects for the operation of their
faith, and as equal heirs to the salvation which they be-
lieved that faith to bestow, yet they distinctly recognised
the teacher as the superior of the taught; and so far from
degrading the Brähmans, they appear to look on them
as peculiarly suited for the high office of spiritual leaders.
JZ S ZAV7'E/VSE HUMAAVZZTV. acs
Nor do the Orissa Inscriptions make any parade
of that monotheism which is popularly regarded as the
second distinctive feature of the Buddhistic faith. They
proceed from first to last on the assumption that there is
but one God. But they do not bring forward this doc-
trine with any particular prominence. They start from
it as an axiom rather than declare it as a dogma. Indeed,
the later inscriptions bear witness to the existence of other
religions coexisting with Buddhism, and one of them de-
scribes the Orissa monarch who engraved it as a ‘wor-
shipper of the sun.” Here, too, as elsewhere, the names
of the monarchs bear testimony to the ancient religion,
and to the tutelary Sanskrit gods. The prince whose
life is recorded in the rock inscription of 50 A.D. wavered
between the faiths, at one time publicly declaring himself
a Brähmanist, and at another a Buddhist. The inscrip-
tions scattered throughout Upper India prove that the
ancient Hindu triad never wholly lost the veneration of
the people, and received some casual acknowledgment
even from priests and kings during the Buddhistic era.”
The one great feature of Buddhism, as interpreted
by the Orissa inscriptions, is its intense humanity. It
provides alike for the bodily comfort and for the eternal
salvation of all whom it can reach. While the Brähma-
nical religion kept its consolations for a single race, and
even within that race jealously doled out its fragments
of spiritual instruction to the different castes, Buddhism
cried aloud in tones of earnest remonstrance to the whole
Indian world, and covered the rocks with its missionary
appeals. Nothing can be more solemn than the com-
mands which it lays upon its followers, to go forth
among all races and to all countries, and to preach “the
*Journal As. Soc. vi. p. Io/4. 49 Idem, vol. iii. of 1834.
2O4 AZS MZSS/OMARY ZEAZ.
righteousness which passeth knowledge.” The Orissa
Buddhists found themselves far away from the religious
centre of their race, and surrounded by forest tribes and
aboriginal superstitions. The mention of these primitive
races and ‘barbarian countries' had therefore a peculiar
significance. They set up no tests of race or of birth.
“Every righteous man,’ says one of the Cattack tablets,
‘is my true subject. When a man relieves his fellow
from the bondage and misery of sin, he releases himself.'
Wherever there is religious darkness there shall the truth
be preached, ‘both here and in foreign lands, in every
town, even to the ends of the barbarian countries; and
these being themselves absorbed in righteousness, shall
become ministers of the faith.’” -
But this proselytizing spirit bears no trace of
Brähmanical intolerance. I have already quoted the
edict in which the king ‘ardently desireth that all unbe-
lievers may be brought to repentance and peace of mind,'
yet in which he emphatically declares his still greater
anxiety that “every diversity of opinion, and every
diversity of passion, may shine forth blended into one
system, and be conspicuous in undistinguishing charity.’
Throughout the whole I catch no glimpse at anything
like compulsory conversion. Indeed, the edicts repel the
very idea of such measures, and declare that the truth
can be reached only by an inward process, a process of
conviction and not of force.
But the Buddhism of these inscriptions does not
confine itself alone to the spiritual side of man's nature.
Its strong humanity labours to increase the sum of
physical happiness. It cares for the sick, it digs wells
* Asoka's Fifth Edict. Cattack version. Journal As. Soc. vii. i. 253.
* Fifth Edict. Cattack version.
THREE STAGES OF SANSKRYT FAIZ H. 205
for the thirsty wayfarer, it plants shady resting groves
for man and beast. It jealously guards the life of all
created beings, organizes a system of medical relief for
diseased animals, and in some respects anticipates that
higher Christian humanity which protects the dumb
creation against the oppression of man.
It has too often been the practice to speak of the
Sanskrit-speaking castes as steeped in an arrogant ethnical
isolation, and shut off from the rest of the ancient Indian
nations by a great gulf of abhorrence and contempt. But
it must be remembered that Buddhism is as typical a
religion of these Sanskrit races as the Bráhmanism which
went before it, and the Hinduism which succeeded it. The
earliest form of Sanskrit faith is the religion of a com-
paratively small race fighting its way among tribes greatly
inferior in civilisation and in spiritual conceptions. The
next form is Buddhism, which joins the spirituality of the
first stage to an intense humanity, and which, I believe,
did more to make India an Aryan continent than all the
wars of the epic poems. It is the old religion vitalized
by nobler sympathies and built on a broader basis. The
third stage is that hybrid of spiritual conceptions, out-
ward superstitions, and inward unbelief, which seems to
have germinated almost simultaneously in India and
Europe upon the breaking up of the ancient forms of
Aryan faith; — that Beast of gold, and iron, and clay
which the Indian peoples still worship, and from whose
thraldom the advent of Christ rescued the Western world.
It is into this third stage of the Indian religion that
we are about to enter. The first Christian century also
marks the commencement of the current Indian era,”
* The Sakábda, called after Sakáditya, brother of Vikramāditya, com-
menced 77–78 A.D.
206 THE PAZM-ZEAF A&ECORD (57 B.C.–323 A.D.).
which has just reached its 1792nd year (1870 A.D.). It
takes its name from the brother of King Vikramāditya
the Augustus of Indian literature, to whose reign the
exquisite drama of Sakuntalá and the other graceful
poems of Kálidasa belong. This monarch extended his
influence over a great part of India, and the temple an-
nalists claim him as the local King of Orissa as well as
the Emperor of Hindustán. With the fratricide which
put an end to his life, the heroic age of the Jagannāth
chronicles ends. The legends of that period are pro-
vincial adaptations from the great Indian epics, but they
have just sufficient local truth to show that the two great
northern dynasties of Oudh and of Delhi came frequently
into collision with the minor kingdoms in the S.E. which
their colonists had founded beyond the Aryan pale.
Wave after wave of hungry adventurers poured down
upon these settlements from the north, and the Orissa
sovereigns, according to the Palm-leaf Record, some-
times carried the war into the parent country. Until the
third century after Christ the newcomers seem either to
have been driven back or to have speedily amalgamated
with the previous settlers. But between the years 319
and 323 A.D. came Red-Arm and his forces by way of
the sea. How they took possession of the country, and
how in their overweening pride they offered battle to,
and were overwhelmed in great numbers by, the ocean, I
have described in Chapter II. The native prince fled to
the jungle, and there died miserably. His titular suc-
cessor was slain by the invaders, and the latter seem to
have retained undisturbed possession of the country till
the year 474 A.D.
Who were these invaders whom the sea thus mysteri-
ously threw up on the Orissa shore ? The temple archives
A ZOST RACE. 207
call them Yavanas, but this intimation only shifts the
difficulty. The Yavanas are themselves one of the
great enigmas of Indian history; a race, who, under
various modifications of the same word,” flit through the
whole cycle of Sanskrit literature; whose name has
been dug up on long buried copperplate edicts, and
deciphered on prehistoric rock inscriptions; and whose
traces everywhere confront the local antiquarian—alike
in the distant Panjāb valleys, in the temple archives of
the Bay of Bengal, in the recesses of the Central Plateau,
and in the dynastic records of the extreme south-west
of the Peninsula. I propose to put together such frag-
ments of evidence as I possess with regard to this lost
people, for it is only by boldly showing the breaks in the
chain that an isolated observer can hope the missing
links will come to light. The scent often becomes faint,
and the chase ends abruptly on the Malabar coast eight
hundred years ago; but it yields several distinct, although
fugitive, glimpses of a race which has long disappeared
from India; which has almost escaped European re-
search; but which has left a great and lasting influence
on Indian history, science and art. p
The Yavanas first make their appearance in the
Epic poems, that is to say, at a period which, although
not yet fixed with precision, was probably anterior to
the expedition of Alexander in the fourth century B.C.”
* Yavanas in the Epics and Puránas; Yomas, a regular contraction of
Yavana, in the Rock Inscriptions (as loma for lavana, salt, in Prákrit and
Bengali); Javanas and Jabanas in the modern vernaculars.
* Lassen thinks that most of the Mahābhārata is older than the political
ascendency of Buddhism (i. 489 et seq.); Goldstücker argues that Max
Muller has not shown that the early portions may not have co-existed with
the Sutra period (Pánini, 78); but the Epics are so mixed up with later
matter, as to furnish a quiverful of arguments to Roth, and the advocates of
a more modern date. -
208 THE YA VAWAS OR /OAV/AAVS.
The Epics enumerate them in the list of foreign or non-
Aryan races, such as the Sakas or Scythians, and the
Pahlavas or Persians, who surrounded the frontiers, or
dwelt like the Savars in the interior recesses of India.”
They are introduced in the typical struggle between the
representatives of the Priestly and the Warrior castes for
the supremacy in the Aryan polity; but they take part
in the strife,” not as a component part of the Aryan com-
munity, but as a distinctly foreign element produced for
the occasion by abnormal and miraculous means. They
are nowhere spoken of as a servile, or even as a subject
people, but as an external race of warriors who had
lapsed into a degraded state, owing to the want of a
Brähman priesthood in their country, and to the con-
sequent extinction of sacred rites.” One text, indeed,
obscurely separates the Yavanas from the other barbarian
nations, and seems to intimate an Aryan descent.” But
their religious status was precisely that of other frontier
races, and of the interior aboriginal tribes.” The Vishnu
Purána,” which, although of much later date, derives its
geography to a large extent from the Epics, states that
the Yavana country is the western boundary of India.
Up to the fourth century B.C., therefore, the Yavanas
were known to Sanskrit literature as a warlike foreign
race, classed among the tribes to the west of the Hima-
layas, differing in their religious system from the Brāh-
manical settlers in India; but represented in no abject
relation, and even obscurely intimated to have been con-
nected with the Aryan commonwealth by some primitive
* Muir's Sanskrit Texts, i. 391, 398, 482, etc. Ed. 1868.
56 Between Vasishthā and Viswamitra.
* Mahābhārata, Anusasánapurvan, 2 Io:3–4, 2158-9. Texts, i. 482.
* Texts, i. 482. - . * Texts, i. 484.
* V. P. ii. 3. 7. Texts, i. 485.
7HE VA VAAWAS OR /OAZAAWS. 209
tie which had ceased to exist. At the close of the fourth
century Alexander's expedition took place; and after this
event, the term Yavana in Indian literature applies un-
mistakeably to the Greeks. The Sanskrit grammarian
of the second century B.C.” mentions that ‘the Yavanas
eat lying down,'—a statement which at once suggests
the Asiatic Greeks; and Professor Cowell identifies the
Yavanas or Yonas of India with the Yāvān of the
Hebrews, and the Ionians of Grecian history. It is
under the form of Yona” that the word occurs in the
rock inscriptions; and at this moment a Hindu, when
asked to transliterate the root ”Iov into Sanskrit letters,
writes Yona, the exact word which we find in the
Buddhist Edicts 250 B.C. -
How came the name of the Ionian Greeks into
Indian literature before the time of Alexander P. We
know from other sources that the Ionians, being at
once the most Asiatic and the most mobile of the Greek
colonists in Asia Minor, were often confounded with the
whole Greek race. With but two exceptions, they built
their towns upon pre-existing settlements of Asiatics, and
in many cases received the natives as fellow-residents in
the new community. In some instances, indeed, they
took no women with them, and intermarried with the
people of the land. The wives of the Greek Milesians
in primitive times neither ate with their husbands,
nor mentioned their husbands' names,”—two genuine
Asiatic customs preserved in every Hindu household
to this hour. The Ionians in a special manner made
themselves at home among the Asiatics, moved about
in Asia with a power of diffusion all their own, and
* Pátanjali, 140–120 B.C. Goldstücker's Pánini, 234, ed. 1861.
* See ante, note 53. 68 Grote, ii. 37o, ed. 1862.
VOL. II, * O
2 IO THE YAVAMAS or Iow/ANS
stood forward as the Grecian type to the Eastern world.
Psammetichus, the founder of the first historical monarchy
in Egypt, consolidated his power by means of Ionian
mercenaries from Asia Minor, whom he settled on the
eastern branch of the Nile.* As the Ionians figure on
the horizon of Egyptian history in the seventh century
B.C., so a hundred years later they make their appear-
ance on the first establishment of the Persian Empire.
Cyrus, at the outset of his operations against the Asiatic
Greeks, sent heralds to seek an alliance with the
Ionians;” and when afterwards subdued, their patriot-
ism projected a Pan-Ionic emigration to Sardinia, which
would have left nothing but empty cities and untilled
wastes to the conqueror.” During half a century they
remained a part of the Persian Empire. It was the
Ionian revolt from Darius that thoroughly awakened
the Athenian spirit of resistance to Persia, and formed
the first scene in that glorious drama, in which the curtain
drops in the four succeeding acts upon Marathon, Ther-
mopylae, Salamis, and Plataea. The Persian camp was
crowded with Ionians; to Ionia the Persians retired
when driven out of Greece; and it was there that an
Ionian rising put a finishing stroke to the Persian for-
tunes at Mykale. We cease to be surprised, therefore,
that the Ionian name was well known to the Persians,
and that among them the term Ionians came to apply to
the whole Greek race.” *
Now the ancient Persians, or Pahlavas, were them-
selves known to the Indians not merely as a neigh-
bouring race. In the sixth century B.C. Darius had sent a
* Herodotus, ii. cap. 150, 154. * Id. i. cap. 76. ** Id. i. cap. 17o.
t ºchylus, Pers. 562–565, and probably also in the passage beginning
at I78. -
THE ZONIANS IN PERSIA. AAWD ZAVD/A. 2 II
Persian expedition to the Indus; his generals conquered
the adjoining nations; and his fleets frequented the Indian
Sea.” The Persian Settlements appear to have communi-T
cated a knowledge of writing to the natives; and Pánini,
who belonged to one of the tribes whom Darius sub-
dued,” calls this art ‘Yavaníní.’ Whether it refers to the
Greek or the Cuneiform alphabet is doubtful, but it bears
the name of the Ionians; the name which afterwards
became identified in Indian literature with the Greeks.”
The Yavanas next appear, not as a distant shadowy
race beyond the western frontier, but as an allied monarchy
conterminous with it, and finally as an armed host, fighting
battles and sacking towns in the heart of India. . Any un-
certainty as to their nationality is removed by the Orissa
Rock inscription of Asoka, which speaks of ‘Antiochus
the Yona (Yavana) King.” The Asoka Edicts belong
to the middle of the third century before Christ; and at
that precise period Antiochus Theos (261–246 B.C.) was at
the height of his fame, and his generals were busy in the
Bactrian and Parthian kingdoms. The scenes of Antio-
chus' personal exploits lay chiefly in Western Asia; and
the Asoka Inscriptions with minute historical truth refer
to the eastern provinces of his Empire, which alone were
subject to Buddhistic influences, as ‘the dominion of
Antiochus the Yavana monarch, of which Antiochus'
generals are the rulers.”
* Herodotus, iv. 44.
* Goldstücker's Pánini, 16. Lassen's Indische Alterthumskunde, i. 422 ;
11. I I2, II.3.
” The gratitude of Indian students to Prof. Max Muller is not lessened in
Consequence of a misconception which evoked Prof. Goldstücker's masterly
dissertation on Pánini's knowledge of writing, p. 13 to 66.
* In the Asoka Inscriptions the name of Antiochus occurs four times,
thrice as Antiyako, and once as Antiyoko ; the final o being the regular
Páli mutation of the Greek masculine nominative in os. Prinsep's Essays,
Mr. Thomas' edition, ii. 15, 17, and 18.
2 I 2 THE GREEKS IN INDIA, 250 B.C.
From the time of Asoka, therefore, 250 B.C., the
word Yavana becomes distinctly individualized, and
may be safely taken to mean Graeco-Bactrian, or some
other representative of the Asiatic Greek. The great
enterprises of Alexander and Seleucus left a residual
element in India, an element constantly recruited by
adventurous bands from the Graeco-Bactrian or Parthian
kingdoms. To the north of these kingdoms lay the
aggressive overflowing tribes of Central Asia; to the
south-west the friendly Buddhist potentates of the
Ganges. The inevitable migrations southward, which
have repeated themselves again and again in Indian
history, soon began. In 126 B.C. a fierce Tartar tribe
pushed the Greeks out of their northern kingdom of
Bactria; and a hundred years later, a Persian host burst
down upon their territories in the Panjāb. It was in this
Province that the Indian Ionians had established them-
selves most strongly—that is to say, amid the scenes of
Alexander's expedition, and as near as possible to the
Graeco-Bactrian basis; indeed the great Hindu dramatist
specially mentions the Yavanas as thus settled beyond the
Indus.” It was impossible for the Ionians to hide their
nationality in India. The Greek historians supply a list
of eight kings, but the coins already discovered raise
their number to nineteen, between 256 and 120 B.C.,
besides the semi-barbaric dynasties.” They prove that
princes who used the Ionian alphabet, or bore Ionian
names, scattered their coinage over the north of India,
from the Himálaya to the mouth of the Indus, and from
Afghānistán on the west to the river Jamna. The
* The Malavi Kágnimitra, ascribed to Kálidasa. Prof. Cowell's note to
Elphinstone, p. 148, ed. 1866. -
*James Prinsep's Essays, ii. 173–224, ed. 1858.
THE GREAEKS IN JAVIDIA, 250–120 B.C. 2 I3
Greek voyager of the first century A.D. found such coins
near the modern Surat; and as far back as the third
century B.C., a Greek presented a pillar to the Buddhist
monastery at Kárlſ, south-east of Bombay.” The name
of a city of Gujrát” still bears witness to the Yavana
Occupation of that province. Meanwhile we become more
and more distinctly conscious of their presence in the
valley of the Ganges. The Sanskrit grammarian of the
second century B.C. mentions that ‘ the Yavanas laid
siege to Oudh, the Yavanas besieged the Mádhyamikas.’
The latter were a Buddhistic sect, and he cites these
occurrences as notorious facts that had occurred some
time before, but still as occurrences which the writer
might have himself seen.” The Sanskrit dramatist
best known to English readers brings in an Amazonian
guard of ‘Yavana women, with bows in their hands,
and wearing garlands of wild flowers,’ as part of the
pomp of the Delhi Court.” But from the very first,
the Indian king who figures chiefly in Greek history
was a Gangetic monarch whose capital lay within Lower
Bengal.” . It was to his Court, in the land of the
Eastern people,” that the Greek embassy repaired at the
close of the fourth century B.C. A generation later,
when Asoka succeeded to it, and Buddhism became the
** His name was deciphered as Theonikos by Dr. John Wilson, as Xeno-
crates by Dr. Stevenson; but these readings, as also the date, must be
received with caution. Dr. J. Wilson's Essay on the Religious Excavations
of Western India, p. 23.
* Gunaghar=Yonaghar. Lassen's Indische Alterthumskunde, ii. 795,
ed. I862. -
7° Goldstücker's Pánini, 229 et seq.
77 Sakuntalá, Act ii. verse 35 ; Act vi. verse 158. Prof. Monier Wil-
liams' edition, 1853.
* Chandragupta of Pátaliputra, identified as Patná.
” The Prasii, or Parhasii, from Práchi, Sanskrit, east ; identified as
Magadha or Behar, the kingdom of Asoka.
214 GREEKS IN BEAVGAZ AND OR/SSA, Ioo B.C.
royal religion, he carved the name of Antiochus the
Greek upon the Rock Edicts, which promulgated the
national faith.
Through this Buddhist kingdom of Magadha or
Behar the Yavanas, or Javanas, found their way into
Orissa. The alluvial flats of the Ganges furnished no
rocks for inscriptions, and the delta has long ago buried
in its slimy accretions any less perishable memorials
which they may have left behind. But proceeding south-
wards, as soon as we next reach a stone country, we come
upon their track. I have already alluded to their name
in the Orissa Inscription of 250 B.C., and almost the only
historical events which the Temple Archives preserve
from that remote age are repeated inroads of Yavanas
from the north. The Jagannāth Records date their first
invasions between 538 and 42 I B.C.; probably con-
founding them with the earlier Buddhist migrations, of
which the Ceylon writings furnish independent evidence.
Another expedition belongs to the succeeding reign,
421–306 B.C., but the nationality of the invaders is
not identified. Between 306 and 57 B.C. the Yavanas
seem to have been a constant source of disquiet to
the Orissa Princes. Many battles were fought, the
invaders were driven back, but again come upon the
scene, and apparently effect a lodgment. The Temple
Archives say that they came from Cabul, Iran, Kashmir,
Sindh, and Delhi, in short, from the Greek settle-
ments beyond the Himálayas, and in the Panjāb, from
which the Graeco-Bactrians were, during the latter part
of this very period, pushed southwards by the Tartar
and Persian hordes. But little trust can be placed in
the Jagannāth Records when they condescend to minute
details. They were compiled many centuries later, and
GREEKS AAWD B UDDH/SM IV OR/SSA. 215
can only be accepted as representing the popular legends;
at a period, however, when local traditions were fresher
and infinitely nearer the truth than they are now. The
Yavanas were probably the race who predominated in
such expeditions, or who led the most memorable of
them. But it would be putting an unfair strain on such
archives to assume that the term ‘Yavana' means exclu-
sively Greek, or even Graeco-Bactrian. The word soon
acquired a wider meaning, which embraced the whole
series of Buddhist invaders from the north.
The period of the Yavana inroads into Orissa is con-
temporary with the establishment of Buddhism in that
Province. We know that Orissa received its Buddhism
from the middle valley of the Ganges, which from the
time of Megasthenes, at the end of the fourth century
before Christ, was brought peculiarly into contact with
the Greeks. The authoritative promulgation of the faith
in Orissa bears upon its face the name of the Greek or
Yavana King Antiochus. Amid the series of Yavana
invasions which followed, Buddhism effected its per-
manent settlement, and constructed its lasting memorials
in the Province. From the middle of the first century
before Christ till 319 A.D. the Palm-leaf writings yield
no materials for the history of Orissa; but between
319 and 323 A.D. the last great inroad of Yavanas took
place, and for 146 years their supremacy was complete.
It seems probable that this long silence on the part of the
Bráhmanical Records is itself an indication that the inter-
vening centuries had been a period of defeat and degra-
dation to the Brähmanical faith. It is certain that these
centuries were the period during which the Buddhists
honeycombed the mountains and excavated the rock
monasteries of Orissa. It is also certain, as we shall
2 I6 GREEK COZONIZATION OF JAVA 2 75 A.D.
presently see, that the final expulsion of the Yavana
dynasty from Orissa in 473 A.D. was the signal for the
restoration of the Brähmanical faith under a line of
orthodox monarchs.
The very fact of the greatest and most typical
Yavana inroad into Orissa having been made by way of
the sea, would suggest a doubt as to whether the invaders
were ordinary Hindus. We certainly find no precedent
in Sanskrit history; and the idea of braving the ocean in
armed galleys in order to descend on a Province which
could easily be reached by dry land, is repugnant alike to
the Hindu genius and the Brähmanical faith. But it
formed an adventure exactly suited to the imagination
of the Asiatic Greek. It was Alexander's sail down the
Indus reproduced upon the Ganges, with the continua-
tion of Nearchus' exploratory armament along the coast
to the west of the river mouth. The memorials of the
Yavana kingdom in Central India record a similar
voyage, and elephants figure on board ship in both.
The same spirit would doubtless tempt the Yavanas—
or, as the word is spelt in Orissa, the javan—on more
distant expeditions. As a matter of fact the islands of
Java and Báli were colonized from the Kalinga or Orissa
coast in the first century A.D.;” and five hundred years
later, an Orissa * harbour formed the starting-place for
* The Hindu era in Java dates from 74 A.D., according to Prinsep's
Tables, I54, ed. 1858; or from 78 A.D., according to Sir Stamford Raffles,
ii. 71. The name Kalinga still survives as Kling in the Javanese Records,
and sometimes refers to the whole of India. Raffles, ii. 73, 87, etc., 4to ed.,
1817.
* Tâmralipta, now Tamluk. Fa Hian sailed from it vić Ceylon, and the
strict Chinese Buddhist describes Java as full of Bráhmans and heretics.
Buddhism and Bráhmanism long co-existed in the parent country Orissa,
and doubtless the fluctuations of religious ascendency which characterize the
Buddhistic era in India were reproduced in her colonies.
GREEK COLONIZATION OF JAVA 75 A.D. 217
a voyage to the Java Archipelago. It seems probable,
therefore, that the Buddhist Javanas of Orissa gave their
name, and eventually their creed, to Java, long a strong-
hold of Buddhism, and that Ionian enterprise has thus
left its mark on the remotest islands of the Eastern
Archipelago. Iono de Barros and the early voyagers
call the Javanese, Jabans or Javans,—the same word,
letter for letter, as it is spelt in Orissa, where the ver-
nacular does not distinguish between 6 and v.; and the
name applied not only to Java, but to the surrounding
islands.” This conjecture obtains a further probability
from the fact that Báli, the sacred island of the Javanese,
bears the name of the hero in the Indian epic, whose
kingdom tradition assigns to Orissa.” -
But even the secluded shores of Orissa were not
destined to afford the Yavanas a permanent resting-place.
In 473 A.D. they either moved southwards or were
pushed out by a new dynasty,” which seems to have been
elevated to the supremacy by a religious revival ending
in the restoration of the Brähmanical faith. We next
come upon them, in the kingdoms immediately to the
west and the south of Orissa. Some time in the fifth
century, that is to say, at the very period when the
Temple Archives represent them as being ousted from
Orissa, the Yavanas established a dynasty in the great
interior plateau now known as the Central Provinces.
The copperplate grant dug up at Seoni, on the high road
* Raffles, i., Introd. xxi. 3, etc., where various fanciful derivations for the
word will also be found. -
* Báli, whose territory has also been placed to the south of the Vindhyas,
but whom the Uriyās claim as their mythical monarch, while his capital
is fixed by the Telugu Palm-leaf MSS. at Vizianagram, within the ancient
kingdom of Orissa, and 115 miles south of its present boundary. Taylor's
Examination of the Mackenzie MSS. in the Madras College Library, p. 28.
* The Kesari, or Lion line, hereafter to be described.
218 GREEKS ZAV CENTRAL INDIA, 5oo–8oo A.D.
between Northern and Southern India, as illustrated by
Dr. Bhau Dájī's re-examination of the Ajantá caves,”
supplies us with a list of seven Yavana princes who ruled
in Central India from the fifth century to about the ninth.
The inscriptions relate how they conquered all the sur-
rounding countries from the eastern to the western Ocean,
and on the north from Broach, where the author of the
Periplus found the Greek coins in the first century A.D.,
to districts within the Madras Presidency.” “We read,'
says the able historian whom the Central Provinces has
recently produced, ‘how these unknown princes shamed
the king of heaven by their prosperity; how their bene-
ficence made earth better than elysium ; how the world
trembled at the march of their elephants, and how the
seas were swelled by the tears of the queens whom their
conquests had widowed. But of the more humble home
affairs, which would at least have given them a sure place
in local annals, there is nothing. The kings of the
eastern and southern coasts are awed at the progress of
the great Karna, and his name makes itself felt even in
Kashmir among the Huns; but we hear nothing of the
real extent of his petty kingdom, nor of the struggles
which he must have maintained with the then rising
power of the aboriginal chiefs. The alliances of the
family with the reigning princes of name are pompously
recorded, and its genealogy is traced back to heroes and
85 Journal of Bombay Asiatic Society, viii. 428; Introduction to the
Gazetteer of the Central Provinces, by Mr. Charles Grant, C.S., then Secre-
, tary to the Chief Commissioner, lv.-lviii., Nagpur 1870. -
86 The following is the list of countries conquered :—Kuntala, in the
Adoni or Bellári District of Madras; Avanti (Ujen); Kalinga ; Kosala,
probably the Kosala north of the Sátpurá range, mentioned in the Mahá-
bhārata ; Trikuta ; Lata (Broach); and Andhra (Telingána, on the south
of the ancient Orissa, and on the north of Madras). Mr Grant's Intro-
duction, lvi.
GREEKS IN SOUTHERM INDIA, 515–953 A.D. 219
demi-gods.” One of their viceroys ‘crosses the sea with
his elephants, and penetrates into supernatural regions;
but from the mass of fable which he has accumulated
round his name, it cannot even be gathered with certainty
when he ruled and where he ruled. Through the froth
and false glitter of these inscriptions, all that can really be
ascertained is that in the fifth century a race of Yavana
origin ruled from the Sátpurá plateau.”
But no sooner does the curtain thus abruptly fall
upon the Yavanas in Central India, than we begin to
catch glimpses of them to the southward, glimpses
which at once confirm the scanty information supplied
by the above inscriptions, and enable us to continue the
history of the race. The next kingdom to Orissa down
the Madras coast was Andhra, whose capital, Warangul,
is still to be found upon the map, about half-way between
the Godāvari and Haidrābād. The Andhra kings of this
far south dominion alleged that they had sprung in remote
times from the Andhra race of the Buddhist kingdom, in
the middle valley of the Ganges,” to whose court the
Greek ambassador had repaired three centuries before
Christ, and through which the Yavanas or Ionians subse-
quently reached Orissa. Such a legend, taken by itself,
possesses neither more nor less of historical trustworthi-
ness than would an unsupported tradition deriving the
Dorians of the Peloponnesus from the Doric highlands
on the north-west of Parnassus. In the latter case,
extraneous evidence has raised the bare presumption to
an historical fact; and while investigating Bhagalpur
District within the limits of the ancient Gangetic king-
dom of Magadha, I found a curious confirmation of the
Andhra tradition. Between the Haidrābād territory in
* Mr. Grant's Introduction, lviii. * Magadha. Mackenzie MSS. .
22O GREEKS IN SOUTHERN INDIA, 782 A.D.
Southern India, and Bhagalpur on the banks of the
Ganges, all historical or political relationship has for more
than a thousand years ceased; yet the same local tradi-
tion exists in both places, and a story of the monarchs
of Southern India being connected with the Gangetic
kingdom found its way into an account drawn up for
me by the joint-magistrate of Bhagalpur. But at the
beginning of the sixth century of our era we touch more
stable ground. About 515 A.D., the chronicles of the
Madras coast relate how the existing dynasty in Andhra
was overthrown, and succeeded by nine princes of a
foreign race called Yavanas,” who reigned for 458 years,
or till 963 A.D. The period of their supremacy, although
marked by religious fluctuations, was in the main
Buddhistic; and as in Orissa, their downfall took place
amid a great religious revival, ending in the re-establish-
ment of Brähmanism, and indeed of the very form of
Brähmanism which, as we shall presently see, gained the
supremacy upon the expulsion of the Yavanas from
Orissa.”
These Southern Yavanas reached their height about
782 A.D. In that year they make their appearance in the
Tuluva Records on the western shores of the Peninsula.
Dr. Buchanan, in his journey along the Malabar coast in
1801, came upon a Brähman whose ancestors had held
the hereditary accountantship of the district since the
time of the dynasty which began in 714 A.D. From
him the traveller obtained a local chronicle based upon
* The kingdom of Andhra spread over a shifting extent of country to the
south of Kalinga, just as Orissa did upon the north of it.
99 Sivaism. This reformation is popularly identified with Sankaráchárya
(an incarnation of Siva in the tenth century), and with the Smārta school of
Bráhmans, with regard to whom on the Madras coast, see Mr. Carmichael's
District of Vizagapatam, p. 55, etc.; and, more generally, H. H. Wilson's
Works, vol. i. pp. 14, 18–28, and 194–206, Röst's edition.
GREEKS IN SOUTHERN INDIA, 782 A.D. 22 I
family papers and ancient Sanskrit manuscripts, and
giving an account of a line of Yavana princes, who
drove out the reigning house in 782 A.D., and kept pos-
session of the kingdom for fifty-four years. They claimed
Andhra descent, came from the eastern side of the
Peninsula,” and were originally of the Jain religion, into
which Buddhism had by that time disintegrated. They
formed an outlying military settlement of a powerful
Yavana kingdom behind them on the north and east;
and when they ceased to be able to hold the maritime
strip below the mountains on the western coast, they
seem to have retired back upon the parent kingdom in
the interior plateau. They make their last appearance
at Seringapatam.
This brings us to a point even farther south than
that assigned by the panegyrical inscriptions of Central
India as the limit of the Yavana monarchy. But it is a
point which the southern Yavanas reached as a fugitive
dynasty, and the scenes of their prosperous rule lay
farther to the north. The local annals of the eastern
and the western shores of the Peninsula, therefore, leave
no doubt as to the substantial truth of Mr. Grant's
account of a great Yavana power in the heart of India,
which took its rise in the fifth century A.D., about the
very time when the Yavanas were expelled from Orissa,
and which during the next few hundred years subjugated
a large part of Southern India. I have no evidence to
show that the Yavanas of the Central Provinces in the
* Telingá. The capital of this western dynasty in Southern India was
at Anagundi. See Dr. Francis Buchanan's Journey through Mysore, Kanara,
and Malabar; Madras Reprint of 1870, ii. 278–284. Also, Report on the
Kolar District, para. 41 ; Bangalor Jail Press, 1869. These southern
Yavanas are curiously intermingled with the Ballála or Jain dynasties who
spread from Vizianagram to Mysore, if not identical with them. Cf. Mr.
Carmichael's Vizagapatam ; Madras, 1869.
222 GREEKS IN SOUTHERW INDIA, 782 A.D.
fifth century were the Yavanas who in the same century
were expelled from Northern Orissa. But the valley of
the Mahánadi afforded an easy route for the Orissa
Yavanas' retreat into the Central Provinces, and it still
continues to be the high road between these countries.
It appears, indeed, that while one branch of the Orissa
Yavanas thus fell back on the interior plateau, another
was pushed southwards, and formed the nucleus of the
Andhra Yavana kingdom, which dates from 515 A.D.
Even the Brähman chronologers, upon the restoration
of their faith, had to admit the long-continued supremacy
of the alien race. The Vishnu Purána, compiled in the
eleventh century, when Hinduism had almost stamped
out Buddhism from India, enumerates among the later
dynasties who ruled after the breaking up of the ancient
orthodox monarchy in Andhra, a line of eight Yavanas.
The local traditions which I have brought together, and .
which have survived in spite of the 900 years of
Bráhmanical intolerance and Musalmán anarchy which
followed, show that the Yavana power was at its apex
in the eighth century; and Colebrooke, quoting a writer
of this very period, classifies the non-Hindu languages
as four in number, of which the Yavana formed one.”
From the tenth century we lose all trustworthy
traces of the Ionians in India. The name of Yavana
survived, but it ceases to be possible to identify the
people so called with the race whom I have now. tracked
* The four were, Yavana, Párasika, Raumaka, and Barbara, correspond-
ing to (1) Greek or Asiatic Greek, (2) Persian, (3) Latin, and (4) unclassified
barbarian tongues. Trans. Royal Asiatic Society, vol. i. p. 453. The Indian
Greeks had probably lost almost all traces of their original language by this
time; but, as we shall see, they had imported individual words from it into
Hindu science, which, taken along with popular tradition, would lead a care-
ful observer, such as Colebrooke's authority, to identify the Greeks of the
Levant with the long isolated Yavanas or Ionians of India.
ANZSAAPEARAAWCE OF 7"HE VA VAMAS. 223
from the Epic period, in which they were known only as
a half-fabulous tribe, dwelling on the western frontier of
the habitable world; down through the Alexandrine and
Graeco-Bactrian eras, to their conquest of Orissa; and
thence to the inscriptions of the Central Plateau, and
the local annals alike of the western and the eastern
shores of Southern India.” During the fourteen cen-
turies through which we have pursued the chase, the
meaning of the term Yavana underwent several modi-
fications. At first it suggested to the Indian mind
nothing more distinct than a warrior race, dwelling in a
terra incognita in the far west. But for at least twelve
centuries, that is, from 250 B.C. to 950 A.D., it had been
associated with a long series of invaders from the north
(beginning with the Asiatic Greeks), who had ousted the
native dynasties and erected Buddhism upon the ruins of
the Brähmanical faith. It had probably been applied in
some cases to invaders with no claim to Ionian or Graeco-
Bactrian descent, but who, like them, came from the north,
and Örought in new religious rites. These were the two
crucial characteristics of Yavanas in the Hindu mind, and
in the end they led to the transfer of the name to a people
more widely separated by race and religion from the
Ionians, than the Ionians were from the Hindus.
For the North was again about to send forth a race
of invaders bringing with them a new faith, and destined
to establish themselves upon the wrecks of native dynas-
ties and native beliefs. The Musalmán invasions of
India practically date from the eighth century, when the
* It is impossible to exaggerate the value of the Mackenzie MSS. as
materials for a history of Southern India. They form a noble collection of
Folios in the Asiatic Society's Library at Calcutta, written in a delightfully
clear hand, carefully distributed into separate volumes, and affording a most
accessible field for research.
224 THE MUSAZMAAVS AS YA VAWA.S.
Arabs temporarily conquered Sindh. The first years of
the eleventh brought the terrible Mahmud Sultan, whose
twelve expeditions introduced a new era into Hindustán.
From this time it becomes difficult to pronounce as to
the race to which the term Yavana applies. At first,
indeed, the Musalmán invaders, especially in Southern
India, were distinguished from the dynasties of Ionian
Yavanas by the more opprobrious epithet of Mlechhas.
But as Islam obtained a firmer hold upon the country,
this distinction disappeared; and popular speech, pre-
serving the old association of northern invasion and a
new creed with the word Yavana, applied it indiscrimi-
nately to the ancient Ionians and to the new Musalmáns.
Before the Muhammadan power, the heretic and the
orthodox dynasties of India alike collapsed, and in a
few centuries the ancient Yavanas had ceased to pre-
serve any traces of their nationality. All former differ-
ences of race or creed were pulverized in the mortar of
Islam, and the word Yavana grew into an exclusive
epithet of the Musalmáns. Even in the very localities
which had formed the scenes of the typical Yavana king-
doms, the remembrance of the Ionian dynasties faded
away, and an Orissa Inscription” of 1516 A.D. applies the
word distinctively to the Muhammadans. In the modern
vernaculars it signifies Arabian, Turkish, or Mughul,”
but it is now seldom used at all, and colloquial Bengali has
long ceased to remember the original Ionic meaning of
the word. Aurangzeb is, par excellence, the Yavana king.
94 Cut on the seventh pillar under the terrace on the north side of the
pagoda of Sinhãchalam, within the modern district of Vizagapatam, part of
the ancient territory of Orissa or Kalinga. App. ii. to Mr. Carmichael's
Vizagapatam. . .
95 H. H. Wilson gives it a wider application, and applies it to both the
Muhammadan and European invaders of India; indeed, as a general term
for any foreign or barbarous race,
GREEK ASTROAVO MY WAV ZAVZ)/A. 225
But although the history and the very name of the
Greeks in India have thus perished, their influence has
survived. They brought with them a spirit of maritime
enterprise unknown to the Hindus, and the rudiments of
that science without which maritime enterprise is impos-
sible. Scholars have long ago noticed that Sanskrit astro-
nomy contains Greek technical terms. The most learned
astronomer among the Brähmans” came of a family be-
longing to the middle valley of the Ganges, which is
pre-eminently associated with the Ionians. He lived in
Central India, in the sixth century, at the very period
when the Yavana power there approached its height,
and the two specialties of his writings are his frequent
references to the Yavanas and the use of Greek astrono-
mical terms." Indeed, he derived not only his nomen-
clature, but several of his doctrines, from Ionian science;
and one of his authorities, whom he cites as the Yavana
Lord, is believed to be a corruption of the Greek name
Speusippus. His commentator briefly characterizes the
Yavanas as a race skilled in astrology. This in no way
impugns the ability of the Vedic Bráhmans in the twelfth
century B.C. to make astronomical observations for their
calendar;" it only shows that their successors, fifteen
hundred years later, borrowed largely from Greek
science. The calculation of eras was a specialty of the
priesthoods of the ancient world. Besides their fabulous
back reckonings of thousands of centuries, the Chaldeans
claimed to have an actual observation 1903 years before
* Varāhamihira, born at Ujen A.D. 530, died 587. Sir William Jones
makes him flourish in 499 A.D. As. Res. viii. 195. Calc. 1805. -
* Weber's doubts as to Colebrooke's calculation (Indische Studien, i. 85)
must be held to be finally dissipated, and Goldstücker's views (Pánini, 74)
established, by the re-examination of the solstitian points by Archdeacon
Pratt and Mr. Main (Journal As. Soc. of Bengal for 1862, 49). See also
Dr. Haug's Aitreya Brähmanam, i. 43–47. Bombay, 1863.
VOL. II. P
226 GAEA, CO-/WZD/AAW ASTROAVOMV,
Alexander the Great. But without a knowledge of the
stars more practical than we have any reason to
believe the Hindus acquired for themselves, it would
have been perilous to make the long voyage from the
Yavana settlements in Orissa to the islands of the Archi-
pelago. The starting-place for such expeditions in the
fifth and the seventh centuries was Tamluk, on the
Hugli; and the Javanese records show that the original
colonists of Java started from the Orissa or Kalinga
coast in the first century of our era. Both the Chinese
pilgrims visited Tamluk, and found it the starting-place
for southern voyages (Fa Hian, 399–414 A.D. ; Hiouen
Thsang, 629–645 A.D.); and I shall give an account of
it in a later part of this chapter. It now lies on
the Rüpnáráyan River; but in early times the sea,
which is at present sixty miles off, washed its harbour.
I accordingly speak of it as situated on the Hugli,
which gives a sufficiently correct idea of its ancient
position.
Not only, therefore, do the memorials of the Yavana
Kingdom, whether in Orissa or in Central India, speak
of maritime expeditions on a great scale, but the era of
their migrations into Orissa forms the very period when
the colonisation of Java from the Indian coast took place.
Such enterprises stand out in strong contrast to the land
expeditions of Sanskrit literature, which thinks it needful
to invent a fabulous bridge in order to convey its armies
across the narrow straits to Ceylon. Even without the
evidence which I have put together to connect the
Yavanas with the Ionians, these voyages would strike
one as singularly opposed to the history of the home-
loving Indian, and as singularly in accord with the
genius of the sea-exploring Greek.
GAEEEK AAOSTZES OF AP U/D/Dž/ZSM. 227
Hindu medicine also acknowledges a debt to the
Yavanas. In a Sanskrit treatise, written three hundred
years ago,” I find mention of a preparation of Bháng,
‘communicated by the Yavanas,' and purporting to be
copied from a work by a Yavana author, Muphar. It
seems to have been derived from very ancient times, and
is described in a good Sanskrit verse, supposed to be
written just after the assemblage of the sages in the
Himálayas for the purpose of investigating the medicinal
substances of nature two million years ago. A Hindu
physician, during the past ten centuries, if he had
borrowed a remedy from foreigners, would have con-
cealed a fact which would have made him an outcast,
and ruined him in his profession. The native practi-
tioners inform me that their Pharmacopoeia contains
several other Yavana preparations,—for example, one
from beef, and another from pork, which are evidently
borrowed from a foreign system of medicine, and have to
be made up with the greatest secrecy through fear of the
Hindus.
The Ionians not only brought fragments of Greek
science to India, but they formed the vanguard of that
great Reformation which stands out as the most con-
spicuous fact in the religious history of the pre-Christian
world. From the first Buddhist era in Orissa, 250 B.C.,
till the tenth century A.D., the Yavanas are invariably
associated with the nobler faith. Any attempt to launch
out upon a general view of the spread of Buddhism in
India would be out of place in this work. It must suffice
to say, that while from the silent testimony of coins, with
which no subsequent ages can tamper, scholars conclude
that the Ionian kings in Northern India merged into
* Jogámrita Sár, Sanskrit MS. in Bengali character.
228 GREEK AAE’OST/CES OF BUD/D/HVSM.
Buddhistic dynasties; so in Middle and Southern India,
the Yavanas everywhere appear either as the representa-
tives or as the heralds of the reformed religion. While
Buddhism continued as Buddhism in India, the Yavanas
were typical Buddhists; and when it merged into Jain-
ism, the Yavanas became equally identified with the
Jain faith.
Nor should this surprise the careful student of
Indian history. We have seen that, from the first, the
kingdom with which the Greeks were most intimately
connected was the Gangetic monarchy which afterwards
formed the focus of Buddhism, and which at length
authoritatively promulgated the faith over the whole
Indian continent, a province which to this day bears
the name of Behar, literally, the Buddhist Monastery,
and retains as its capital the city to which the Greek
ambassador repaired three hundred years before Christ.
The Greek adventurers in India found themselves in the
midst of a great conflict of creeds. On the one side
Bráhmanism, with its cast-iron classification, refused the
strangers entrance into the respectable castes, and ranked
them, both socially and religiously, with the savage abori-
ginal tribes. The haughty Greek, accustomed to call all -
non-Hellenic mankind Barbarians, suddenly found himself
in the minority among an even more exclusive race than
his own, and branded by a far more opprobrious epithet”
than that which he applied to foreign nations. On the
other side, Buddhism opened its arms to the strangers,
engraved their names in its edicts, and offered them abso-
lute equality with the triumphant sect. Whatever may
have been the process, there can be no doubt as to the
result. The Buddhist party attracted to itself the new
*9 Mlechha.
GREEK APOSTLES OF BUDPHISM. 229.
adventurous element, and found in the Yavanas exactly
the allies required for the geographical dissemination of
its faith. When that dissemination was resolved on, the
Indian Buddhists sought formal alliances even with
Greek potentates beyond the Himalayas; and a group
of treaties with Antiochus Theos, Gonatus, Ptolemy
Philadelphus, Megas of Cyrene, and Alexander of
Macedon, attests their political activity.” The Ionians
in India were essentially an unsettled race, a people
without a home. Their history, so far as we know it,
is a succession of military occupations and forcible ex-
pulsions,—a history which repeats itself alike in the
Graeco-Bactrian kingdom beyond the Himálayas, in the
Panjāb, in Central India, in Orissa, and in fact till they
finally disappear on the extreme south-western shore of
the peninsula. They formed a nation of pioneers for ever
on the move; the very people to give effect to Asoka's
proselytising edicts, which command the Buddhists to go
forth and preach the truth ‘both here and in foreign
lands,’ ‘even to the uttermost ends of the barbarian
countries.”
At first sight it may seem that the copious mythology
of Brähmanism would appeal more strongly to the Greek
religious sense than the cold theism of Buddha. But
the polytheism of India resulted from a process the very
opposite of that which gave birth to the bright gods of
Greece. The intensely personal genius of the Greeks
could not endure an impersonal deity. Indeed, the Greeks,
* For the separate authorities, see Fergusson's Hist. Arch. ii. 456, ed.
1867. -
* Cattack Fifth Tablet, As. Soc. Journal for 1838, vii. 250. I should
mention that my quotations from the Journal of the Asiatic Society invari-
ably refer to the original Bengal Society, and not the Royal Asiatic Society
in London.
23o A UD/DA/ZSZYC GA&AEEA SCC/ZAZ"UAEA.
in vividly realizing the individuality, lost sight of the in-
finity of God. The Indian intellect grasped exclusively
at the very attribute which the Hellenic imagination had
let slip. The idea of the Infinite sunk into its unruffled
calm, like a stone on the bosom of a lake, constantly
widening its circles, till they enclosed the whole area of
Hindu belief. Instead of the polytheism of Greece, with
its host of divine personalities, instinct with human sym-
pathies and with more than human grace, Brähmanism
had arrived at a Pantheism which, in its straining after
the Absolute, carelessly acknowledged many things as
gods only because it believed God to be co-extensive
and co-existent with all things. But, practically, the
Buddhism which the Yavanas disseminated, especially
in its later form of Jainism, was no cold abstraction, with
a single dim figure-piece of a deity in the illimitable back-
ground, but a religion enriched by a chronological mytho-
logy which mapped out the foretime, a creed prolific of
saints, legends, and relics. It required temples, tombs,
and monasteries; and the architectural exigencies of
Buddhism produced the earliest buildings of which any
trace survives in India.
These buildings belong to a totally different style of
construction from the Greek orders, but their ornamental
figures exhibit a Grecian type. It is long since scholars
perplexed the learned world by the discovery of un-
mistakeably Greek faces and profiles in ancient Buddhist
sculptures. Such sculptures enrich almost all the larger
museums in India, and their labels briefly describe them
as ‘Buddhist or Greek.’ The purest specimens have been
found in the Panjāb, where the Ionians settled in greatest
force; and it is scarcely possible to exaggerate the debt
which the Indian historian or art student owes to General
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A UD/DHISTIC GREEK: SCULPTURE. 23r
Cunningham, Prof. Leitner, and Dr. Bellew. In the Lahor
collection I saw, among many beautiful pieces, an exqui-
site little figure of an old blind man feeling his way with
a staff, which might have been dug up near the Sette
Sale along with the Laocoon. Its subdued pathos, its
fidelity to nature, and its living movement dramatically
held for the moment in sculptured suspense, are Greek,
and nothing but Greek. It is human misfortune, culmi-
nated in wandering poverty, age, and blindness—the very
curse which Sophocles makes the spurned Teiresias throw
back upon the doomed king—
* Blind, having seen ;
Poor, having rolled in wealth ; he, with a staff
Feeling his way, to a strange land shall go.”
As we proceed eastward from the Panjāb, the Greek
type begins to fade. Purity of outline gives place to
lusciousness of form. In the female figures, the artists
trust more and more to swelling breasts and towering
chignons, and load the neck with constantly accumulating
jewels. Nevertheless the Grecian type of countenance
long survived in Indian art. It is perfectly unlike the
present coarse conventional ideal of sculptured beauty,
and may even be traced in the exquisite profiles of the
Sun Temple, built in the twelfth century A.D., on the
remote Orissa shore.
I hope that, in my anxiety to track the Greeks
through India, I have not been led to make the record
more complete than the evidence will bear. Missing
links constantly break the chain, and in some parts the
difficulty of identification becomes insuperable. For it
must never be forgotten that the word Yavana is an inde-
terminate name, and was applied loosely to several sets of
invaders who brought in a new religion, and came from
232- BUD/DH/STYC GAZEER SCULPTURE.
the north.” A similar indefiniteness grew up around
the word Mughul, which in less than three hundred
years acquired four distinct meanings in India.” But
the facts brought together suffice to connect the Yavanas
in a special manner with the Graeco-Bactrians of Ionian
or semi-Ionian descent, and to prove that, in spite of the
oblivion which for centuries has entombed their Indian
migrations, the Greeks have exerted a permanent in-
fluence upon Hindu religion, science, and art. I now
return to Orissa, on whose shores the Yavanas or
Ionians, during their fourteen hundred years of wander-
ing throughout India, halted for a season and found rest.
Their expulsion took place in 474 A.D., when a de-
liverer arose in the person of Yayāti Kesari, the founder
of the Long-haired or Lion-line, which ruled Orissa
during forty-three generations, or till 1132 A.D. The
new dynasty was Bráhmanical rather than Buddhistic
from the first, but no evidence exists of any great im-
mediate change in the popular faith. Buddhist hermits
still prayed among the rocks, and rich devotees con-
* For example, the reference to the Huns of Kashmir in Mr. Charles
Grant's Account of the Yavana Kingdom of Central India, suggests the
Scythians, or White Huns, who moved into India and down the Bombay
coast, zia Gujrát, about the beginning of our era. Cosmos Indicopleustes,
535 to 547 A.D., states that Northern India was inhabited by a fair-skinned
people called the Hunni. They also appear in the Sáran Inscription of
the Pál Dynasty, circ. ninth century. Gibbon speaks of the White Huns
being pressed down from the north by the Turks. Circ. 545 A.D., cap. 42.
" * (1.) To the half-heathen, half-Muhammadan hordes who swept down
upon India under Chingis Khán, Alá-ud-din, Muhammad Tughlak, etc.
These were true Mughuls. (2.) To Timur and his successors. Timur was
a Chagtai Turk, and to this tribe the Indians next applied the term, although
Timur and Babar hated the Mughuls, and subverted the kingdom of Chingis
Khán. The Muhammadans never called the Emperors of Delhi Mughul
kings, but Timürſ or Chagtai kings. (3.) Up to 155o the wave of migration
into India flowed from Túrán; it then set in from Persia, and to the Persian
white-skinned foreigners the word was next applied. (4.) As a general term
for any Muhammadan, especially a Muhammadan invading force.
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SIVAISM THE WATIONAL FAITH.. 233
tinued to honeycomb the sandstone hills with fresh cave-
dwellings. But the creed was wearing itself out, and
before the accession of the new dynasty Buddha's Sacred
Tooth had been removed from Purſ to Ceylon. The
ancient Sanskrit gods, who had all along co-existed
more or less distinctly with Buddhism, now asserted their
supremacy, and came forth arrayed in their new garb
as modern Hindu deities. Guided by signs and wonders,
the king sought out the image of Jagannāth in the
jungles, where it had lain hid during the Yavana occupa-
tion, and brought it back to Puri in triumph. Siva and
Vishnu, the All-Destroyer and the All-Preserver, began
their great auction, bidding against each other for the
popular reverence by unscrupulous compromises with
human infirmity, and ever ready to pollute their temples
in order to fill them with devotees. In a previous chapter
I have traced the progress of Vishnu-worship in Orissa,
and its culmination in the Jagannāth Festivals of the
present day. But in spite of the temple chronicles, which
naturally glorify their own god, it is Siva-worship which,
during the decay of Buddhism, first enters upon the scene.
For 150 years Buddhism and Siva-worship struggled
for the victory. At the end of that period the contest
had practically ceased. The reigning monarch was a
worshipper of the All-Destroyer, with Bhuvaneswar, the
temple city of Siva, as his capital. Year after year the
Buddhist hermits, in their cave-dwellings, gazed across
the five miles of fruit-bearing groves towards the great
tower of Siva, slowly rising in the distance. Of the
7000 shrines which once clustered around it, not more
than 500 or 600 now survive. They exhibit every
stage of Orissa art, from the rough conceptions of the
sixth century, through the exquisite designs and un-
234 S/VA SCUZA'7"URE AAVZ) AA’ CHAZTECTURE.
grudging artistic toil of the twelfth, to the hurried and
dishonest stucco-like make-believes of Hindu architecture
at the present day. These curious relics will soon, I
hope, be treated by a scholar who brings to the subject
greater knowledge and technical accuracy than I have
been able to devote to it.” But I cannot altogether
pass over the exquisite friezes, scrolls, and carvings
which adorn these long-deserted walls.
One of their most ingenious ornamentations was the
infinite variety of forms into which the erected hood of
the cobra is worked. Sometimes it forms a gloria above
a god; sometimes it appears as a canopy bending over
like the Prince of Wales' feathers; and instead of the
monastic cord of Gothic architecture, scrolls of snakes
distend themselves in graceful convolutions, or twist
together in stony knots. -
Many of the figures were evidently done from the
life. Although intended for Hindu sages and deities,
they preserve the Buddhist type, and took as their
models Buddhist hermits squatted on the ground in an
attitude of abstraction. While Sivaism became the re-
ligion of royalty on the plains, Buddhism continued to
honeycomb the rocks and build temples on the moun-
tainous western frontier.” Strange traditions still haunt
these last retreats of Orissa theism;” and their architec-
tural remains testify with a silent evidence which cannot
lie, that Buddhism transmitted its devotional art, with its
sculptured representations of monastic attitudes, and its
* It is scarcely necessary to refer again to Babu Rájendra Lála Mitra's
forthcoming work on Orissa. I am indebted to this gentleman for photographs
of Bhuvaneswar. In anticipation of his treatise, I have deemed it unneces-
sary to give my own measurements and other art notes made on the spot.
195 In the Tributary States. -
* See my Statistical Account of Cattack, and Journal of the Beng
Asiatic Society, vol. xxxix.
SIVA SCULPTURE AND ARCHITECTURE. 235
system of religious ornamentation, to the Sivaite faith
which succeeded it. On the Hill of Curse” the traveller
comes across the ruins of Buddhist shrines and figures,
which might have served as models for the early efforts
of Sivaite art.” The figures have the mild-eyed, ab-
stracted look which still gazes down on this transitory
world from the temple walls of Bhuvaneswar; and the
ornaments on the ears, arms, wrists, and breasts, present
the counterparts of those which the Sivaite builders of
the Royal City carved upon the shrines of the All-
Destroyer. Besides devotional pieces, the older sculp-
tures at Bhuvaneswar represent long processions of
infantry, cavalry, and elephants. The warriors form
models of manly grace, and the ladies frequently exhibit
that exquisite type of face which the Grecian artists have
left behind them alike in Eastern and Western India.
One little group of a nymph, with an upright chignon,
and a hero with a cross-handed dagger in his waist-
belt, might serve as a model of Helen and Paris, but
that the warrior is of a more robust type than the
graceful Trojan archer.
- In another frieze, knights on heavily caparisoned
horses meet in deadly combat. Bowmen and Swords-
men march behind on foot, very much as in Norman
tapestry pieces of the Crusades, while porters and camp-
followers, with led horses, straggle after them, and fresh
detachments of swordsmen with oblong shields bring
up the rear. In the background, courtiers and aged
197 Nāltigiri, about 27 miles north-east of Cattack.
19° Many of the Buddhist rock-cells were converted into Hindu shrines.
Besides the simple mode of transformation practised at Khandgiri by in-
serting a bas-relief of some Hindu god into the walls of the caves, I saw a
very curious composite temple near Narāj, overlooking the Mahánadí, partly
of masonry, and partly of the laterite rock.
236 SIVA-WORSHIP THE MATIONAL CREED (474-1132 A.D.).
ministers sit in council, while holy men in an attitude
of devotion shed the sanction of religion upon the scene.
On most of the temples both sexes have their hair done
up in a sort of tower above their heads, but some of
the ladies have also a braid falling over the bosom
to the waist. In the more modern sculptures the hair
is brushed back, and either falls in a braid as above,
or is arranged in a fillet behind. The horizontal chignon
projecting from the back of the head does not come into
fashion until the twelfth century. There are scarcely
any indelicate sculptures, but a great deal of honest
love-making, which generally finds expression by the
gods and warriors chucking the goddesses under the
chin.
- The Kesari, or Lion-line, was essentially a Siva-
worshipping dynasty. Temples to the All-Destroyer
formed the great public works of the six centuries during
which it ruled Orissa. Their founder began the lofty
fane at Bhuvaneswar about 500 A.D., two succeeding
monarchs laboured on it, and the fourth” of the house
completed it in A.D. 657. A slab inscription some cen-
turies later recounts how a pious princess reared another
‘cloud-reaching temple with four beautiful halls’ to the
Lord Siva, “who destroys the sins of the worshippers,
and gives salvation to those who touch (his image) in his
holy place.” Almost the only event by which the Palm-
leaf Record relieves its monotonous list of kings of the
ninth century, is the erection of the Siva temple in Puri,
the city destined so soon to become the centre of the
10° The Alábu Kesari of the Purúshottama Chandriká (p. 30), or the
Lalát Indra Kesari of Stirling (As. Res. xv. 266).
* Brahmeswar Inscription, verse 12. Journal As. Soc. vii. 561. The
name of the queen was Kolāvatſ, mother of Udyotaka Kesari.
SPIRITUAL ASPECT of SIVA Worship. 237
rival worship." And the last public act of the dynasty
was the building of the beautiful vestibule to the great
shrine at Bhuvaneswar between Io99 and I IO4 A.D., or
barely thirty years before the extinction of the race.”
The religion of royalty everywhere becomes, sooner
or later, a religion of luxury. The sixty-three kings of
the Lion-line not only built temples, but endowed them
with noble estates, and covered the country with settle-
ments of priests. Siva-worship, although the creed of
the dynasty almost from the first, very slowly became
the accepted faith of the people. The aboriginal and
semi-aboriginal low-castes might be fascinated and ap-
palled by its awe-striking solemnities, but the ruling
Aryan race, bred up for centuries in the gentle doctrines
of Buddha, required a higher order of attractions. To
these latter, therefore, it presented itself not as a brutal
and bloody superstition, but as a great catholic religion,
wide enough and high enough for the loftiest spiritual
flights, and yet glowing with that warmth and colour
after which a human soul, chilled by the unrealities of the
Buddhistic theism, yearns. To the sage it was the adora-
tion of Mahādeva, the Great God; of Maheswara, the
Great Lord ; of Bhuvaneswara, the Lord of the Earth;
of Brahmeswara, the Lord of Lords, or the Lord of the
First Creative Energy.” The higher minds among the
Sivaite sects asserted the unity of the Deity as strenu-
ously as the Buddhists ever did. For common natures
* The Mārkandeswar temple built by Kundal Kesari, 811–829 A.D.
Purúshottama Chandriká, p. 31.
* The Nát Mandir, or Dancing Hall, erected by the wife of Salini.
Purúshottama Chandriká, p. 34.
* It is as Brahmeswara that the inscriptions delight to praise the All-
Destroyer. E. D. Brahmeswara Inscription, verses 12, 13. “This is the
very Siva. Brahmeshwara.' Elsewhere he is called “the holy Brahmá.’
238 SIVAZTE MIGRATIONS INTO OR/SSA (500 A.D.).
they organized a ritual, splendid, mysterious, and tragic;
at one moment enshrouded in the silence and gloom of
the innermost sanctuary, at another celebrated amid
throngs of frenzied devotees, with thousands of hearts
beating together in a unison of religious ecstasy. To
the lowest classes it was indeed a religion of blood; but
from gentler natures the god accepted a tray of fruits,
or a garland of white scented flowers, with an equally
propitious eye. It touched every chord of the human
imagination, from the deep diapason of terror to the
ethereal uppermost octaves; and men contrasted its
tropical passionateness, and its solemnities which by
turns fascinated, appalled, and enchained, with the neutral-
tinted doctrines and the barren rites of Buddhism.
But Siva-worship did not depend alone upon its new
converts. Among the shadows which flit across the dis-
solving views of pre-historic India, one fact stands out with
unmistakeable clearness. It is the fact that from time to
time great migrations of Brähmans radiated to the south-
wards from Upper Hindustán, bringing with them the
modern or Hindu form of the Aryan religion, and impos-
ing it upon a recently Buddhistic population. The history
of Lower Bengal starts from an immigration of this sort,
and the same phenomenon looms through the mists of
Orissa tradition, which cloud the origin of the Sivaite line
of kings. The local legends and the Palm-leaf Records
alike relate how about 500 A.D., the founder of the Long-
haired or Lion-line imported ten thousand Brähmans from
Oudh, and endowed them with lands around Jájpur on the
sacred Baitaraní river. These newcomers professed the
royal religion, and were Sivaites to a man. They found,
however, a priestly class already existing, whom it was im-
possible to extirpate, and unwise to ignore. The Buddhists
BAEAHMAN SETZZEMEAVT AT /A/PUR (5oo A.D.). 239
recruited their clergy from every class of the people;
but doubtless the preceding waves of Aryan settlers who
had from time to time made their way into Orissa, formed
the upper ranks of the Buddhist community. See ante,
p. 202, and Asoka's fifth Edict, p. 204. The Brähman
colonists of 500 A.D. were not at first strong enough to
degrade the Buddhist element into the mass of the rural
populace, and they seem to have conciliated their prede-
cessors by admitting them to a sort of nominal equality.
The old Aryan settlers, who had lapsed into Buddhism, ob-
tained the name of Brähmans, and retain the title to this
hour. But as the power of the newcomers expanded under
the benignant smiles of royalty, they interdicted these
so-called old Brähmans from all intercourse with them-
selves. They had refused the ſus commuðii from the first,
and the nominal Brāhmans formed a distinct caste, which
by degrees sank into the mass of the peasant population.
The degraded Brähmans plough with their own hands,
and make excellent husbandmen. Several Fiscal Divi-
sions not very far from Jájpur “are entirely cultivated
by them ; but the orthodox caste, who came in about 500
A.D., stigmatize them as the Potato-Growers.” Their less
opprobrious title is the Worldly Brähmans,” as opposed
to the Vaidik or Sivaite followers of the Veda. Nothing
can be further from our ordinary conception of a Brāh-
man than these half-naked peasants, struggling along
under their baskets of yams, and with a filthy little
Bráhmanical thread over their shoulder.
* e.g. Múlgáon, with other Fiscal Divisions of Balasor, and in villages
near Jájpur on the banks of the Kharsuá. They are also found in the South
of Purí District. -
* Sáruya, from Sáru, a sort of yam, the Kachu of Bengal (Arum Colo-
casia).
116 Laukik.
24O THEY DEGRADE ZHE OLD ARY.A.N.S.
The example of the new priestly colony at Jájpur
seems, however, to have exercised an influence on the
Worldly caste. In the Districts around that sacred city
the latter refrain from any occupation but agriculture.
But to the southward, in the old Orissa District of
Ganjám, they have sunk into brickmakers and brick-
layers, two of the servile handicrafts among the Hindus.
This District exhibits every variety of the so-called
Brähman caste, from the haughty priest who traces his
descent within historical times to northern India, down
through the Ploughing Brähman * into the more de-
graded trading class,” and so finally to the mud-stained
labourer who inherits the name of Brähman, but ranks
among the dregs of the population.” For ages the so-
called old Brähmans have been a depressed race in
Orissa. In many parts they have perished out of the
land; and throughout the province they certainly number
not more than a third of the Brähmans who trace their
descent from the Sivaite colony at Jájpur thirteen hun-
dred years ago. - -
As Bhuvaneswar was the political capital of the
Sivaite Dynasty of Orissa, so Jájpur was the metropolis
of its priests. The rich delta of the Mahánadi stretched
between. The secular capital commanded the turbulent
south-eastern frontier, but it lay almost within the sha-
dow of the honeycombed Buddhist hills, and the Sivaite
kings planted their Brähman settlement at Jájpur as far
as possible from the influence and genius of the preced-
* Called Háluya, from Hál, a plough, corresponding to the Sáruya
Bráhman of Orissa Proper.
118. The Sáhu.
119 The degraded classes of Uriyā Bráhmans in Ganjām are as follows:
—The Háluya, or Ploughing Bráhmans, who occasionally serve as cooks in
rich families ; the Sáhu, or traders ; the Bhādu, or tobacco makers ; the
Sáruya, or Potato-Growers, brickmakers, bricklayers, etc.
THE PRIESZZY METROPOLIS (500–1500 A.D.). 241
ing faith. They endowed the priestly colonists with
ample grants of land, and in less than two hundred years
the settlement had grown into a great city. In the
seventh century, the Chinese pilgrims found Jájpur the
* in the sixteenth, the great battle
between the Hindus and the Musalmáns for the supre-
macy of the Province was fought under its walls. Its
capital of Orissa; *
ruins attest its ancient grandeur; to this day it continues
a favourite place of pilgrimage ; and its dilapidated
temples and colossal images retain an inviolate sanctity
in the mind of the devout Hindu. To the annalist it
possesses a higher interest as the greatest and best at-
tested settlement of priests from the north, planted by
royal authority in order to impose a new dynastic creed
upon an Indian population.
Such settlements form landmarks in Indian history.
In my previous works” I have shown that the fourfold
system of caste as formulated by Manu never applied
to Bengal. The keenest ethnical scrutiny can detect
but two great elements in the Indian population—the
Aryan and non-Aryan races. The former came last, and
found the country peopled by earlier non-Aryan tribes.
The Aryans still constitute the upper ranks of Indian
society, and have either driven the latter into the hills
and forests, or degraded them into a servile class upon
the plains. During the past few years, public opinion
has advanced by rapid strides towards this view. It has
been accepted as a starting-point both in the speculations
of writers and in the practical policy of the Empire, that
the English have to legislate in India, not for a single
* M. Julien's Hiouen Thsang, followed by General Cunningham in his
new work, Ancient Geography of India, vol. i. pp. 504-5 Io. I87I.
** Annals of Rural Bengal, vol. i., and the Preliminary Dissertation to
my Non-Aryan Dictionary. -
VOL. II. Q
242 AA-AAMAAW CO/COMIZATIOM OF WAVD/A.
nation divided by artificial distinctions of caste, but for a
diversity of races belonging to widely separated branches
of the human family, requiring very different treatment,
and representing distant stages of progress and civilisa-
tion. It has also become generally admitted that the
wilder of these tribes, who for ages have been sources
of danger to, and objects of oppression by, the Indian
dynasties, are not incapable of better things. That many
of them have approved themselves loyal subjects, brave
soldiers, and faithful allies; and that although, in case
of border raids, the first duty is to punish them, yet that
the permanent problem of our Frontier Administration
is to enlighten and to utilize them.
But while the true character of the low castes has
thus been established, the Brähmans are still accepted as
an ethnical entity. The priestly settlement by the Orissa
Sivaite kings in the sixth century, however, forms one of
many historical evidences which lead me to doubt this
postulate of Indian literature. Taken along with similar
phenomena in distant parts of the country, it unfolds the
Aryan colonization of India in a new and rational light.
It discloses no trace of that universal and absolute con-
quest by which the primitive Aryan Settlers in North-
ern Hindustán are assumed to have subdued the whole
continent to their sway. On the contrary, it dissipates the
mist which has toned down their multiform migrations
into a homogeneous advance, and exhibits the natural
compromises by which a small but gifted people effected
their entrance among vastly more numerous races, some-
times indeed by force of arms, but generally by an amal-
gamation which the vanity of later ages has more or less
disguised.
Almost every Province of India contains two widely
J)/ VERSE SORTS OF BAEAAMAAVS. 243
diverse sorts of Brähmans, separated not merely by
family or social differences, but apparently by the more
rigid distinctions of race. The characteristics of these
two classes vary in different provinces. But two facts
can be almost universally predicated of them, viz., that
the higher order traces its origin to a comparatively
recent migration from the north, and deems it necessary
to explain the existence of the lower sort by some local
legend. They nowhere intermarry, eat together, or have
anything in common. Everywhere they form two dis-
tinct classes, as widely and as permanently separated as
the other recognised ethnical divisions of the Indian
community. . tº
I shall now briefly set forth the chief varieties of
Bráhmans which I have met with, either personally or in
books, starting from the Himalayas and travelling south-
wards till we emerge at Ceylon. I by no means wish to
insinuate that all these varieties proceed from differences
of race. The safe limits within which such ethnical dis-
tinctions may be accepted will be hereafter explained.
But meanwhile, as the reader accompanies me from Pro-
vince to Province, the old idea of the Brähmans as a
single priestly race, bound together by a common descent
and a common vocation, will, I think, fade from his mind.
On the southern slopes of the Himalayas dwell a
caste of Brähman shepherds. They abound in Chambá,
near the hill station of Dalhousie, and are distinguished
neither by their occupation nor their tribal name” from
the rest of the shepherd population, in common with
whom they possess most curious grazing rights. It is a
fierce, stalwart race, very fair, and their women are sin-
* Gádís, from Gádariyā, a low Hindi word for a shepherd, from Gádar,
a €We. * *
244 SHEPHERD BRAHMANS OF HIMAZA YAS.
gularly handsome. They build their houses with the door
to the east, and, like their fellow-herdsmen, worship, as
the first thing every morning, the rising sun. Proceed-
ing southward into the arable Kángrá valleys, the shep-
herds give place to cultivating or ploughing Brähmans”
following the Hindu rites, but despised by the Brähmans
who in later times have flocked to the courts of the
petty chiefs from the plains. The latter explain the
existence of the former by declaring them the lapsed
remnants of earlier migrations, and all are nominally
admitted within the great Sáraswat family of Brähmans.
But the ploughing caste has no place in the local Brāh-
man genealogies, although these documents carefully
preserve the memorials of the successive Brähmanical
waves that have arrived within historic times.” In
the Simla hills the Brähman population consists indis-
criminately of shepherds, husbandmen, day-labourers,
and menials. The poorer of them are simply coolies.
In the inner hills they marry the widows of their elder
brothers, like the lower castes of Orissa, and sell their
daughters into a slavery faintly disguised by the name
of concubinage. Several of the porters who have from
time to time brought up my luggage from the plains
bore the title of Brähman, and wore the sacred thread.
At this moment, one of my under-servants, a ‘mate-
bearer,' is a Simla Brähman, whose immediate superior
* Called zamíndārs or landholders. See a very good Settlement Re-
port of the District of Kángrá, by Mr. George Carnac Barnes, C.S., folio,
Lahor, 1855, paras. 252-26o. I here make my acknowledgments to Mr. E.
C. Bayley, C.S.I., for an interesting letter about the Himalayan Bráhmans,
and for other aid.
* Cf. the classification by Rájá Dharm Chánd, who divided the ortho-
dox Brähmans into Nagarkotiyás, from Nagarkot, the ancient name of
Kángrá; and Baterus, with its thirty-five subdivisions and various grades of
rank.
Aſ/ZZ AAVZ) PZA/W BAEAA/MAAVS. - 245
(an Orissa man of the cow-keeping class) would rather
be cast adrift two thousand miles from his home, than
touch the work which his Brähman subordinate does,
unconscious of a scruple. .
In the Himalayas, therefore, the Brähmans are of
three sorts. One class has amalgamated with the sur-
rounding population as to trade or employment, such as
the shepherd and menial Brāhmans of the inner hills.
The second sort holds an intermediate position, like the
ploughing Brähmans of the Kängrá valley. The third
consists of comparatively recent emigrants from the
plains, the temporal advisers and spiritual directors of
the highland aristocracy. The public ministration at the
temples has always continued in the hands of the origi-
nal natives of the country. The celebrated shrines of
Kángrá have a hereditary priesthood,” who wear the
sacred thread, but form a distinct caste. As a rule, the
highland and lowland Brähmans have an intense contempt
for each other. They cannot eat together, nor inter-
marry; and the hill Brāhman freely partakes of flesh,
which the lowland Brähman of Northern India religiously
eschews. In short, the true hill Brāhmans either de-
scend from ancient Brähman emigrants from the plains,
who have had to submit to various degrees of compro-
mise, and to mix with the surrounding population ; or
they form the remnants of the primitive aristocracy of
the highlands, whom the newcomers had to admit into
a nominal equality. They derive their origin chiefly
from the first, but probably from both sources, as Dr.
Leitner's and other recent researches show. -
** Bhujkſs. Some of the Hill Brāhmans trace their migrations to the
tyranny of the Musalmáns, and the orthodox Aurangzeb is remembered
among them with peculiar hatred.
246 PZOUGHIVG BRAHMAAWS OF ZAZE DOAB, EZ C.
Proceeding to the plains, the Pattială Brăhmans en-
gage as day-labourers, and one of their caste has carried
me many a mile in a hill palanquin. Advancing south-
east to the great tract between the Jamna and the
Ganges, I find a population of Brähman husbandmen
whose existence is explained by a legend of their having
abandoned the priestly function for agriculture.” In
Bijnaur they number a full third of the whole Brähman
population, but are separated from them by an even
greater distance than the inferior castes of the Aryan
community. They permit the re-marriage of widows,”
and possess a distinct caste system of their own. Pro-
ceeding a little southward we obtain an explanation of
their existence more intelligible than the “abandonment’
theory, evolved from a false etymology of their name.
In Jaipur a similar class of ploughing Brähmans
abounded, and a tradition relates how they were manu-
factured out of the low castes by the ruling power. A
warlike prince required a vast concourse of priests to
give dignity to his sacrifice, and accordingly created five
tribes” of Brähmans out of the surrounding population.
They migrated in numbers to Oudh, in which centre of
orthodoxy, however, they did not obtain admittance into
the recognised Bráhman caste.” Indeed, the Province of
* The Tagás, a word which the orthodox Bráhmans who invented
the legend derive from Tyága, given up, a derivation which the quantity of
the first syllable renders improbable. Sir Henry Elliot gives another ex-
planation of their having been abandoned by their relations in consequence
of their being the offspring of a Brähman with a low-caste woman. The
same objection, however, applies. Sir Henry Elliot's Races of the North-
Western Provinces, vol. i. pp. 88, 303, etc., ed. I869. See also an interest-
ing letter in the Pioneer, Allahabad, 1st June 1871.
*** Among the Dusá section of the tribe.
* (1) Daimá, (2) Parakh, (3) Gujjar Gaur, (4) Paliwál, and (5) Chaurési.
* Mr. Patrick Carnegy's excellent Notes on the Races of Avadh.
Lucknow, 1868, p. 30.
MAAVUE4C7'UREZO BACAA/MAAWS OF OUDA. 247
Oudh had already a similar local tradition of its own. One
of its Brähmanical families” derives its origin from a
prince” whose self-importance would not allow him to
offer sacrifice without having 125,000 priests in attend-
ance, and who accordingly invested the common people
of the country with the sacred thread.” Another class
of the Oudh Brähmans is said to have been arbitrarily
created in pre-historic times by Krishna, while a third has
practically amalgamated with the military caste.” In the
very centre of Brähmanism, therefore, the Brähmans are
a composite people, following diverse Occupations, and
derived from widely different sources. Even Brähman
arrogance has not been able to conceal this fact in the
sacred writings of the Hindus, and the most famous
episode of the Mahābhārata relates how a warrior prince
won his way into the priestly caste.”
Once we pass beyond the Aryan centre, in Upper
India, the complex character of the Brähmans becomes
more and more proclaimed. In Benares, and the dis-
tricts along the Ganges to the southward, a large peasant
population claim the title of Brähman, and under native
rule were exempted like the genuine Brähmans from
capital punishment.” The priests account for their
existence by declaring them to be the lapsed descend-
ants of an earlier Brähman migration. But some of
* The Sawālākhſ; literally, laikh and a quarter.
* Rājā Rám Baghel. The manufacture is also assigned to Mánik
Chánd, or even the great Rám Chandra himself.
* Sir Henry Elliot's Races of the North-Western Provinces, i. 148.
Mr. Beames' edition. --
* Mr. Carnegy's Notes on Avadh, p. 30.
* Cf. the story of Viswämitra and Vasishtha. -
- * The Bhuinhárs; literally, landholders. I would here make my
acknowledgments to the admirable Memoir of Ghāzipur District, by Mr.
Wilton Oldham, LL.D., of the Bengal Civil Service. Quarto, Allahabad
Government Press, 1870. - -
248 PZO UGAZAVG BAZAAMAAWS OF BAEAWARES.
them have the same tribe name in common with the
military caste, and in one case at least the peasant
Bráhman of this District and the military class claim
descent from a common ancestor. All of them freely
enlist in the army, and on so doing add the war-caste
affix of Sinh, Lion, to their names. Some of them trace
their arrival to migrations from the north within histori-
cal times, but they have not developed those minute
caste differences among themselves which exist among
the peasant Brähmans of Oudh. They make excellent
husbandmen, accumulate money by usury, and are a
more frugal and less haughty class than the Rájputs or
military caste.”
Proceeding down the Ganges into Behar, we still
find a large population of peasant Brähmans. Here,
however, they less resemble the military caste than the
ordinary husbandmen. They bear the same name as the
ploughing Brähmans of the north,” and are said to
number three-fourths of the whole Brähman population
in the Bhāgalpur District. The higher classes among
them trace their descent to an ancient migration of the
true stock from the north,” but the mass of the peasant
Brähmans attribute their origin to another arbitrary
manufacture of a hundred thousand priests in pre-histori
times. - -
Such a legend is opposed to the more superstitious
* Many of them turned Musalmáns under Aurangzeb. The descend-
ants of the renegades now number about fourteen thousand, and form a
turbulent class who gave trouble during the Mutiny.
** Bhuinhárs, or more locally Zamíndar Bábhans. -
* The Mithilá Bráhmans, who, although formally admitted into the
Bráhman community, hold a very low place in it, and are probably either
the remains of a very ancient Aryan migration into Tirhut, or of the primi-
tive aristocracy of the place, who by an ethnical syncretism obtained
entrance into the Bráhman caste.
J)/ VERSE BAEAHMAAVS OF BAEAVGAZ. 249
genius of Lower Bengal,—the last conquest of the Brāh-
mans, and the country in which their influence is now
most absolute. The unwarlike populace of the delta
admits with equal facility the temporal supremacy and
the divine origin of the priesthood. A class of peasant
Bráhmans would disgrace the whole order, and history
indistinctly records the process by which this scandal
was avoided. On the decline of Buddhism in Lower
Bengal in the ninth century A.D., a religious revival
similar to that which I have described in Orissa took
place. A line of orthodox kings” succeeded the
Buddhist dynasty,” and the founder of the new line
invited a migration of Brähmans from the north in the
tenth century,” almost precisely as the Orissa kings had
done in the sixth. In both Provinces the same difficulty
arose as to the status which the former priestly classes
should thenceforth hold. We have seen how the ques-
tion gradually settled itself in Orissa, leaving as its
result the ecclesiastical metropolis at Jájpur, and the
Potato-Growing Brähmans, who have sunk into the
peasant population. In Bengal the great monarch” of
the eleventh century put forth his authority to prevent
or to obliterate so unseemly a result. He accepted as
the basis of his classification the orthodox number five
and its multiple, a number to which I shall hereafter
refer. The pious king of the tenth century had brought
down ſºve Brähmans” from Oudh, and his successor in
* The Vaidyas, perhaps more correctly a Kshattriya line, as they
appear to have been connected with the Oudh prince Vír Sinh.
140 The Páls.
* According to the Bráhman chronologers, in 914 Sakábda, or 991 A.D.
The name of the pious monarch was Adisur. Another tradition speaks of a
Second importation of five Bráhmans in Io99 A.D. 14° King Ballal Sen.
* (1)Sriharsha (Delight); (2) Bedgarbha (the Container of the Veda);
(3) Chhándar (i.e. Chhanda-Veda, Learned in the Veda); (4) Daksha (Skil-
25o BRAHMAAW ‘OUZSIDERS, BEAVGAZ.
the eleventh divided the country for Brähmanical pur-
poses into five regions,” which gave the sept names” to
the priests inhabiting them. He found the descendants
of the emigrants distributed into fifty-six rural communes
scattered over the kingdom, a fact which discloses, if
not an invasion, at least a wholesale migration from the
north. These he arranged into fifty-six distinct septs,
each of them called after the name of the locality in
which it had settled.*
But the utmost efforts of royal authority failed to
obliterate the internal distinctions of race and caste which
separated the Brähmans of Bengal as elsewhere. Even
the above comprehensive classification left out a large
population who enforced their title to Bráhmanhood, but
who did not live within the fifty-six Brähman settle-
ments. The number thus excluded is variously stated,
the lowest estimate being seven hundred families; to which
other genealogists add the Vaidik, or old Brähmans, and
the Mithilás, or the priestly caste of Tirhut. The truth is,
that the Bengal classification only included the Brähmans
living within the fifty-six royal settlements. These bear
the title of the village Brähmans” to the present day,
while the other families who enforced their title to
Bráhmanhood still retain the name of the Outsiders.”
But the distinctions and discrepancies do not cease here.
For among the Outsiders certain tribes” enjoy a sanctity
ful, also the name of the first father-in-law of Siva); and (5) Bhattanārāyan
(The Learned Nārāyan).
144 Värendra, Rárhi, Banga, Bagri, and Mithilá. 145 Srenis.
146 Of the fifty-six septs, 8 rank as Mukhya Kulins, or Kulins of the
first class; 14 as Gauno Kulins, or Kulins of the second class; and 34 as
Srotriyas, or Non-Kulins. * Gáins, i.e. belonging to a village.
148 Nangáins, including the Vaidiks, the Nansis or Saptasatis, the
Mithilás, Bagris, Pitáris, Jabáris, Barans, and Agradánis.
149 The Vaidiks, divided into Dakshínátyas or ancient Vaidiks, who dwelt
in Bengal before Adisur’s importation, and Paschátyas or recent arrivals.
PEASANT BRAHMAMS, CENTRAZ INDIA. 25 I
superior even to that of the highest of the fifty-six in-
cluded castes, and keep themselves even more strictly to
spiritual functions; while others, such as those of the
Seven Hundred” clans, admit their inferiority to the
lowest of the included septs.” In short, in Bengal as
elsewhere, the attempt to represent the Brähmans as a
homogeneous entity has failed.
Passing to Orissa, we find the Brähmans still more
widely separated from each other by occupation, and
probably by race. I have already given the legendary
origin of the two classes, and described the degraded
state of the peasant Brähmans, or Potato-Growers. The
same phenomenon presents itself in the mountainous
tracts towards Central India. The Aryan colonization
of these inner regions dates from a comparatively recent
period. From time to time, the Brähmans of Orissa
have sent forth colonies into the western hill country,
where they found employment in the courts of the petty
princes. Their descendants assert high pretensions to
sanctity, but they are in reality a lazy, improvident class,
who live chiefly by begging, and who are inferior in all
essentials to the so-called Jungle Brähmans,” whom
they found already in the country, and whom they
had to admit to nominal Brāhmanhood. These Jungle
Bráhmans form one of the most respectable of the cul-
tivating castes. Frugal, hard-working, and intelligent,
they till their hereditary acres or engage in trade. Their
origin loses itself in antiquity; but they represent the
remnants either of a pre-historic Aryan migration, or of
the aboriginal rural aristocracy, whose real history the
* The Saptasatis.
* i.e. to the thirty-four Srotriyas, or Non-Kulin septs of the fifty-six
included tribes.
* The Jhārwār Brähmans.
252 PEASAWT BRAHMANS, CENTRAL INDIA.
new Brähmans have tried to disguise. Here as else-
where, no connection, either domestic or social, exists
between the two divisions of the so-called Brähman
CaSte. ---
Hitherto I have dealt with the Bráhmans of North-
ern India, who are popularly supposed to be divided
into five great families,” claiming a common origin, and
forming a homogeneous and hereditary priesthood. I
have shown that in the very Provinces specially identi-
fied with each of the five members, there exists not one,
but at least two, sorts of Brähmans, separated from
each other by occupation, by absence of the fus commuðið,
and in some cases at least by race. In my survey I
have not referred to accidental degradations arising from
breach of caste rules, or from taking service with the
lower ranks of the Hindus. In Southern India, where
the Aryan colonists were fewer and more scattered, the
co-existence of at least two widely separated classes of
Brähmans stands out in even greater distinctness. Here
also the Brähmans pretend to a common origin, divided
as in the north into five septs.” But we shall see that
outside of these recognised families a vast population
exists who claim the name of Brähmans, but who cannot
be identified with the true caste, and whose existence
has to be accounted for by extravagant local fables.
Many of the Brähman migrations into Southern
India belong to distinctly historical times. A legend of
the districts to the south of Orissa relates how, in the
fifteenth century, a great colony of priests, driven down-
* They assert a common origin from the Gaur race of Bráhmans; and
their five branches are: (1) the Gaur proper, (2) the Kanauj, (3) the Sáraswat,
(4) the Mithilá or Maithil, and (5) the Orissa or Utkal.
* The Drávira family, divided into (1) Drávira, (2) Karnātſ, (3) Telingá,
(4) Gujrátí, and (5) Maháráshtra or Marhattá.
BRAHMANS OF Southerw INDIA. 253
wards by a famine in the north, settled on the Crown
lands.” But they soon found themselves mingled with
a mixed mass, who asserted a title to Bráhmanhood.
They accordingly drew up a scheme of classification,
which survived till the beginning of the present cen-
tury. Unlike the similar arbitrary classifications of other
Provinces, it assigns the highest rank to the first arri-
vals; and the successive migrations, instead of degrading
their predecessors, had themselves to accept a lower
rank. The explanation probably is, that the original or
Buddhist Brähmans here mustered in such strength as to
resist the pretensions which the more recent emigrants
from the north have in most other Provinces been able
to enforce. But while one section of them asserted the
priestly dignity, another part of the so-called Bráhmans
followed the degraded calling of hereditary village
police.”
In the Krishná Valley, a little farther south, tradition
assigns the settlement of the higher sort of Brähmans to
an invitation by an aboriginal, and probably a Buddhistic,
prince” of the third century A.D. The legend closely
corresponds with the Brähman colonization of Orissa by
the Sivaite dynasty, upon the decline of Buddhism, at
the end of the fifth. The Bráhmans of the western side of
* In the reign of Pratāp Rudra, King of Warangúl, whose reign varies
from 1323 to 1476 A.D. It is not necessary for my present purposes to
settle the precise date. The legends of the upper Godávarí District place
him in the fourteenth century; the Vijayanagaram chronicles prefer the
fifteenth. Inedited Ms. folios of the Mackenzie Papers in the Bengal
Asiatic Society’s Library, vol. vi. pp. 73–Ioo, vol. x. pp. 35–38, and vol. xv.
pp. 325–329. For the earlier date, see the Central Provinces' Gazetteer,
p. 499. Nagpur, 1870.
* Mackenzie Ms., vol. x. pp. 35–38.
* Munkunti Pahlava, King of Dharaníkota. Other migrations, at the
beginning of the present era, have also left their indistinct traces in the local
traditions of the Krishna Delta.
254 ABORIGINAL BRAHMANS, MALABAR.
the Peninsula aspire to a more venerable antiquity. In
bygone ages, says the Malabar legend, the sea washed
the foot of the mountains which now lie ten to twenty
miles inland, and the hillmen fished from their slopes. In
those days, the great Parasuráma” dwelt near Goa, but
the shame of his mother's misdeeds made him leave the
place. Inspired by a divine impulse, he seized a rice
winnow, and hurled it from the mountains southwards
across the sea, as far as Cape Comorin. Forthwith the
tract of ocean over which the winnow had passed dried up
into the long level strip of country now called Malabar.”
Here he sought a retreat. The fishermen soon
flocked down from the mountains, however, and settled
around his asylum. But amid these low castes no
Brähman could be found; so the sage took their nets,
and tore them into shreds, which he twisted together
into the sacred thread, and, tying it round their shoulders,
made the whole population of fishermen into Bráhmans.
In process of time, colonies of the true caste came down
from the north, and the aboriginal Brāhmans of Malabar
sunk into a despised class.” They follow different
customs from the orthodox caste, and hold that only the
eldest male of the family should marry, a deprivation
for which the younger brothers make amends, by con-
nections with women of the Nair, or aboriginal military
caste of Southern India.” Unlike the pure Brähmans,
158 The Bráhman incarnation of Vishnu.
159 For the rice-winnow another legend substitutes Parasuráma's battle-
axe ; and the hero's weapon still figures on the ancient copper coinage of
the West Coast of India.
160 Letters from Malabar, by the Dutch Chaplain, Jacob Canter Visscher,
in 1743, pp. 9, 10. Madras, 1862. Cf. Dr. Day's Land of the Permauls, p.
306. Madras, 1862. -
161 Pharoah's Southern India, p. 506. Madras, 1855. These Bráhmans
bear the name of Námburis, and are separated from the others by a great
gulf of mutual contempt. Also Dr. Day's Permauls, p. 303, etc.
FISHER BRAHMAAWS, MAZABAR. 255
they do not restrict the age within which they consider
marriage proper, although, when a girl has passed the
age of puberty, the bridegroom expects a large dowry.
They practise polygamy to an extent unknown among
the ordinary Brähmans, seven wives being the legal limit.
In appearance and dress they resemble the Nairs, and, as
might be expected, chastity is not one of the virtues of a
community which narrows the privilege of marriage to the
eldest of the family. Indeed, their whole ideas about
marriage closely resemble those of the aboriginal Nairs,
with the exception that the head of the family enters
into the permanent obligations of matrimony. The other
males retain the temporary and promiscuous polyandry
with the Nair women, characteristic of the aboriginal
castes of that part of India. These peculiar customs,
independently of the local legend, would mark an origin
distinct from the ordinary Brähmans; and their system
of concubinage is perhaps the remnant of the free con-
nection of the tribes in ancient times, before one section
of them had attained to Bráhmanhood, and its caste
rules had hardened and set. As with some of the
aboriginal races, the succession to property, among cer-
tain of their families, goes through the female line to the
nephews.” In spite of their descent from the low-caste
fisher-tribes, and of their semi-aboriginal customs, they
now claim for themselves a high rank, and in their turn
despise the more recent emigrants from the north, although
the very name of the latter” records their claim to
superior dignity. A very intelligent observer” in the first
* I have here to depend upon Pharoah, who cites certain families in
Pagnur, p. 507.
* The Pátras, from the Sanskrit pātra, excellent, accomplished.
* The Dutch Pastor Visscher above cited. Of course, on their eleva-
tion to Bráhmanhood, they abandoned their old calling as fishermen.
256 WORLDLY BRAAMAAVS, VELOA’.
half of the last century, however, states that the Malabar
Bráhmans at that time were despised as the offspring
of the low fisher-tribes. Even at the present day, I
believe they do not deny the natural superiority of the
foreign Brähmans, but say that the newcomers lost
purity by staining their hands with the blood of a tyrant
prince.” Besides these two classes, there is a third
which wears the sacred thread, and claims the title of
Brähman, but who cannot eat or intermarry with them,
and ‘who might be supposed to be of the military caste,
but that they are not permitted to bear arms.” Among
the Kankani Brähmans, the legend of their origin sur-
vives so distinctly, that the catching of a fish forms part
of their wedding ceremonial, along with the casting of a
net.” -
Proceeding inland, the same distinction of Worldly
and Vaidik Brähmans exists in Velor as in Orissa. They
do not intermarry, and the difference between them
seems to proceed from a more fundamental source than
that which separates the pure caste from the section
which has lapsed by breaches of caste rules. Some-
times, indeed, an indigent Vaidik gives his daughter to
a Worldly Brähman, but in doing so he loses his own
purity. In no sense are they the priests of the Hindu
community. A few fallen families officiate in the
temples of Vishnu and Siva, but by doing so they lose
* Buchanan's Journey, vol. ii. p. 106, etc. As I have never visited
Malabar, the above remarks are derived from local works, not personal
observation.
186 The Iliyadárs and Masids. Pharoah's Southern India, p. 508.
187 I am indebted to conversations with Dr. Francis Day, who was five
years at Cochin, for this and several other facts. The Kankáni Bráhmans
deny these ceremonies to strangers. To this day the Súdra Rájás of
Travancor are manufactured into Bráhmans on their accession by passing
through the belly of a golden cow. Day's Permauls, p. 314.
PEASAMZ" BRAHMAAWS, MYSOR. 257
all claim to connubial or social intercourse with the pure
caste; and no Bráhman, however degraded, will minister
in the popular temples of the local gods, whose altars
are stained with blood. At the time of Tipu Sultán, the
Worldly caste monopolized the petty offices of the rural
revenue, as on the other side of India they formed the
village police.
Communities of peasant Brähmans” dot the Pro-
vince of Mysor, and live equally apart from the lower
and the upper castes. They form the entire population
in several tracts, and seem to be the remnants of an old
rural aristocracy. Until the time of Tipu Sultán they
monopolized the irrigated lands, leaving the fields which
could command no water-supply to a lower caste of hus-
bandmen. Under the Hindu rule, they paid only the
same proportion of rent for their wet lands as the inferior
peasants did for the arid fields; but Tipu ignored their
privileges, and, under his strict administration of the
land revenue, numbers of them deserted their holdings.
The more pure, or at least more recent Brähmans, here
as elsewhere, disdain to touch the plough, and their
settlements seem to have been founded on conquest, as
they reduced a large body of the people to praedial
slavery. The serfs” who cultivated their lands formed
the most hardy and laborious part of the rural com-
* munity; and so sensible was Haidar Alí of their value,
that in his incursions it was the Brähmans' slaves whom
he chiefly tried to carry away, in order to form peasant
* Called Haigás, numerous in Haigá itself, and in the hill villages of
Sunda. Near Kutaki, the inhabitants are all Haigăs. Buchanān's Journey
in 1800 and 1801, vol. ii. 292, 345, 350, 394. Madras, 1870.
* The Pancham Bandam, consisting of the Pariar, the Baluan, the
Shaekliar, and the Toti. Buchanan's Journey, 1800, vol. i. p. 13. Madras,
1870.
WOL. II. - R
258 ALACKSMITH BAEAHMAAWS, MAD URA.
settlements in his own country. In the Kolar District,
also, a class of cultivating Brähmans is found.”
Proceeding southwards to Madura, the position of
the Brähmans becomes still more complicated. Indeed,
the existence of any true Brähman caste here is doubted.
The Chola Brähmans, who claim to be the oldest in the
District, do not disguise their mixed descent; and the
whole of the native Brähmans of the Province admittedly
spring from connections and compromises, such as the
pure caste in Northern India would contemplate with ab-
horrence. Even the better sort of them, although claim-
ing to belong to one of the five great southern branches,
cannot specify the particular one from which they de-
scend.” Distinct traditions relate how they came into
the country at various periods, and one legend” closely
corresponds to the Orissa story of the King importing al
body of priests from the north, in order to introduce
Siva-worship. The truth is, that the farther south we
go, the more completely does our preconceived concep-
tion of the Brähman caste diverge from the actual facts.
In Madura, even the blacksmiths aspire to the dignity of
Bráhmanhood. They form one of the undoubted Sudra,
or aboriginal castes, in the more perfectly Brähmanized
parts of India; but in common with four other” of the
principal crafts in the south of the Peninsula, they wear
the sacred thread, and refuse precedence to the admitted
Brähmans. The Brähmanical element here finds itself
* Report on Kolar District, para. 61. Bangalor Jail Press, 1869.
* The Madura Country, by Mr. J. H. Nelson, M.A., of the Civil
Service. Part ii. p. 23. Madras, 1868.
* Idem. Part iii. p. 48.
* The five castes are called the Panchála, or Kamallans, and consist
of (I) goldsmiths, (2) silversmiths, (3) carpenters, (4) blacksmiths, and (5)
Stone-Cutters. -
AZACKSMITH BAEAHMAMS, MAD URA. 259
So weak, and so accustomed to compromises with the
original population, that the priests have invented a
legend, to give a semi-Aryan descent to five castes,
which everywhere else rank as Sūdras.” A local pro-
verb" bears witness to a constant series of such compro-
mises, by which the aboriginal tribes forced a recognition
from the Brähman settlers, and obtained entrance into
the higher castes.
Crossing over to Ceylon, the process of manufac-
turing Bráhmans out of the non-Brähman population
presents itself without disguise. An ancient King of
Madura invited into his dominions an aboriginal tribe of
48,000 men from the north. Their descendants rank
high, but adhere to the rustic husbandry of a simple race.
They now refrain, however, as much as possible, from
actually holding the plough, which in ancient times was
their special occupation.” This hereditary peasant-
caste enjoy the title of the “Cultivating Brähmans’ in
Ceylon.;" although here they still preserve their ancient
occupation, and their title of Brähman has never har-
dened into a caste name. - -
Whence come these diversities in the Brähman
174 They say that they are descended from a Brähman father by a
Sethi woman. Mr. Nelson's Madura, Part ii. pp. 6 and 70.
* “The Kallan (or lowest aboriginal race) became an Ahambadiyan
(one; step, up); the Ahambadiyan became a Maravan (another step); the
Maravan became a Vellalan;’ and as we shall see in the next paragraph,
the Vellalan has obtained the title of Bráhman in Ceylon.
* The Sáthagá of Nārāyan describes their duties as follows: “The
Vellalans, by the effects of their ploughing (or cultivation), maintain the
prayers of the Bráhmans, the strength of kings, the profits of merchants, the
welfare of all. Charity donations, connubial happiness, the Vedas and all
other books, truth, reputation, the very being of the gods, come to pass by
the efficacy of the Vellalan's plough.” Abridged from Mr. Taylor's work on
the Oriental MSS., quoted in Mr. Nelson's Madura, Part ii. p. 31.
* Goi Bámano. Upham's Mahāvansſ, quoted in Mr. Nelson's Madura,
Part ii. p. 36. -
26o WHEAVCE 7//ESAE Z)/ VERS/ZYES Ž
caste 2 In every province of India our search has dis-
closed the supposed hereditary priesthood, to be not an
ethnical entity bound together by a common vocation
or a common descent, but a composite people whose
elements in some cases assert a separate origin, and
everywhere stand apart from each other by difference of
occupation, by the prohibition to intermarry, and by
deep-rooted contempt. The higher Brähmans account
for the phenomenon by saying that the lower sort has
lost caste from touching the plough; and when forced
to admit the inadequacy of this explanation, they fall
back upon the superior purity of the later migrations
from the north as compared with the first settlers.
The Veda exhibits to us a very primitive race pray-
ing to the gods for the safety of its flocks and crops
—a people of shepherds and husbandmen. In the
Epics the husbandmen and herdsmen among the
Twice-Born Tribes already appear as somewhat lapsed
lasses (Mahābh. Moksha-dharmma, sl. v.). Manu goes
'urther and denounces agriculture as absolutely degrad-
ng (iii. 165; iv. 5; Calcutta Ed.). But the caste-
system, as represented by Manu, was developed long
after the first movements of the Aryan race towards
Southern India, and never spread in its entirety beyond
Northern Hindustán. The earlier emigrants south-
ward knew nothing of its restrictions, and freely fol-
lowed their ancient occupations long after those callings
had been discarded in the headquarters of their race,
just as words and idioms obsolete for a full century
in England continue current in Pennsylvania and
Connecticut. The later Aryan adventurers who hived
southwards after the caste - system had hardened and
set in Hindustán, found India covered with settle-
AAA"/ Y AAVZ) ZAZTER MIGRA 7TWOAVS. 261
ments of common origin with themselves, but follow-
ing occupations and professing beliefs which they had
come to regard with abhorrence. They admitted them
to the bare name of Brähmans, i.e. Aryans, but in
general denied them all intercourse. Not invariably,
however; for when the newcomers arrived in small
bodies, they could not enforce their superior pretensions,
and the previous settlers who outnumbered them com-
pelled them to accept a lower rank.”
This, however, forms but a part of the explanation.
The later migrations of Brähmans or Aryans from the
north not only brought with them a more rigid caste-
system, but also a new faith. Between the religion of
the Indian Epics and modern Hinduism, stretches the
wide intermediate tract of the Bhuddistic period, a
period varying in different parts of India from two
hundred to twelve hundred years. The downfall of
Buddhism in many provinces took place amid a great
revival of the Brähmanical creed, and such revivals were
generally brought about or sustained by a migration of
Bráhmans from the north. In Bengal a migration of
this sort shines through the mists of ten centuries, as the
one great event contemporary with the foundation of an
Orthodox line of kings, and the introduction of modern
Hinduism upon the ruins of the Pál Dynasty and their
Buddhist faith. The Orissa legends preserve the de-
tails of a similar settlement of Brähmans from the north
in 500 A.D., on the expulsion of the Buddhist Yavanas
and the establishment of the Sivaite form of Hinduism.
The traditions of the Krishná valley point to a corre-
sponding migration; and in the extreme point of the
Peninsula, a Madura monarch introduced new rites by
* Cf. the Settlements under King Pratāb Rudra, King of Warangúl. -
262 DIFFERENCES OF CREED AND RACE.
means of a priestly colony from the north, exactly as the
Vaidya Dynasty did in Bengal and the Lion-line did in
Orissa. How far such royal invitations disguise inva-
sions, I need not here pause to inquire. They disclose
the fact of Buddhism being extinguished amid great
southward movements of the northern Aryans, and
the newcomers would naturally strive to degrade the
Buddhist clergy and upper classes whom they superseded.
They could not deny their claims to kindred race, and in
many cases the weakness of the modern emigrants com-
pelled them to compromises with their predecessors. But
such concessions usually amounted to equality in name
alone. As the spread of Buddhism stands out in a close,
although not always a constant, relation to the advance of
the Yavanas, so the establishment of the modern Hindu
religion belongs to a period of diffusive activity radiating
from the Brähmanical centre in Hindustán.
But in some Provinces the internal differences be-
tween the Brähmans lie deeper than this, and rest upon an
ethnical basis. From remote antiquity two great tribes
of the Indo-Aryans appear in bold contradistinction to
each other, the Kshattriyas and the Brähmans. The
latter in the end obtained the supremacy, and their
superior culture made them the sole chroniclers of the
strife. But even their partial legends describe twenty-
one great struggles, each closing with the alleged extir-
pation of the Kshattriyas, but the next one always
opening with them as rampant as ever. The contest
brought down Vishnu himself upon the scene, and his
Brähman incarnation” was devoted to sweeping the
Kshattriyas from the face of the earth. In spite of
their celestial allies, however, the Brähman legends
17° His sixth, as Parasuráma.
J)/FFEREAVCES OF RACE. 263
faintly disguise the fact that in some cases at least they
had to make terms with the rival tribe, as in the Vis-
wāmitra episode in the Mahābhārata, already alluded to.
It seems in accordance with the facts of universal history,
that in this long struggle the Brähmans should seek
alliance with the aboriginal tribes, and that such alliances
should in some cases end in an amalgamation more or
less complete of the two races. Accordingly we find
the Brähman incarnation of Vishnu manufacturing a
whole population of Brähmans out of the fisher tribes of
Malabar; and the story which crops up in so many Pro-
vinces, of the low castes being made into Bráhmans in
order to attend a royal sacrifice, probably veils an ethni-
cal syncretism of the same sort. At Jaipur it is five
septs of Brähmans that were thus manufactured; in
Bhagalpur, IOO,OOO families; in Oudh, 125,000; and
generally, although not always, some incarnation of
Vishnu in quite pre-historic times appears on the scene
to perform the operation. The Aryan Brähmans ex-
tended the use of their name very much more sparingly
than the Romans to their subjects or allies. The abori-
ginal or low castes thus adopted into the Brähman
population never attained more than a nominal equality;
nowhere do they eat together or intermarry with the
higher class; in many places they have sunk to the
level of the labouring populace; and even in Malabar,
where they assert lofty claims, the Brähman settlers from
Upper India despise their non-Aryan origin, and ridicule
their pretensions. *
In some Provinces the lower Brähmans appear to
be the remnants of the old rural aristocracy, whom the
Aryan emigrants found settled in the land, and whom
they were compelled to adopt into the ruling class. In
264 THE BAEAA/MAAVS AS 7//E Y REALZY ARE.
the remote valleys of the Himalayas, and down the rich
tracts of the Ganges, the name of these old Brähmans
(the ‘Soilholders')” declares their immemorial connection
with the land, and the southernmost District of India
discloses an ethnical syncretism of the same sort in an
unfinished state. The Vellalans of Madura trace their
descent to an aboriginal tribe within historical times, and
a local proverb already cited records their advance in
the scale of castes. They very nearly, but not quite,
attained the rank of Peasant Brähmans on the mainland,
and a colony which they threw out to Ceylon bears the
title of “Cultivating Brähmans' in that island. This
honorific has not yet hardened into a caste name; but,
taken along with the previous history of the race, it ex-
hibits in an inchoate stage the process by which the abori-
ginal tribes may have attained to Peasant Brähmanhood.
I trust that other local observers may begin where I
have left off. Hitherto English historians have servilely
accepted the artificial classifications and one-sided legends
of the Brähmans with regard both to themselves and
the other Indian castes, and the result has been a series
of historical dogmas as uninteresting as they are un-
natural and untrue. Local observation alone will correct
these fables, and substitute for the rectangular absurdi-
ties which the priestly chronicles have made to fit into
the rigid Brähmanical mould, those free and irregular
movements which give grace and truth to history. My
existing materials do not allow me to venture upon any
comprehensive theory, although I think that these pages
reveal for the first time the truth about the spread of the
Aryans or Brähmans through India. It suffices for the
present, that the facts now brought together demolish the
189 Bhuinhárs, or Zamindårs.
BRAHMAN MEMOAZAZS, JA/PUR. 265
old idea of the Brähmans as an exclusive priesthood,
claiming a common origin, and adhering through thou-
sands of years to their sacred functions. They exhibit
the Brähmans as plastic as the rest of mankind, changing
with the altered beliefs and necessities of the Indian
world, amenable to social, perhaps to ethnical compro-
mises, and destitute of those august prescriptive rights
which so long stood in the way of legislation and reform.
We have seen that in several Provinces they are em-
phatically not the priesthood of the people, and that so
far from being an ethnical entity following an imme-
morial vocation, they contain within their caste every
trade and calling. We have seen the Brähmans as
shepherds, as ploughers of the soil, as potato-growers;
as brickmakers, bricklayers, and petty traders; as car-
penters, stone-cutters, blacksmiths, and village policemen,
who in India rank very low in the social scale; as the
descendants of the aboriginal fisher tribes; as arbitrarily
manufactured out of the promiscuous low castes; as day-
labourers and as menial servants.
The priestly settlement at Jájpur has left memorials
not unworthy of the ecclesiastical capital of Orissa.
During two days I wandered among the ruins of the
Sivaite faith, amid dilapidated temples, time-worn flights
of river stairs, statues ignominiously cast upon their
faces, noseless gods, and jungle-buried monoliths. What-
ever Musalmán bigotry could destroy has perished; and
the grave of an Afghān iconoclast, quarried out of Hindu
shrines, now forms the most conspicuous monument in
the metropolis of the Sivaite priests. The Muhammadans
of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries stabled their
horses in the Hindu palaces, and tore down the great
temples stone by stone, to build royal residences for
266 BRAHMAAW MEMORIALS, JA/PUR.
their own chiefs. At first the Orissa deities, who became
the demons of the Musalmáns, as the gods of Greece
and Rome furnished devils to primitive Christendom,
resisted by signs and portents. But there came a saint”
in the Afghān army, whose detestation of the infidel had
transported him from Central Asia to the Bay of Bengal,
and whose piety (or persecution) cowed the evil spirits
of the bygone creed into silence. He threw down the
colossal statues of the Hindu gods, and for nearly three
centuries they have lain prostrate under his mystical
spells. The great high place of Sivaism resounded with
the Friday prayers and the daily readings of the Kurán;
and a curious document, dated 2 IO years ago, still en-
joins the Jájpur authorities to pay the charge for lamps
to the Musalmán family in charge of the public mini-
stration of Islam. Towards the end of that century a
noble mosque rose out of the inexhaustible quarries
which the ancient temples supplied.” But it was reserved
for the English to put the finishing-stroke of ruin to the
royal and sacred edifices of Jájpur. The Magistrate
recently regretted that our Public Works officers had
torn down the last remnants of the ancient palace, and
built bridges along the trunk road with the stones.
But even the iconoclast fury of Islam, and the
vandalism of the English Public Works Department,
have failed to obliterate the artistic magnificence of the
Lion-line. A well-proportioned column, similar to the
Sun Pillar, of which an engraving will be found at page
290, rises above the jungle, and bears traces of the
impotent fury of the Musalmán troops. The Afghāns
181 Alí Bukhár, or Bukhári Sáhib, a fanatical follower of Kálápahár in
the sixteenth century.
* Built by Nawāb Abu Nasír, in the reign of Aurangzeb, 1681 A.D.
SCULPTURED MONOLITHS, JA/PUR. 267
tried to drag it down by chains and teams of elephants,
but the barbarian conquerors of the sixteenth century
found themselves unable to destroy the graceful Hindu
creations of the tenth. They managed, however, to pull
down the Sacred Vulture” which crowned its Capital, and
the exquisite shaft lifts its dishonoured head in witness
against a creed which sought the glory of God in the
destruction of the fairest works of man. -
The bigotry of Islam defeated itself. The most
important monuments at Jájpur owe their preservation
to their having been thus thrown on their faces, and kept
immoveable on the ground by the spells of the warlike
saint. Three colossal statues lay prone for more than
two centuries; and when, in 1866, a spirited young
Magistrate determined to raise them, the populace
warned him that the sacrilege would make the holy man
uneasy in his tomb. ‘Notwithstanding this objection,'
runs the official report with inflexible humour, ‘the
figures have been raised and placed on the river bank,
in that piece of ground where most of the public build-
ings stand.’” They consist each of one enormous block
of chlorite, towering, even in their sitting posture, far
above the heads of puny mortals, and represent the
Queen of Heaven,” the Earth Goddess who took on
herself a mortal form * to become the wife of the Boar
Incarnation of Vishnu, and the Goddess of Destruction,”
the tutelary genius of the place. These colossal monoliths
must have been dragged across the river-intersected delta
from the mountains of the Tributary States a hundred
188 The Garur. - -
* From Mr. Joseph Armstrong, C.S., Assistant Magistrate in charge of
Jájpur, to the Magistrate of Cattack, No. 67, dated 4th Sept. 1866. C. R.
* Indránſ, wife of Indra, God of the Atmosphere.
186 Varāhinſ. 187 Kálf.
268 SCULPTURED MONOLIZHS, /A/PUR.
miles off, and their hard blue stone still bears witness to
the fine chisellings of early Hindu art.” The Queen of
Heaven, a four-armed goddess, sits in calm majesty, with
an admirably cut elephant as her footstool. A muslin
drapery” falls in delicate curves to her feet, and is
fastened by a girdle at the waist. Elaborate ornaments
cover her breast, and her hair towers up in a cone of
curls interwoven with rich gems, with a single massive
tress hanging down upon either shoulder. *
The Earth Goddess, who became the wife of the
Boar Incarnation of Vishnu, sits with her infant on her
knee, and, like the other two, consists of a colossal
monolith eight feet high by four in breadth. Magnificent
bracelets adorn the wrists and shoulders of her four arms,
and the little finger of her left hand proves that Hindu
ladies of that remote period wore rings. Heavy necklets
almost hide the bosom and waist, which her muslin
drapery, as in the first figure, leaves half-bare. Bell-
bangles encircle her ankles, crescent-shaped earrings de-
pend from her ears, and on her head she wears a jewelled
tiara, with the hair done up into a tower of curls, and a
heavy tress falling upon each shoulder. She sits on a
finely carved buffalo, the artistic lines of whose head and
muzzle form a striking contrast to the miserable con-
ventionalities which represent the sacred bull in front
of Siva shrines at the present day. A temple to her
husband, the Boar Incarnation, crowns a time-worn flight
of stairs leading up from the river, adorned with a curious
relief of the Sun God, but in other parts disfigured by
the obscene sculpture which disgraces Vishnuvite art.”
188 900 to 1200 A.D. 189 Sári.
190 This Barāha Temple was the work of King Pratāb Rudra Deo,
1504–1532 A.D., but the Sun-slab which is stuck into the wall belongs to a
much earlier date. Purúshottama Chandriká, p. 50.
SCULPTURED GAZZERY, /A/PUR. 269
The most striking of the three monoliths, however, is
the Wife of the All-Destroyer-a colossal naked skeleton,
with the skin hanging to the bones, and the veins and
muscles standing out in ghastly fidelity. This appalling
symbol of human decay has her hair brushed back under
a snake fillet, with a death's-head over her forehead, and
the distended hood of the cobra as a canopy above.
Her serpent tresses fall down in twisted horror over her
cheek. An endless string of skulls winds round her neck,
her breast, her loins, and whole body. She sits upon a
small figure of her husband, the God of Destruction, and
the 'whole rests upon a lotus-leafed pedestal.” In a
curious gallery overlooking the now dried-up bed of the
river, another figure of the Goddess of Destruction ranks
with the parent of the God of Death among the Seven
Mothers of Hindu Mythology.” They form a series of
beautifully-carved but sometimes revolting monoliths, to
whose terrors the darkness of the gallery gives additional
effect. The Goddess of Destruction here stands in the
moment of her victory over the demon-host,” leaping
with savage joy, a brimming cup of blood in one of her
four hands, and her battle-axe in another. Her husband,
fearful lest the shaken universe should split in pieces
under the dancing fury, has thrown himself beneath her
feet. The mother of the God of Death looms through
the darkness as ‘a hideous, decrepit old woman, seated
on a pedestal, quite naked, with a countenance alike
expressive of extreme old age, and of that sourness of
disposition which has rendered her proverbial as a scold.’
* Not on a car (Vāhana), as supposed by Stirling in his generally
admirable sketch. As. Res. xv. 336. Serampur, 1821. -
* Indrání, Varāhini, Vaishnavſ, Kumāri, Yama-Mátrikā, Kálí, and
Rudrání. -
* With Raktavíj and Sambhu Nisambhu at their head.
27,o. SUCCESSIVE RELIGIONS AT /A/PUR.
The temple walls and monolithic sculptures of
Jájpur furnish even in their fragmentary state a chronicle
of the ever-shifting religions of India. The great flight
of steps which leads from the river to the shrine of the
Boar Incarnation, commemorates by its name * the
august Horse Sacrifice of Vedic times. Among the gods
who thronged to the ceremony came Holy Mother
Ganges; and ever since those solemn rites she has sent
an offshoot of her waters through the bowels of the earth
into Orissa, which emerges as the sacred Baitaraní River,
the Styx of the Hindus. This primitive tradition still
commands the popular belief, and the official report on
the Baitaraní, drawn up for me by the British Authori-
ties at Cattack, inaccurately stated that the river flowed
underground for a mile. Fortunately, the Commis-
sioner, who was good enough to look over the proof-
sheets, had followed the course of the stream far into the
Tributary States, and the sacred subterraneous channel
has dwindled into a thickly wooded gorge.” Sivaite wor-
ship succeeded, longo intervallo, to these Vedic legends
and pre-historic rites, and Jájpur next boasted itself the
abode of the Goddess of Destruction and of the Sivaite
Kings. On the death of his wife,” Siva wandered
disconsolate for ages through the world, carrying her
body on his head, and refusing to be comforted. But
the other deities, pitying his despondency, cut up the
corpse into fifty-one fragments, which, falling in different
places,” made the fifty-one places of pilgrimage devoted
to the Goddess of Destruction. A part dropped down
194 Das-aswamedh Ghât.
195 Vide my Statistical Account of the Tributary States, App. III.
196 In her form of Satſ, daughter of Daksha and grand-daughter of
Brahmá.
197 Piths.
SUCCESSIVE REZ/GZONS AT /A/PUR. 271
on Puri, where, even within the temple of the rival
Vishnuvite god, she is worshipped as The Stainless One.”
Another fell at Jájpur, where a temple still stands in a
lofty cocoa-nut grove to her, as the Goddess free from
Ignorance.”
On the downfall of the Sivaite line in 1132, the
bright Vishnuvite faith took up its abode in the City
of the Goddess of Destruction. During the next few
centuries the town formed the occasional headquarters
of the Vishnuvite Dynasty. The sacred bird of Vishnu
crowned the exquisite monolithic column which the
Muhammadans in vain endeavoured to throw down.
Another image of the Sacred Vulture now lies buried in
a tank. The incarnations of Vishnu form the subject of
endless sculptures and alto-relievos on the walls, and a
temple to Jagannāth himself rises close to the sculptured
gallery containing The Seven Mothers. A legend has
now naturalized the new rites in the ancient metropolis
of the Sivaite priests, and relates how Vishnu here slew a
demon” whose corpse stretched southwards to Rájmah-
endri, 400 miles down the coast. I found the whole
people Vishnuvite, the sacred plant of Vishnu outside
every house,” a temple to Balabhadra (Jagannāth's
brother) in one of the villages,” and a local Purāna, or
Sacred Poem, reciting the victory of the God over the
Demon. Even the minute ramifications of the Vishnu-
vite creed have left their representations at Jájpur.
The Sun God still drives his seven-horsed chariot on
198 Bimalá.
* Birajá ; hence Birajá or Pârvati Kshetra, the name of Jájpur and the
region round about, sacred to the wife of Siva.
* Gayá Asur. In Kendrápérá, the Subdivision immediately adjoining
Jájpur to the south-east. -
201 The Tae/sſ. 20? Ichhápur.
272 PRESENT STATE of JA/PUR.
the walls, and a colony of Sun-worshippers continues to
keep alive the sacred fire in a neighbouring grove.
The city unhappily formed the theatre of the
struggle between the Musalmáns and the Hindus in the
sixteenth century, and emerged in ruins from the strife.
‘I know spots where once stood populous villages,'
writes a recent Magistrate, ‘which have scarcely a sign
of habitation.” This contest belongs to the next chapter;
and here it will suffice to add, that notwithstanding the
ravages of war, seven separate settlements of Brähmans
still trace their descent from the immigration of the sixth
century A.D. They claim to hold their broad and fertile
lands, studded with rich cocoa-nut groves, from the Sivaite
monarch who between 474 and 52O A.D. expelled the
Buddhist Dynasty and brought in Hindu rites. A great
gulf still divides them from the surrounding peasantry,
and the Jájpur people have from time immemorial borne
an evil character for quarrelsomeness and class-litigation.
The city forms the capital of a Subdivision of the same
name, and contains the Subdivisional courts, a police
station, a post office, a charitable dispensary, the office of
an overseer of public works, and a Government Aided
Anglo-Vernacular school. The river has shifted its bed,
and flows to the north of the town, separating the District
of Cattack from that of Balasor. Jájpur still derives
much wealth from a yearly religious fair,” and from the
piety of pilgrims who come to celebrate the obsequies of
their ancestors in the City of the Goddess of Destruction.
The priests keep cows which they sell to the devotees,
298 Mr. Armstrong's Report to the Magistrate of Cattack. 4th
September 1866. , -
* Dedicated to Bárunſ, Queen of the Lord of Waters, held in March
or April, when the people flock to bathe in the holy waters of the Baitaraní.
SCHISM AMONG THE PEOPLE (650–1132 A.D.). 273
who return them as a gift to their former owners, in
obedience to a sacred maxim which enjoins each pilgrim
to present a cow to his spiritual guide as he crossed
‘the dreadful Baitaraní river.’ The city ranks fourth
in Orissa,” and contains 2169 houses with 918o in-
habitants.
But in spite of the fascinations of Siva-worship ; in
spite, too, of the shoals of obsequious priests from the
crowded north, who settled on the Crown-lands of
Orissa, Buddhism for some centuries held its own.
The Chinese pilgrim who visited India between 630
and 650 B.C., bears witness to its vigorous existence in
the delta of the Mahánadi, not less than in the delta of the
Ganges, and to the deadly conflict which was going on be-
tween it and the modernized Sanskrit faith. “In Orissa,’
he says, “there are a hundred Buddhistic monasteries,
containing about ten thousand cenobites. There are
also heretics (Bráhmanists) who frequent the temples of
the (Sanskrit) gods. The partisans of error are mingled
in wild confusion with the followers of the truth. There
remain, however, ten pillars of the Buddhist King Asoka,
the sites of frequent miracles and prodigies.” Buddhism
in Orissa does not appear to have possessed that power
of assimilation with Siva-worship which it exhibited on
the slopes of the Himálayas.” When at length it disap-
peared, it melted not into Sivaism, but into the Vishnuvite
rites of Jagannāth. The original Aryan conquerors, the
Worldly or Root-growing Brähmans of the present day,
seem to have sullenly held aloof from the royal religion,
and from its colonies of the newly-imported priests.
* (I) Cattack, (2) Balasor, (3) Purſ, (4) Jájpur, -
* Histoire de la Vie de Hiouen Thsang, par Stanislas Julien, 1853, p. 184.
* H. H. Wilson's Notes on three Tracts received from Nepal. Works,
ii. 2. 1862.
VOL. II. S
274 DECLINE OF SIVA-WORSHIP (900–1132 A.D.).
The latter, true to the orthodox instincts of Brähmanism,
continue Siva-worshippers to this hour, in spite of all the
reforming activity which has been at work during the
past four centuries in Orissa. Although Puri is now the
focus of Vishnu-worship, and notwithstanding the hun-
dred thousand Vishnuvite pilgrims that stream along its
roads, and pour out their treasure at its shrines every
year, the Brähmans generally worship Siva as their
village god, and some of their settlements” hold their
lands under grants from the Lion-line dated a thousand
years ago. In the minutest ceremony they are still the
priests of the Sivaite Dynasty. For example, an in-
scription of that dynasty speaks of the All-Destroyer
at Bhuvaneswar as the god “whom the water of the
Ganges worshippeth day and night;' and at this hour a
bustling trade goes on outside the temple gate in the
precious fluid, brought from the holy river of Bengal in
wicker-covered pitchers. They extended their influence
far into the hill country, and one of the Tributary States
still traces its foundation as a separate principality to a
Bráhman, one thousand years ago. The first Aryan
settlers, on the other hand, never were distinctively
Sivaite. They emerge upon history as Buddhists, and
at this moment they generally have a temple, not to
Siva, but to some incarnation of Vishnu, the deity who
formed the natural successor of Buddhism, as their
village shrine.
For the time drew on when Siva-worship in Orissa
was to give place to a new form of faith. The fat
maggots and creeping parasites that breed in the warm
comfort of a national creed, had eaten the religion
of the Lion-line to the core. Priestly sloth had spread
208 Sásans.
\
PUBLIC WORKS OF THE LION.ZINE (961 A.D.). 275
its fungus growth over the holy places, and the sanc-
tuary began to be polluted by the abominations which
form the reproach of the Hindu temples at the present
day. Royalty connived at the scandal, and an inscrip-
tion of about the eighth century speaks of beautiful
women “with eyes like the fickle wagtail, adorned with
jewels, and with heavy swelling bosoms,’ as the presents
of a princess to the priests.” Siva-worship had reformers
not less zealous and not less spiritually-minded than the
line of apostles who, as we have seen in Chapter III.,
built up the Vishnuvite creed. But the history of Siva-
worship in Orissa has nothing to do with these men.
They belong to other provinces. The Sivaite priest-
hood represented here no spontaneous or natural out-
come of the religious cravings of the people, but an
exotic of royalty which flourished upon the Crown-lands,
independently of the popular sympathy or of the popular
support. While, therefore, the story of Jagannāth is in-
terwoven with the religious history of the Province, the
annals of Siva-worship in Orissa deal with little else than
the building of temples and grants of lands to the priests.
The temples and the rent-free estates remain as the most
beautiful objects of the landscape at this day, but the
people have found different leaders and other gods.
The earlier kings of the Lion-line held their court
sometimes at Bhuvaneswar, the City of Temples to Siva,
and sometimes at Jájpur, the City of his Priests on the
holy river. But a warlike prince, who reigned from
953 to 961 A.D., perceived the military strength of the
tongue of land where the Mahánadi first divides into its
several branches, and founded Cattack, still the capital
of the Province. He shut out the river by means of
* Journal As. Soc. vii. 562.
276 PUBLIC WORKS OF THE LION.ZINE (Ioso A.D.).
a masonry embankment several miles long, which at
present consists of enormous blocks of hewn stone, in
some places twenty-five feet high.” The second monarch
in descent from him strengthened the new capital by
an outlying fortress on the southern bank of the river,
and thus commanded the various channels into which
the Mahánadſ, the highway between the hills and the
plains, bifurcates. A century later, the reigning prince
built the massive bridge by which the pilgrims enter
Puri at this day.” A broad river then flowed beneath
it, separating the sandy ridges of Jagannāth from the
mainland, while an inner stream coursed through what
is now the heart of the city. The bridge consists
of masses of the red ferruginous stone, known to the
geologers as laterite, the special peculiarities of which
are its softness when first quarried, and the fact that it
grows harder by exposure to the air.” The bridge
spans 290 feet of water-way by means of eighteen
arches; the central one being eighteen feet high by
fourteen feet broad, and the piers eight feet by six.
The Hindu architects did not at that time know how
to turn an arch, but they had a device of their own
scarcely less skilful; a device which they applied with ex-
quisite plasticity, alike to the lofty towers of the temples,
to the most delicate of balconies, and to the humblest gate-
* The name of the king was Makar Kesari, who ruled from 953 to 961,
according to the Palm-leaf Record. He is the Markat Kesari of Stirling,
who places his reign about thirty years later. It is doubtful whether the
whole embankment was not renewed during the Mughul period. It is cer-
tain that many parts of it do not belong to an earlier date.
* Matsya Kesari by name. Io94 to Iojo A.D. according to the Palm-
leaf Record, Purúshottama Chandriká, p. 33. Stirling ascribes the bridge to
a later monarch, but he seems to confound the building of the bridge with
the filling up of the channel beyond it by Kesari Narsinha, A.D. 1282–1307.
Compare As. Res. xv. 274 with Purúshottama Chandriká, pp. 33 and 42.
* See Appendix V., Geological Account of Orissa.
PUBLIC WORKS OF THE ZON.ZINE (1050 A.D.). 277
way or river-crossing. It consists of laying horizontal
tiers of stones one above the other, but each projecting
slightly beyond the one below it, “in the manner of
inverted stairs, until they converge near enough at the
top to sustain a keystone or cross-beam.” The super-
incumbent mass behind weighs down the slight projec-
tion in front; and when well built, such arches are almost
indestructible. Even after the keystone, with the whole
of one side, has fallen, the other half stands self-sup-
porting, and I was particularly struck with the proofs
which a native builder in one of the Tributary Hill States
adduced of their stability. It is necessarily a heavy style
of architecture, but the artistic Hindu has succeeded in
imparting to it a surprising degree of his own lithe and
supple grace.
|HIIIll
IIIHillhill III IIIlfillſ||||Illlllll lºtſIlºilſt
- |Hill lift|U: l
l
ſ
III
| illiºuſ
lillºli ſīlī;
THE HINDU ARCH.
Meanwhile Buddhism was disappearing from India,
and new creeds and mushroom dynasties rushed into the
vacuum. At the beginning of the twelfth century A.D., a
series of tribal movements took place among the mountain
principalities that overlook the eastern coast. A fertile
strip of rice land lay at their feet, and one Proli founded
218 Stirling, As. Res. xv. 337. See also Fergusson's History of Architec-
ture, vol. ii. part iii. p. 549, etc.

278 Ex7/NCzzow of THE ZON.ZINE (1132 A.D.).
a fine maritime kingdom at the expense of his neighbours.
He seized the State on the south of Orissa, which now
forms the northern part of the Madras Presidency.”
forced the neighbouring princes to swell his expedition
as feudatories, ‘branded vanquished monarchs,’ and took
and gave away kingdoms with the high-handed munifi-
cence of an Indian potentate insecure of his tenure, but
determined on building up his house while his power
lasted.” His successors quarrelled over the inheritance,
waged war on each other, burnt cities, and spread panic
far and wide. But at length one of them acknowledged
himself worsted, sued for his brother's protection, and
received in fief the southern part of the kingdom,
which ran inland from near the town of Madras to the
great mountain range of Central India.” The victorious
brother consolidated his power in the northern part of
the family territory, retaining his father's capital, and
subjecting the neighbouring States. In one of his expe-
ditions he pushed his way into Orissa, and partly by war,
partly by diplomacy, succeeded the childless monarch of
the Lion-line in II 32, and so ended that dynasty.
The origin of the new dynasty remains a matter of
dispute. The local legends point to the southern coast
as the starting-point of the race; but evidence is not
wanting to connect them with Bengal, and their family
name, the Gangetic line,” appears to support this view.”
* Its capital was Arunakunda, the modern Warangul.
* Warangul Inscription. Journal As. Soc. vii. part ii. 903 et seq.
* In a north-westerly direction, from Conjevaram to the Vindhya
Mountains.
* Ganga-Vansa.
* The Palm-leaf Record asserts that they came from the south (Purú-
shottama Chandriká, 35). The native annalist whose MS. work (Rāj-Charitra)
Stirling used, follows on the same side, and Stirling adopts this view. (As.
Res. xv. 267.) On the other hand, Mountstuart Elphinstone states that they
were a dynasty of the Gangetic valley, and even localizes their original
A&E VOLUTIO/W OF REZ/G/OAV. 279
The explanation may be, that the founder of the family”
belonged to a Gangetic house, and carried the Vishnuvite
doctrines from Bengal with him on his successful expedi-
tion to Southern India. But the weight of the evidence
leans the other way, and indicates that he belonged to a
southern dynasty which sent forth an expedition into
Bengal. Certain it is, that on the partition of Proli's
eastern sea-coast kingdom of Madras, the successful
claimant, Chor-gangá by name, pushed northwards, ob-
tained the sovereignty of Orissa, and paid royal honours
to the Vishnuvite god. His memory survives in the
name of one of the quarters of the holy city of Puri
to this day.” To him the chroniclers assign the com-
mencement on a regular plan of the Palm-leaf Records,
and within half a century his successor had built and
dedicated the existing temple to Jagannāth. -
The first act of the new dynasty was to revolu-
tionize the religion of Orissa. As its monarchs during the
seven centuries before the accession of the Lion-line had
been Buddhists, and as the Lion-line during the next
seven centuries were Siva-worshippers; so during the
past seven centuries, from the coming in of the new
dynasty in II 32 down to the present day, the reigning
house have been Vishnuvites. In each case the revolu-
tion was a gradual one; and in each the first evidence we
have of the change, manifests itself not in any wholesale
kingdom as lying round Tamluk and Midnapur. (Hist. India, 243 ; Mr.
Cowell's edition.) He supports his position by the authority of H. H.
Wilson (Pref. to Mackenzie Papers, cºxxvii.). For an elaborate account,
see Lassen's Indische Alterthumskunde, vol. iv. 17–24, also pp. 5, I4, and
968 passim. Here, as elsewhere, I confine myself to stating the conclusion
at which I have arrived, after considering the entire evidence.
219 Proli. *
... ** The Churang-Saſ, with a large tank. Purúshottama Chandriká, 35.
Chor-gangá also appears as Churang in the records. -
28o A&AE VO/ UZZOAW OF ACA2Z/G/OAV.
conversion of the people, but in an outburst of dynastic
activity in building temples to the new gods. Buddhism,
however, fought longer against Siva-worship in the fifth
century A.D. than the effete Siva-worship of the twelfth
century could hold its own against Vishnuvism. Two
centuries and four generations of the Lion-line passed
away before they raised their great temple to the All-
Destroyer. On the other hand, the new Vishnuvite
dynasty had completed its shrine to Jagannāth in little
more than half a century after its accession. Neverthe-
less, Siva-worship made some stand. As the early in-
scriptions of the Lion-line recognise the Lord Vishnu,
although they specially extol Siva, so one of the most
important of the stone writings of the new dynasty,
dating about I 174 A.D., is devoted to the praise of
Siva.” The two religions always co-existed, and repre-
senting as they do the two great instincts of the human
soul, will continue to co-exist as long as Hinduism re-
mains the creed of the Indian people. Under the Lion-
line, Sivaism, the religion of terror, was the royal creed;
but even before the accession of the new dynasty in
I 132, Vishnu-worship had begun to assert the religion of
a Divine Beneficence, and an inscription of the tenth or
the beginning of the eleventh century extols the bright
god.
Hitherto the external relations of Orissa had been
with the south; but from the incoming of the Gangetic
line a connection becomes visible between it and the
adjoining province on the north. The founder of the
dynasty appears from an inscription to have carried his
arms into the western districts of Bengal, and to have
sacked Bardwan, identified as the important city of
* Slab Inscription. Journal As. Soc. vi. 285.
PUBLIC WORKS OF THE GANGETIC ZINE, 281
that name on the East Indian Railway.” As already
mentioned, his race bore a dynastic title strongly indica-
tive of a family intercourse with the Gangetic valley;
indeed, his son is called the Lord of the Ganges.”
and the Palm-leaf Record plainly asserts that the terri-
tory of the latter king reached from the Godāvari right
up to the Gangetic valley. This statement is borne out
by other evidence;” and there can be little doubt that,
under the first vigorous princes of the new dynasty in the
twelfth century, the pre-historic monarchy of Kalinga was
again gathered up into one kingdom, embracing the whole
eastern coast of India from the delta of the great river of
Bengal to the delta of the great river of Madras.
Nor are the memorials which the early kings of the
Gangetic line have left behind them unworthy of so vast
a territory. The temple at Jagannāth has already been
described, but it falls far short of the marvellous structure
which rose in honour of the Sun fifty years later. In
Orissa, as everywhere throughout India, the thirteenth
century witnessed the last great efforts of Hindu art.
From 900 to 1300 A.D. architecture was the ruling pas-
sion of Indian princes, not less than of European kings.”
These were the four building centuries of the Indo-
Germanic race, and the same age produced the master-
pieces alike of Gothic and of Hindu art. In both
continents the national passion lavished itself not on
* Vardhamána. At one time this identification seemed to me doubtful,
although supported by the best authorities; but neither my own list of Indian
towns, numbering between four and five thousand, nor my friend Mr. Bloch-
mann's catalogue of mediaeval names, contains any other place that could
be so reasonably identified with the Vardhamána of the Warangul Inscrip-
tion. Journal As. Soc. vii. 903 et seq. .
* Gangeswara reigned 1152–1156 A.D. Purúshottama Chandriká, 36.
* Cf. Stirling, As. Res. xv. 270. &
* Mr. Fergusson’s Hist. Arch. vol. ii. book iv. 548.
282 THE ARCHITECTURAL CENTURIES (900-130 A.D.).
the palaces of the monarchs, but on the temples of the
gods. In India, architectural talent reached its meridian
with tropical swiftness, and began to wane a full century
before the graver Gothic taste of Europe betrayed the
first symptoms of decline. The slender-pointed arches
of the Western cathedrals of the fourteenth century,
the elaborate but still controlled ornamentation of their
roofs, their enriched doorways, and the exquisite tracery
of their windows, were the mature flowering of four
hundred years of sober growth. Indian architecture,
on the other hand, had lost much of its purity and
simplicity before the commencement of the twelfth cen-
tury, and had reached the maximum of ornamentation
compatible with the canons of art early in the thir-
teenth.” The works of this period surpass in their
rich and luscious beauty anything that I have seen in
Europe. Expiring Buddhism had effected its last great
compromise with Vishnu-worship, and the two com-
bined to supplant the terrors of Sivaism by a religion
of beauty. In the old settled and strongly Aryan
Provinces, the composite creed took the highly spiritual
form of Jainism. In other parts it became Vishnu-
vism either pure and simple, or Sun-worship, or some
incarnation of the bright Vishnuvite god. Thus in
Gujrát, between 1197 and 1247 A.D., two brothers built
the exquisite marble temple on Mount Abu, the richest
effort of Jain devotion, which, “for delicacy of carving and
minute labour of detail, stands almost unrivalled even in
* I have been tempted by my notes in Eastern, Northern, and Western
India, and by Mr. Fergusson's own illustrations, to place the meridian of
Hindu architecture somewhere later than he does in his Hist. vol. ii. 548;
but this in no way lessens my obligations to his delightful and admirable
writings, and may very probably be the result of my narrower field of ob-
servation.
ZTHE TEMPZE OF THE SUAV. 283
this land of patient and lavish labour.” During the
latter of these same years the reigning monarch of the
Gangetic line” reared the lovely pile that now overlooks
the Bay of Bengal at Kanārak, the temple of the Sun,
whose luscious ornamentation forms at once the glory
and the disgrace of Orissa art.
It is but a fragment, never completed, and more
than half fallen into ruins. At a remote period, Sun-
worship, driven out of Vedic India by materializing
superstitions, found shelter on the secluded eastern coast.
Its existence in Orissa in ancient times is proved not
only by the fact of a specific division of the country
being devoted to it,” exactly as Siva and Vishnu have
their well-demarcated ‘regions,’ but also by the rock
writings. It formed one of the corruptions into which
Buddhism early fell, and an inscription of the fourth or
fifth century designates the Buddhistic king who exca-
vated the cave as ‘the worshipper of the Sun.”
Its connection with Vishnuvism makes itself felt in
myths and legends. The existence of the temple of the
Sun at Kanārak, which is the only one I know of, either
in the Gangetic or the Orissa delta, is accounted for by
the following story —A son of Vishnu” having acci-
dentally looked on one of his father's nymphs in her
bath, was stricken with leprosy. The Indian Actaeon
went forth into banishment; but, more fortunate than
the grandson of Cadmus, while wandering on the lonely
shore of Orissa, was cured by the divine rays of the sun.
* Mr. Fergusson's Hist. Arch. ii. 622.
* Lánguliyā Narasinha, 1237–1282 A.D. Purúshottama Chandriká, 41.
* The Arka Kshetra. Kanārak, the site of the temple, signifies Kona +
aréa, the corner of the Sun, or the corner of Arka-Kshetra, i.e. the corner of
the region of Orissa dedicated to the Sun
* Journal As. Soc. vi. Io/4.
* In his incarnation of Krishna.
284 THE TEMPLE OF THE SUN (1237-1282 A.D.).
He raised a temple on the scene of the miracle, and to
this day the Hindu believes that a leper who with a
single mind worships the bright deity will be healed of
his infirmity. The Sun's charioteer is the brother of the
bird of Vishnu, and the peculiar polygonal columns of
Orissa are equally raised in honour of both the gods;
the only difference being, that the Sun pillars are sur-
mounted by his charioteer, and the Vishnuvite ones by
the sacred vulture. The Sun is the natural object of
adoration for an unrevealed religion. It seems in one
age or another to have been the universal deity of the
East, and it was the most beautiful of the bright Grecian
gods. From time to time there have been revivals of
Sun-worship on the largest scale, such as that which took
place throughout the Roman Empire towards the end
of the third century A.D., and which, under Diocletian,
not only gave a new life to Paganism, but introduced
a deadly heresy into the Christian Church.” In the
twelfth century, when Buddhism was finally resolving
itself into the composite creeds which succeeded it, a
similar revival seems to have taken place in Orissa.
Buddhism left behind it three heirs to the popular faith :
the Vishnu-worship, which was destined for the next
seven centuries to be the religion of the province; Jain-
worship, which still maintains a flickering existence in the
little shrine on the summit of the cave-honeycombed
hill;” and Sun-worship, for which the lovely ruins at
Kanārak were designed.
Sun-worship is a creed little susceptible of material
representation. Nevertheless its architectural remains
282 Hermogenes confounded the Sun of Righteousness with the visible
orb, and taught that Christ had put off His incarnate body in the Sun.
288 At Khandgiri, described in a previous part of this chapter.
S UAV WORSHIP ZAV OR/SSA. 285
survive in several parts of Orissa. I have mentioned
that even in Jájpur, the ancient capital of the Sivaite
dynasty, the flight of steps by which the pilgrims descend
into the Hindu Styx exhibits a granite bas-relief of the
Sun God seated on his celestial car, and drawn by seven
prancing horses. I found a similar sculpture among the
almost unknown ruins of Shergarh, and the Sun God in
his golden chariot appears among the divinities which
my native artist has figured for me as the objects of
popular adoration in Orissa. Both there and in Bengal,
the Brähmans daily repeat a prayer to the Sun after
bathing; and the stricter sort of Vishnu-worshippers re-
frain from animal food on the first day of the week,
which bears the name of Sunday alike in England and
India.” The common people on the plains merely
bow to the orb after their morning ablutions; but in
the highlands” to the north-west of Orissa, the low
castes do not break their fast till they catch a clear view
of the deity, and in cloudy weather have sometimes to
remain a day without food. During the whole harvest
month,” each Sunday brings round weekly solemnities
in honour of the bright god. Every village household
prepares a tray covered with earth, into which rice seeds
are dropped. Little earthenware cups containing pure
water are placed upon it, and on Sundays the family
priest goes through a few simple rites, pouring a liba-
tion of fresh water upon the tray, and invoking the
Sun.” All Bengal celebrates the Sun's entry into Capri-
* Rabibár (Ravi-vár).
* e.d. in Mánbhum and the western borders of Bánkurá. I have
already referred to a similar rite in the Himalayas.
* Agrahayan, falling within our November and December. - -
* Ritu-pâjá, literally season-worship. The priest must be a Bráhman
and in Brähman households any member who has received the thread may
officiate.
286 THE SUAV ZDYAVASTY OF OR/SSA.
corn” by fairs, and the great gathering at Sāgar at the
mouth of the Hugli takes place on that day. º
But the primitive fire-worship of the Veda has long
ago given place to the more materialistic superstitions
of modern Hinduism, and sun-worshippers, properly so
called,” are unknown in Lower Bengal. Little settle-
ments of them, however, still survive in Orissa. They
keep alive the undying fire, and celebrate the primitive
ceremonies; offering a burnt sacrifice of clarified butter in
their houses morning and evening, and adhering to the
archaic terms of the Vedic ritual. At the full moon they
meet together for public adoration in some retired grove.
Such a grove, rugged and torn by many an ancient
cyclone, I visited on the outskirts of Jájpur. A colony of
fire-worshippers there celebrates its rites on a masonry
platform, near to a little temple to the Lord of the
Peaceful,” the feathery palm foliage waving overhead,
and the air heavy with the perfume of flowering trees.
One of the legendary chronologies of Orissa, indeed,
gives a detailed account of a line of Sun Kings. It
intercalates this dynasty between the Lion Race and the
Gangetic or Vishnuvite Line. The former, according
to the generally received lists, succeeded the Yavanas
in 474 A.D., and gave place to the Gangetic Line in
I 132. But a subsequently compiled list” makes the
Lion Line begin in 132 B.C., and end in 655 A.D. It
fills in the next seven centuries by a Sun Dynasty of
eighteen kings, who last to I324 A.D., when the Gan-
getic Line succeeds. This chronology forms one of
288 On the last day of the month of Paus. 289 Sauras.
240 Sánteswara, a name of Siva. .
* The Vansávali, found among Mr Stirling's posthumous papers, and
printed in the Journal of the Asiatic Society for 1837. Vol. vi. part ii.
756 et seq.
THE SUAV ZDYAVASTY OF ORYSSA. - 287
many attempts by the Jagannāth record-keepers to mag-
nify their own deity. It says nothing about the Yavana
or Buddhist occupation, and cuts down the Siva Dynasty
of the Lion Line from forty-four to eight monarchs. On
the other hand, it gives a detailed account of a series of
pre-historic adventures of Jagannāth, and manufactures
the Legend of the Log into a grave narrative of dates
and reigns, which it fills with portents and fables.
Throughout it displays the two trade-marks of modern
Bráhman workmanship, the tendency to throw back
its dates as far as possible into antiquity, and a constant
effort to maintain the importance of the priests. The
king who reigned in I 128 B.C. invented wheeled car-
riages, ships, and water-mills; organized the system of
local cesses” which we found existing in the country,
and maintained 752 poets at his Court. It furnishes the
most astonishing numbers with absolute precision, and
unrolls all antiquity before our incredulous eyes. A
pious monarch of 2287 B.C. digs wells and tanks; a
later one subdues eight demons by enchantment in
1475 B.C., but eventually turns out to be our old
friend Vikramāditya, who belongs at earliest to the
beginning of the Christian era. Nor do marvels cease
even when we come to historic times. The sovereign
who reigned 1032-1059 A.D. vowed he would marry a
hundred thousand wives, but unfortunately died of
paralysis just as he reached his sixty thousandth. His
successor is suspected to have had a tail. . -
During the two following reigns terrible famines
occurred, ending in a darkness which covered the earth
for seven days, I Io?—I 143 A.D. According to this chro-
nology, the Sun monarchs began by banishing all the
242 Sáyer.
288 THE SUN TEMPLE OF ORISSA.
gods of the Siva Line, except the dread wife of the
deity. Its first king founded the Jagannāth archives
in 565–655 A.D. Its second conquered the whole
country from the Ganges to the Godāvarí. Its fourth
rebuilt the Temple of Jagannāth, 901 A.D. The eighth
built that to the Sun at Kanārak, IO59 A.D. A later
one introduced the great boat festival of Jagannāth, and
the whole dynasty seems to have oscillated between Sun-
worship and the Vishnuvite god. Stirling more mode-
rately gives a Sun Dynasty of six kings, beginning A.D.
1236 with the monarch who built the Sun Temple, and
ending in 1451.” -
The most exquisite memorial of Sun-worship in India,
or I believe in any country, is the temple of Kanārak
upon the Orissa shore. Built, according to the most
trustworthy records, between 1237 and 1282 A.D., shortly
after the triumph of the graceful Vishnuvite creed, it con-
centrates in itself the accumulated beauties of the four
architectural centuries among the Hindus. Notwith-
standing the indecent sculptures which disgrace its ex-
terior wall, it forms the climax of Bengal art, and wrung
an unwilling tribute even from the Muhammadans. My
great predecessor in the work of writing District Ac-
counts, Abul Fazl, the minister of Akbar, speaks of it
about the year 1580 in the following terms:– Near to
Jagannāth is the Temple of the Sun, in the erection of
which was expended the whole revenue of Orissa for
twelve years. No one can behold this immense edifice
without being struck with amazement. The wall which
surrounds the whole is 150 hands high, and 19 hands”
* The Dynastic name of the family was Bhānu, and the name of the
line the Sūrjya-Vansá.
* Gladwin says cubits, but the word in the original is dast. In the
THE SUV TEMPLE OF ORISSA. 289
thick. In the front of the gate is a pillar of black stone
of an octagonal form, 50 yards high. There are nine
flights of steps, after ascending which you come to an ex-
tensive open space,” where you discover a large arch”
constructed of stone, upon which are carved the sun and
stars. Around them is a border where are represented
a variety of worshippers of all tribes, some standing on
their heads, some sitting, some prostrated, some laughing,
some weeping, some bewildered, some sensible, together
with minstrels and a number of strange and wonderful
animals, such as never existed but in imagination. There
are twenty-eight other temples near to this pagoda, and
they are all reported to have performed miracles.’
The great temple alone survives, and even it seems
never to have been completed, as the foundation of the
internal pillars on which the heavy dome rested gave
way before the outer halls were finished.” A perfect
jungle of legends soon sprung up with a view to explain
the desertion of so costly and beautiful a shrine. It
formed a landmark along the coast which ships still
sight on their passage up the Bay; and inaccuracy in the
bearings, or neglect to use the lead, constantly wrecked
vessels on the shore.” The villagers explained such
following sentence he also gives cubits for yards (gaz). His excellent trans-
lation will be found in As. Res. xv. 328, and I follow it, except in seven
inaccuracies, of which the above are examples.
* In the original text, cihn. 246 Ták. .
* I am indebted for this explanation to Babu Rájendra Lála Mitra, to
whose forthcoming work on the Architecture of Orissa I would again refer
the reader for measurements and Scientific details. Stirling, in his account
of this temple, is less trustworthy than in the other portions of his valuable
essay. He gives the traditional date of 1241 for the building of the edifice.
Mr. Fergusson, in his History of Architecture, overlooks the fourfold character
of the chambers in Hindu Temples. See my Ground Plan of Jagannāth,
ante, p. I29. W
* Even Captain Horsburgh nearly met with this mishap. See his
Sailing Directions, p. 581, quarto, 1852, -
VOL. II, - T
290 SUN PIZZARS IN OR/SSA.
mishaps by a story of a huge lodestone” on the summit
of the tower, which, like Sinbad the Sailor's rock, drew
the unhappy ships on the sands; and they circumstantially
relate how a Musalmán crew at length scaled the temple,
and carried off the fatal magnet.” The priests, they
say, forthwith abandoned the desecrated shrine, and
migrated with their god to Puri. Certain it is that the
great shrine at Purſ has a little temple to the Sun within
its all-embracing walls, and the exquisite polygonal tower
which Abul Fazl mentions as outside the Kanārak edi-
fice now stands in front of the Lion-gate of Jagannāth.
The delicate proportions of this monolith may be judged
of from the accompanying plate. I found another, of
nearly equal beauty, although of much more modern
workmanship, outside a temple in one of the loneliest
parts of the Delta.” A third column of the same type,
but dedicated to Vishnu, and formerly surmounted by his
sacred vulture, has survived the iconoclastic ravages of
the Musalmáns at Jájpur, and half a century ago such
pillars were common throughout Orissa. They resemble
the Buddhist columns; * and in this, as in its rosaries,
monastic attitudes, and laws of ornamentation, Hinduism,
and especially Vishnu-worship, borrowed its architecture
from the ancient monotheistic faith. -
The Sun Temple at Kanārak now forms a pic-
turesque ruin looking down upon the sea. It lies nine-
teen miles north-west of Jagannāth, and will well repay
a visit from any lover of art. On the 4th February
1870, I started from Purí about midnight by palanquin,
and reached Kanārak at daybreak. We found our tents
* Kumbha-páthar. aso As. Res. xv. 327.
* At Kendrápérá, between the Orissa Sundarban jungles and Jájpur.
252 Láts. - - * -
------------
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3.
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7 :
: ;
2 :
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2. 5.
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--- twº sº º :



THE SUM TEMPZE AT KAMARAK. 291
pitched under three fine old banyan trees fifty yards
from the temple, on the skirt of a grove of cocoa nuts,
palms, and mangoes, from amid which two ancient
shrines peeped out. A jungle of delicate-leafed shrubs
of the citron tribe lay in front of the dilapidated pile,
and the roar of the sea came faintly over the sandy
ridges which lay between us and the shore. No traces
of the outer wall remain, the Marhattá officers having
carried away the stones as building materials to Puri;
and of the temple, which in a complete state would have
consisted of four” chambers, only a single one, the Hall
of Audience, survives. Its great doorway facing the
east is blocked up by masses of stone and festooned
with creepers. In front rises a huge mound of jungle-
covered rubbish, the remains of the outer Hall of Offer-
ings. Sculptures in high relief, exquisitely cut, but of
an indecent character, cover the exterior walls, and bear
witness to an age when Hindu artists worked from
nature. The nymphs are beautifully shaped women,
in luscious attitudes; the elephants move along at the
true elephant trot, and kneel down in the stone exactly
as they did in life. Some of the latter have, however,
the exaggerated ear and conventional mouth of modern
Hindu sculpture, and the lions must have been altogether
evolved from the artists' inner consciousness. Each of
the four doorways, on the north, south, east, and west,
has two lintels of chlorite, a bluish slate-like stone, very
hard, and exquisitely polished. On these lintels rest
two massive beams of iron supporting the wall above.
The eastern entrance was till lately surmounted, as in
other Orissa temples, by a chlorite slab, on which the
emblems of the seven days of the week, with the ascend-
* Wide ante, p. 129.
292 - THE SUAV ZEMAZAZ ZAV 1820.
ing and descending modes, are carved.* The beauty
of this elaborate piece proved to it a more fatal enemy
than time itself, and tempted English antiquarians to
try to remove it by sea to the Museum at Calcutta.
A grant of public money was obtained, but it sufficed
only to drag the massive block a couple of hundred
yards, where it now lies, quite apart from the temple,
and as far as ever from the shore. The builders of
the twelfth century had excavated it in the quarries of
the Hill States, and carried it by a land journey across
swamps and over unbridged rivers, for a distance of
eighty miles.
I can only describe Kanārak as a ruin; but lovely
as it still is, it presented beauties half a century ago that
have now disappeared. Mr. Stirling visited it about
1820, and has left behind him the following tasteful
account: ‘The skill and labour of the best artists seem
to have been reserved for the finely polished slabs of
chlorite which line and decorate the outer faces of the
doorways. The whole of the sculpture on these figures,
comprising men and animals, foliage and arabesque pat-
terns, is executed with a degree of taste, propriety, and
freedom, which would stand a comparison with some of
our best specimens of Gothic architectural ornaments.
The workmanship remains, too, as perfect as if it had
just come from the chisel of the sculptor, owing to the
extreme hardness and durability of the stone. A tri-
angular niche over each doorway was once filled with a
figure cut in alto-relievo, emblematic of the deity of the
place, being that of a youth in a sitting posture, holding
in each hand a stalk of the true lotus, the expanded
flowers of which are turned towards him. Each archi-
* The Nava-graha described in next paragraph.
THE SUN TEMPLE IN 1870. 293
trave has, as usual, the Nava-graha, or nine Brähmanical
planets, very finely sculptured in alto-relievo. Five of
them are well-proportioned figures of men with mild and
pleasing countenances, crowned with high pointed caps,
and seated cross-legged on the lotus, engaged in reli-
gious meditation. One hand bears a vessel of water,
and the fingers of the other are counting over the beads
of a rosary which hangs suspended. The form of the
planet which presides over Thursday (Vrihaspati or
Jupiter) is distinguished from the others by a flowing,
majestic beard. Friday, or Venus, is a youthful female,
with a plump, well-rounded figure. Ketu, the descend-
ing node, is a Triton whose body ends in the tail of
a fish or dragon; and Ráhu, or the ascending node, a
monster all head and shoulders, with a grinning, gro-
tesque countenance, frizzly hair dressed like a full-blown
wig, and one immense canine tooth projecting from the
upper jaw. In one hand he holds a hatchet, and in the
other a fragment of the moon.”
Among the life-sized pieces, elephants crouch in
terror under rampant lions, while mutilated human figures
lie crushed beneath the flat, pulpy feet of the elephants.
Clubmen, griffins, warriors on prancing horses, colossal
figures of grotesque and varied shape, stand about in
silent stony groups. The elephants have the flabby
under-lips of nature, and exhibit a uniformity in all the
essential points of their anatomy, with a variety in pos-
ture and detail, which Hindu art has long forgotten.
Two colossal horses guard the southern façade, one
perfect, the other with his neck broken and otherwise
shattered. The right hand stallion has a Roman nose,
prominent eyes, nostrils not too open, and in other re-
* As. Res. xv. 332. Serampur, 1825.
294 JTS SCULPTUREZ) MOMOZAZTHS.
spects carved from a well-bred model; excepting the
jowl, which is bridled in close upon the neck, making the
channel too narrow, a mistake which I have also noticed
in the ancient sculptures of Italy and Greece. The legs,
too, have a fleshy and conventional look. He is very
richly caparisoned with bosses and bands round the face,
heavy chain armour on the neck, tasselled necklaces,
jewelled bracelets on all four legs, and a tasselled breast-
band which keeps the saddle in position. The saddle
resembles the mediaeval ones of Western chivalry, with
a high pummel and well-marked cantle, but has a modern
girth, consisting of a single broad band clasped by a
buckle outside the fringe of a sumptuous saddle-cloth.
The stirrup irons are round, like those of our own
cavalry. A scabbard for a short Roman sword hangs
down on the left, a quiver filled with feathered arrows
on the right, while a groom adorned with necklaces and
breast jewels runs at the horse's head, holding the bridle.
The fierce war-stallion has stamped down two of the
enemy; not kicking or prancing, but fairly trampling
them into the earth. These appear to be Rákshasas
or aborigines, from their woolly hair, tiger-like mouths
and tusks, and their short curved swords like the na-
tional Gurkhá weapon,” half bill-hook, half-falchion, and
equally suited for ripping up a foe, or for cutting a path
through the jungle. They wear heavy armlets, but no
defensive armour, excepting a round shield made of
several plies of metal richly carved, with a boss in the
centre, and tassels or tufts of hair hanging down from
it. The shields appear to have borne some heraldic
device, and the most perfect of them still exhibits two
lizards climbing up on either side of the boss, done to
256 Kukuri.
IZS PYRAMIDAZ SCULPTURED ROOF (1870). 295
the life. Such quasi-armorial bearings frequently appear
in Qrissa. Stirling noticed one at Bhuvaneswar in 1820,
and the chiefs of the adjoining Tributary States have each
a heraldic device or emblem of signature, handed down
in their families from remote generations.”
A pyramid-shaped roof rises by terraces of exqui-
sitely carved granite to a lotus-crowned pinnacle. Viewed
from below, this lofty expanse of masonry looks as if
one could not place a finger on an unsculptured inch. I
clambered up to it by means of a vast pile of stones,
the ruins of the Towered Sanctuary to which the existing
hall only formed an outer chamber; forcing my way
through the jungle of camelia-leafed creepers and flower-
ing shrubs which clothe its desolation, and from which
rose clouds of brown feathery butterflies fringed with
white. Every now and then a hawk started screaming
from the mingled mass of foliage and masonry, and after
a dart into space returned in converging circles, hoping to
pounce on one of the doves which kept cooing and rustling
inside the Temple. The monkeys dashed about, now
holding on by one hand to a projecting figure, and swing-
ing their bodies over into the air; then burying themselves
behind clusters of ivy-like creepers, chattering and grin-
ning to the full circumference of their white teeth. The
roof rises by three tiers, each consisting of a number
of receding layers of masonry. It forms, as it were,
three lofty flights of steps, covered with elephants, horses,
cavalry, and foot-soldiers, in endless processions. Innu-
merable luscious busts of nymphs stand out from the
mass of carving, while images of the four-headed Brahmá
look towards the sea, and shed the sanction of religion
* See my Stat. Account of Trib. States, App. III.; also As. Res. xv.
3Io, and Trans, Bombay Asiatic Soc. i. 217, etc.
296 AZS AYRAMZOAZ SCUAEA'7"O.R.E.Z) ROOF
on the aerial sculptured world. The favourite musical
instruments of the thirteenth century among the Hindus
seem to have been the guitar, the little drum,” and the
cymbals, just as at the present day. The nymphs are
rather over life size, with swelling breasts, full throats, and
delicately retreating heads, models of voluptuous woman-
hood, passionate creations in stone. They wear their.
hair in enormous chignons, projecting horizontally from
behind. A head-dress falls in graceful festoons across
both temples, ending in a golden boss at either ear, from
which hang elaborate earrings. Their necklaces consist
of many plies of the Tulsi bead, and fall in a triangular
shape upon the bosom. Each arm has a handsome
bracelet just below the shoulder, and a still more elabo-
rate one at the elbow. Their ornaments—ornaments so
abundant, however, as to form a sort of clothing—supply
their only drapery above the waist, which a girdle of
many folds encircles. From this, a garment of gauzy
muslin falls upon the limbs, but scarcely conceals their
delicate curves. The whole is carved in reddish granite
highly polished, and just enough touched by time to give
a softness to the sweet profiles and voluptuous busts
which stand out against the blue sky.
If all this ungrudging labour was lavished on merely
the Outer Chamber, we may judge of the magnificence
of the Towered Sanctuary, whose ruins now form the
jungle-covered hill behind. This inner edifice, if it was
ever completed, finds no place in Abul Fazl's descrip-
tion, and had probably tumbled down before his day
(1580 A.D.). But its size may be inferred from the pro-
portions of other temples belonging to the same order,
and a restored elevation of it will be found in Mr. James
* Nágara.
THE HINDU ARCH AS A ROOF, 297
Fergusson's delightful work.” The enormous pyramidal
roof of the still existing Outer Chamber rests on walls
sixty feet high,” and rises other sixty-four feet above
them. It furnishes an admirable illustration of the
Hindu Arch as applied to roofing, and consists of layers
of masonry each projecting a little beyond the one below
.it, like inverted stairs, and so converging eventually at
the top. Hindu architecture, from its very commence-
ment in Orissa, 500 A.D., seems to have had an unlimited
command of iron; but the metal clamps upon which the
builders of the City of Temples in the sixth century so
much depended, are here more sparingly used. The archi-
tects of the twelfth century trusted to their improved
mechanical appliances for lifting enormous weights, and
kept the converging layers of the roof in position by the
mass of masonry behind. They handled their colossal
beams of iron and stone with as much ease and plasticity
as modern workmen put up pine-rafters, and fitted in
blocks of twenty to thirty tons with absolute precision
at a height of eighty feet. The lower part of the roof,
however, was supported not only by the superincumbent
mass behind, but also by enormous monolithic pillars
forty feet high. The sandy ridge, the only foundation
which the architect could find so near the shore, yielded
under these vast blocks. By degrees the columns sank,
and the inner layers of the roof, thus deprived of part of
the support on which they depended, came down with
a crash. The ruins now lie heaped upon the floor, a
gigantic chaos; and the contrast between their unwieldy
bulk, and the laborious sculpture which covers almost
* Hist. Arch. ii. 591, ed. 1867.
* In the time of Stirling, As. Res. xv. 329. The accumulations around
their base have now decreased their height.
298 PVRAMIDAZ ROOFS AAWD CONICAZ Z2OMES.
every square inch outside, forces on the memory Bishop
Heber's criticism, that the Indians built like Titans, and
finished like jewellers.
The pyramidal temple roof forms one of the most
typical features of the religious architecture of the
Hindus. In the Outer Chambers the overlapping
national arch is manipulated into a gently converging
apex; in the Towered Sanctuaries it takes the shape,
so to speak, of a conical dome.” In the former the
pyramidal roof requires the internal support of pillars,
and sometimes also of colossal rafters of iron. But in the
latter the roof converges more slowly into a cone, and the
weight behind sustains the overlapping of each successive
tier of masonry. The Hindus never could form a perfect
dome till the Muhammadans taught them to turn the arch,
but they formed a conical dome almost as plastic and as
enduring as the true circular one. Even in the Outer
Chamber of the Sun Temple, when the pillars had fallen
down, the massive blocks of the roof sufficed by their
own weight to sustain their pyramidal converging tiers.
Sun-worship in Orissa formed one of the religions
into which Buddhism disintegrated; a religion of the
Vishnuvite type, identified with the Vishnuvite Dynasty,
opposed to the dark rites of the Sivaite kings, and
destined, after running a brief but beautiful course, to
give place to the warmer form of Vishnuvism represented
by Jagannāth. From the earliest times, Vishnuvism and
Sun-worship stand together in close affinity; indeed, in
the Vedas, Vishnu, who afterwards developed into the
second deity of the Hindu Triad, appears only as a form
of the Sun.” We catch the last glimpse of Orissa Sun-
* See Elevation Plan of Jagannāth, ante, p. 81.
* Prof. Cowell's Appendix VII. to Elphinstone, 279, ed. 1866.
A UDDHISM, SUN. WORSHIP, JAGAMMATH. 299
worship in the Royal Annals of the fourteenth century;
and after that date Jagannāth remains supreme, or with
only the languid rivalry of the Brähman colonies whom
the Sivaite Line had settled on rent-free grants. But
although it ceases to appear in the Temple archives or
royal chronologies, Sun-worship did not wholly cease in
Orissa, and I have described one of its secluded groups of
votaries. Its general tendency, however, was to fly before
the incoming superstitions of Bengal. To the southward
the Sun-worshippers form a recognised class of Bráh-
mans in the Districts adjoining Orissa; and when driven
out of the plains it finds an asylum in the hills. I have
mentioned that the low-caste highlanders to the north-
west of Orissa will not break their fast till they catch a
clear view of the deity, and Sun-worship still continues a
specialty of the aboriginal races on the Central Plateau.”
Puri had asserted its fame as a sanctuary for a full
century before Sun-worship disappears from the royal
chronologies. We have seen in Chapter III. how the
fourth monarch of the Gangetic or Vishnuvite Line
built the great Puri Temple, 1175–1198. Five years
later, when the Muhammadans first conquered Lower
Bengal, the Musalmán annalists relate that the last
Hindu King of that country fled to Jagannāth, A.D. 1204,
devoted his remaining years to religion, and died within
the sacred precincts. The fame of the Sanctuary reached
the distant Court at Gaur; and shortly after, 1212 A.D.,
the Persian Governor of Bengal swept down upon Orissa
and extorted tribute.
Buddhism, Sivaism, Sun-worship, thus each in turn
became the prominent faith of the Province, and after a
time gave place to some other creed. Jagannāth was
* Gazetteer of Central Provinces, cºxiii., 275, etc., ed. 1870.
3oo /AGAMMATH LEFT SUPREME (1300–1870 A.D.).
destined to hold a more permanent sway; and his priests,
by skilfully working upon the Indian passion for pilgrim-
age, have for six centuries made Orissa the Terra Sancta
of the Hindus. He owes his long reign to that plasticity
which admits the whole Hindu pantheon within his walls,
and which during six hundred years has ever instinctively
accommodated itself to the changing spirit of the times.
In the very act of superseding Sun-worship and Sivaism,
his priests built temples to the wife of the All-Destroyer,
and to the Sun, within his sacred Courts. A truly
Aryan deity, he commanded the adoration of the upper
classes. At the same time he enlisted the sympathies of
the low castes by the equal sacrament of the Holy Food,
and by a mythology which exalted a despised fowler into
the revealer of the god. By the ingenious device of suc-
cessive incarnations, Vishnu has made himself the centre
of a whole cycle of religious systems, and secured the
adoration of many races, belonging to widely separated
stages of civilisation. Without losing his own identity,
he assimilated the attributes of nine of the most popular
gods, and his priests keep a tenth incarnation in their
hands; a weapon which they may yet utilize to bring the
gross superstitions of the people into accord with the
theism which English education has now disseminated
among the upper classes. In this way Vishnuvism has
always been able to effect a revolution in religion accord-
ing to due course of law. It has constantly gone on
adding and superadding to its original ideal, building
new temples to new gods without having to pull down
the old ones, and combining the most radical innovations
with the most unalterable conservatism. g -
Of this religious syncretism Jagannāth forms the
ultimate result. He has assimilated to himself a wider
FIS GREAT REZ/GIOUS SYNCRE7/SM. 3o I
range of attributes than any of the gods of Rome or
Greece; wider by far, for example, than even Diana,-
the free-hearted huntress in Arcadia, the stately Asiatic
deity at Ephesus, the Tauric Goddess, the Lydian Great
Mother with her oriental mysticism and secret rites. In
a former Chapter I have dwelt at such length on the
catholicity of Jagannāth, that few words must suffice here.
While on the intellectual and spiritual side of his nature
he claims to be identical with Buddha, the ninth incar-
nation of Vishnu, he stands forth the hero of the
Warrior Caste, as Rāma in his seventh incarnation; and
has drawn to himself the sympathies of the pastoral races,
as Krishna the eighth appearance of Vishnu upon earth.
Krishna, the Divine Herdsman, is the incarnation which
specially appeals to woodland or pastoral peoples, and
which has chiefly attracted them to Vishnu-worship.
These races have always ranked below the Aryans, and
are now despised as aborigines or inferior castes. Yet
their allegiance to Vishnuvism has been skilfully obtained,
by identifying one of their national deities with the bright
Aryan god. On the Central Plateau, Krishna is the
god of the pastoral races. He was the ancient object of
adoration among the Shepherd Kings; * and to this day,
whenever a religious movement takes place among the
low castes or aboriginal tribes, it is towards the Divine
Herdsman that it gravitates. Such a revival took place
half a century ago among the most despised race of the
Central Provinces,” and I find a similar movement at
present in progress among the wine-sellers and publicans
of Eastern Bengal.” As Sivaism appealed to the terrors
* Mr. Grant's Central Provinces. Introd. lx., lxii., etc.
* Idem, cºxix. ; referred to at greater length in one of Mr. Carnac the
Cotton Commissioner's Papers.
* The Suris of Faridpur, Dacca, etc. During my tour in 1870.
3O2 HIGHER ASPECT OF JAGAMMATH.
of the aboriginal races, and their craving after wild
religious excitement and expiatory sacrifices, so Krishna-
worship attracted their sympathies as foresters and herds-
men. These religions spring up wherever Hinduism
subjugates the wild tribes. With them also is frequently
Jainism, or some other form of the ancient Buddhistic
faith; and the three distinct types may be found co-
existing separately and inimically in the most secluded
retreats of the Central Provinces.” Jagannāth has had
the art to concentrate these three types within his own
walls, and has derived additional strength from each.
Nor is his empire based solely upon the supersti-
tions of the populace. The religious history of India
forms a phantasmagoria of shifting creeds, which struggle
to show forth the One Supreme to mankind, each in turn
revealing the central Unit at first in a bright light, which
gradually becomes fainter and more faint until the origi-
nal ideal fades away. The task of conceiving a Being
absolute, infinite, and yet a personality, presents insu-
perable difficulties to unaided reason. Such attributes *
involve a contradiction in terms, which human speech
finds itself powerless to handle, and which no arguments
can smooth away. The religions of the ancient world
accordingly oscillated between a too abstract conception
of the infinity of God, and a too vivid realization of his
personality. The Greeks grasped strongly at his person-
ality, and became polytheists; the Hindus insisted too
exclusively upon his infinity, and became pantheists;
with an ultimate retreat into atheism, the highest pan-
theism of logical minds.” The earliest Indian thinkers
*7 Thus in Mándhátá, an island in the Narbadá. Wide Deputy Commis-
sioner of Nimar's Article, Gazetteer of Central Prov., pp. 257–265, ed. 1870.
* Dr. Mansel, following Hegel and Schleiermacher, has well touched
on this in his Bampton Lectures, I. and V. - *.
AIGHER ASPECT OF JAGANNATH. 3O3
struggled to project their minds beyond the practicable
limits of religious thought, and to express in words that
august primal Unit which combines the Absolute and
the Infinite of European metaphysics. Such a flight
was far beyond the popular apprehension, and the re-
formers who during the last six centuries from time to
time revived the religious spirit in India, have more
wisely submitted to the limits of religious thought. On
the one hand, they have seen that the Infinite and
Absolute One is a conception not to be explained by
human speech, but to be silently and inconclusively
pondered over by the human soul. On the other, they
have felt that a practical popular faith must realize the
personality as well as the infinity of God. They there-
fore surrounded the central idea with attributes; and
these attributes being seized upon by the tropical multi-
tude, have in time become the objects of popular adora-
tion, to the exclusion of the Infinite Being whom they
were intended only to shadow forth. Thus it results
that no Indian reformation has been permanent. In
each a process of materializing has soon begun, so that
in the course of a few generations the original conception
is lost sight of, and the necessity for a new reformation
return.S. •
Jagannāth has by his rare plasticity attracted to him-
self all the great Vishnuvite reformers during the last
six hundred years.” Such reformations tried to bring
back the populace to the worship of one God, under the
name of Vishnu. Generally speaking, they did not
absolutely deny the existence of the other deities of the
Hindu pantheon, but represented them as emanations
from Vishnu, the One Supreme. This arrangement
* See Chapter III.
3O4 HIGHER ASPECT OF JAGAMMATH.
allows of a wide catholicity. By making Brahmá and
Siva the offspring of Vishnu, it practically retains the
orthodox triad, and merely transposes the chief seat of
honour within it.” Jagannāth does the same thing in a
more ‘practical way, and clothes this conception of a
catholic reformation in its most material and most fasci-
nating garb. His priests have, however, adopted the
ignoble as well as the spiritual elements of the rival
creeds, and the result is that jumble of superstitious rites
with lofty conceptions which I have already described,
and of which the Car Festival forms a striking illustra-
tion. As the three blocks which serve for idols within
the sanctuary are simple copies of the Buddhist triad,”
so their Car Festival represents in a modern form the pro-
cession of the Sacred Tooth to its rural shrine.” This
primitive ceremony of a monotheistic faith, which ab-
solutely forbade the shedding of blood, and held sacred
the life of the humblest insect, has for centuries been
associated in the English mind with human immolation
and suicide. How foreign such sacrifices were to the
fundamental worship of Jagannāth, I have already ex-
plained.” But popular beliefs generally rest upon some
basis of truth; and before finally leaving the subject, it
may be well to trace the growth of the evil reputation of
Jagannāth.
270 For example, the great reformation of Mahdavacharjya in the
thirteenth century A.D. Mr. Carmichael's Vizagapatam, p. 58; and the
Madras Reprint of Buchanan's Journey, 1870.
271 Buddha, Dharmma, and Sangha, take the form of Jagannāth, Sub-
hadrā, and Balbhadrá; and these latter figures still represent the Brähmani-
cal Avatar of Buddha in the Mathurá and Benares Almanacs. See ante,
p. 129; and General Cunningham upon Hiouen Thsang, Anc. Geog. India,
i. 510, ed. I&7I.
** See ante, pp. 131, 132.
*** Ante, p. 134.
E VIL REPUTE OF JAGAMMATH. 305
Gibbon has contrasted the free resort to suicide by
the patriots of the ancient world, with ‘the pious servi-
tude’ which Christianity has in this respect imposed
upon modern Europe.” But even these restraints were
of slow growth and of uncertain efficacy, as the jurispru-
dence of the early Civilians and the suicidal mania of
the heterodox African Christians in the fourth century
attest.” The Eastern religions, as a rule, allow a man
power over his own life, and some of the Indian creeds
encourage an act which hastens the final absorption of
the human soul into the Deity. Such a religious suicide
stands out as one of the great facts in the early inter-
course between the Indians and the Greeks; and the
self-immolation of the Brähman Kalanos,” who truly
prophesied the death of Alexander, and then calmly
mounted his own funeral pile, has left a lasting impress
on Macedonian history. The tendency to such acts
reaches its climax amid the frenzy of great religious pro-
cessions. Among Indian processions, that of Jagannāth
stands first; and although the number of suicides, as
registered by the dispassionate candour of English offi-
cials, has always been insignificant, and could at most
occur but once a year, their fame made a deep impression
upon early travellers. I have compiled an index to all
such recorded cases,” and I find that the travellers who
have had the most terrible stories to tell are the very
** Chap. xliv. vol. iv. p. 413, ed. 1788.
* Compare the Christian candour of Milman, Hist. Christ. ii. 309
(1867), and more briefly Hist. Latin Christ. i. 237 (1867), with the some-
what malicious minuteness of Gibbon, ii. 3OO–3O4, ed. 1781.
* In Sanskrit, Kálidas.
** By Oderic, A.D. 1331 ; Conti, circ. 1400; the Persian Haft Iklim,
MS. circ. 1550 ; Early Travels in India, 1565; Manrique, 1612 ; Bruton,
1632; Hamilton, 1708; Cubero, Murray, etc. It is not necessary for me
to enter into the question whether Jagannāth-worship spread over all India
WOL. II. U
306 ZOWER ASPECT OF JAGAMMATH.
ones whose narratives prove that they went entirely by
hearsay, and could not possibly have themselves seen
the Car Festival.
I am inclined to think, however, that the Vishnuvite
reformation of the sixteenth century in Orissa” purged
Jagannāth of a multitude of Sivaite rites. These rites
everywhere involve the outpouring of blood; and a drop
of blood spilt within the Puri Temple would now pollute
its whole precincts, with the priests, the worshippers, and
the consecrated food. Yet it was not always so, as a
Musalmán writer attests.” “In the temple,’ he says,
‘the Hindus inflict on themselves terrible wounds, or
cut out their tongues; but if they rub their gashes on the
idol, the wounds heal up.’ Such practices had certainly
ceased in 1580, when Fazl wrote; and the only vestige
of them that now survives is the midnight sacrifice once
a year to the stainless wife” of the All-Destroyer, in a
shrine apart from the Temple, but within the sacred
enclosure. Jagannāth has, in short, paid the penalty of
his constant compromises with the viler phases of Hin-
duism. He has included every deity within his walls,
and he has been held responsible for the accumulated
abominations of all. The innocent garden excursion of
the Buddhists grew into a frenzied procession among a
people who reckoned life cheap, and the misrepresenta-
tions of the Muhammandans have conspired, with the
credulity of travellers and the piety of missionaries, to
from Puri, or whether, as seems most likely, a number of forms of the same
worship, at first existing independently in many parts of India, have gra-
dually been assimilated to the Purſ model. But the facts which point to the
former view are numerous and striking. Cf., for the spread of Vishnu-
worship into the distant Province of Assam, Calc. Rev. p. 96, vol. xlvi.
*78 1485–1527. See ante, Ioff.
279 The author of the Haft IAElim, a Persian MS. of the time of Akbar,
kindly examined for me by Prof. Blochmann. 280 Bimalá.
ENGLISH CALUMNIES OF JAGANNATH. 3oz
make the name of Jagannāth synonymous with organized
self-slaughter. But the historian cannot help contrasting
the facts as calmly recorded on the spot, with the popular
representations of English literature. “During four
years that I have witnessed the ceremony,’ writes the
Commissioner of Orissa, not long after the Province
passed under our rule, “three cases only of this revolting
species of immolation have occurred; one of which, I may
observe, is doubtful, and should probably be ascribed to
accident. In the other two instances the victims had
long been suffering from excruciating complaints, and
chose this method of ridding themselves of the burthen
of life, in preference to other modes of suicide.” Dr.
Claudius Buchanan witnessed the Car Festival of 1806,
but even his clerical denunciations do not record a single
case of self-slaughter (Diary, 20th June 1806).
I have gone over the Ms. archives from the day we
obtained Orissa, and I can bear witness to the general
truth of these words. Compare with them the Jagan-
náth of George Cruickshank's pencil, as described by the
great humorist and moralist of our day:* “It is called
the Gin Jagannāth, and represents a hideous moving
palace, with a reeking still at the roof, and vast gin-
barrels for wheels, under which unhappy millions are
crushed to death. An immense black cloud of desola-
tion covers over the country through which the gin
monster has passed, dimly looming through the darkness
whereof you see an agreeable prospect of gibbets with
men dangling, burnt houses, etc. The vast cloud comes
sweeping on in the wake of the horrible body-crusher.’
Or let a minor artist speak: “The Jagannāth on his
* Stirling, As. Res. xv. p. 324. Serampur, 1825.
* Thackeray's Critical Reviews. Works, vol. xxii. p. 302, ed. I869.
308 SEABOARD CAPITAL of or/SSA.
great car towered there a grim load. Seeing him draw
nigh, burying his broad wheels in the oppressed soil, I,
the prostrate votary, felt beforehand the annihilating
craunch.” We complain that the Hindus do not ap-
preciate our English institutions or accept our beliefs.
Do we rightly understand theirs 2
The City of Temples and the Metropolis of Priests,
on the two opposite sides of the Province, attest the piety
of the Orissa Kings. Cattack, their central capital, just
below the gorge through which the Mahánadſ issues
upon the plains, formed an entrepot for the trade be-
tween the Delta and the hill country, and repressed the
warlike highland races. But a fourth great city flourished
under the Hindu dynasties, and Tamluk, now an inland
river village of Bengal, formed the maritime capital of
Orissa. One local legend relates how its kings con-
quered the latter Province in pre-historic times, and gave
their name to a great District within it; while a later
tradition ascribes the foundation of Tamluk to the mon-
archs of Morbhanj,” the largest and most powerful of
the Orissa Tributary States. Certain it is that a most
intimate connection subsisted between the two. The
first king of Tamluk bore the title of ‘The Peacock-
Banner,’” and begat a long line of thirty-two princes of
the warrior caste.” This dynasty bore the heraldic
288 Charlotte Bronté's Villette, p. 475, ed. 1867.
284 Properly spelt Mayur-bhanj, ruled by the Peacock-Family. See
Statistical Account of the Tributary States, App. IV. Also chap. vii. of vol. ii.
285 Mayurdhaj and Sikhidhwaj.
286 Kshattriyas, all bearing Aryan names, and apparently representing
a very early Aryan migration, who spread through Bengal into Orissa,
colonizing Tamluk on their way, and thus supplying a basis for the first of
the traditions mentioned above. I have collected the local legends and
dynastic lists of Tamluk, by means of a Pandit whom I sent into that part
of the country.
*
ZHE MARIZIME CAPIZAZ (399-645 A.D.). 309
device of the Peacock exactly as the Morbhanj family
does at the present day, and it was succeeded by another
line of four Peacock Kings who invaded Tamluk from
the Morbhanj State, thus giving rise to the later legend.
The great District of Midnapur now stretches between
Tamluk and the Morbhanj State; but the heraldic bird
of the latter, the Peacock, still surmounts the Temple at
Tamluk, and the Morbhanj Rājás long retained property
in the intermediate tract.”
Tamluk figures as a kingdom of great antiquity in
the sacred writings of the Hindus, and has been identi-
fied with the wars of the epic poems.” But the Sanskrit
annalists had an unconquerable aversion to facts, and no
practical knowledge can be elicited from them about
Tamluk, except that it existed. It is as a Buddhist
port that Tamluk emerges upon history. The Chinese
pilgrim” who visited India in 399–414 A.D. found it a
maritime settlement of the Buddhists, where he remained
for two years transcribing the sacred books, and whence
he took shipping to Ceylon. Two hundred and fifty
years later, a yet more celebrated pilgrim from China”
speaks of Tamluk as still an important Buddhist ‘har-
bour, with ten Buddhist monasteries, a thousand monks,
and a pillar by King Asoka, two hundred feet high.
The adjacent country lay low, but its extreme fertility
* The Parganá of Nayabhūshan belonged to them in 1852, and, so far
as I know, still does. Mr. H. V. Bayley’s MS. Memo. on Midnapur, dated
7th January 1852, p. 24. O. R. -
* Supposed to be referred to as Ratnávatſ in the Kasidas, or Bengal,
recension of the Mahābhārata, Aswamedh-parva. The local name of Rat-
návatſ still survives at Tamluk, with a modern legend to explain it.
* Fa Hian; translated into French by M. Remusat, and thence into
English by Mr. Laidley. Calcutta, 1848. -
* Hiouen Thsang, 629–645 A.D. Vie par Stanislaus Julien, p. 183.
Paris, 1853.
3 Io THE MARITYME CAP/ZAZ (399-645 A.D.).
made up for its damp, marshy character. Tamluk itself,
'situated on a bay, could be approached both by land
and water, and contained stores of rare and precious
merchandise, and a wealthy population. Some of them
follow the true faith; others the false. Besides the
Buddhist monasteries, there are also fifty temples of the
heretical Hindu gods.” Here the pilgrim learnt about
Ceylon, and the perils of the southern voyage. I have
already mentioned that the Yavana colonization of the
Indian Archipelago probably started from Tamluk in the
first century A.D., and the Asoka pillar alluded to by the
Chinese pilgrim attests its existence in the third century
B.C. Even at this day, the ancient Buddhist port of
Orissa bears traces of its origin. In 1781 an English
official reported a local tradition to Government, ‘that
Tamluk was originally a Buddhist town, and a large em-
porium of eastern trade, and had many fine monasteries.
It is said that there are some Hindus there who bury
their dead after the Buddhist (and Yavana) fashion.”
Even after the final triumph of Hinduism over the
ancient Buddhistic faith, Tamluk continued an entrepot
for maritime trade. The sea-going castes asserted their
supremacy, and on the extinction of the Peacock Dynasty
placed a line of Fisher-Kings” on the throne. The first”
of this family also came from Orissa, and settled four
* Documents Géographiques, p. 450. The kingdom of Tamluk was
then about two hundred and fifty miles in circumference.
* Mr. Vansittart's Report of 1871. Mr. H. V. Bayley's Ms. Memo-
randum, p. 128. O. R. w
298 Kaibarttas. -
294 By name Kálu Bhuyá, whose twenty-fifth descendant now holds the
Ráj, according to a list drawn up for me on the spot. But a list referred to
by Mr. Bayley makes the list much longer, the forty-second of the line dying
in 1404, and the forty-eighth being deposed in 1654. MS. Memo. p. 129.
O. R.
THE MARIZIME CAP/ZAZ (1 roo A.D.). 3II
hundred families of his Orissa kindred on the royal lands.
The new dynasty, as usual, set up a new worship, and
Tamluk has a legend of the finding of its god, framed
on exactly the same basis as the Puri tradition of the
discovery of Jagannāth, with the changes in scenery and
costume necessary for a maritime people. As, in the
jungly district of Southern Orissa, the deity who after-
wards obtained the devotion of the Hindus was originally
the forest god of a poor Fowler; so in the seaboard tract
of Northern Orissa, now Bengal, the deity” who became
supreme was the goddess of a poor fisherman. In the
first case it was a block of wood, in the second a block of
stone : in both there is a legend of its being worshipped
in secret by its original low-caste owner, with its subse-
quent discovery by the Aryans; and in both the Hindu
priests eventually stuck arms and legs into the shapeless
wooden or monolithic stump. In both, the miraculously
found deity became an object of pilgrimage. Orissa and
its maritime capital (now in Bengal) alike formed centres
of Buddhism, and were originally hateful to the Brāh-
mans; but under the new religion, texts were invented or
interpolated to give an ancient sanctity to both.” The
very name of Tamluk,” which bears witness to its ancient
* Barga-bhímá, now identified with Kálí or Pathu Párvati, as the Purí
block became Jagannāth.
* As regards Orissa, see beginning of this chapter. As regards Tam-
luk, “Ahante kathayishyami yatra nasyati pātakan; Asti Bhāratbarshasya
dakshínasyán, mahápurin ; , Tāmraliptasya kastasyán gurhan tirthavaran
baset; Tatra snátwáchiradeva samyak yasyeti matpurin.” “I will tell you
where your sins will be destroyed. There is a great place of pilgrimage on
the south of India, an ablution in which saves a man from his sins.’
* Its Sanskrit name, as written by my Pandit, and the Brahmānda
Purána, and other writings which he quotes, is Tamolipta, which he derives
from Tamas + lipta, literally, stained with darkness or sin. But a legend
relates that it took its name from the fact that Vishnu, in the form of Kalki,
having got very hot in destroying the demons, dropped perspiration at this
fortunate spot, which accordingly became stained with the holy Sweat (or dirt)
312 ZAMZUK, THE OR/SSA HARBOUR.
degradation, has been converted by a legendary inter-
pretation into a title of honour; and in spite of the re-
markable fewness of Brähmans in the neighbourhood, of
the overwhelming population of low-caste fishermen,”
and of its long subjection to Fisher-Kings, Tamluk has
become a place of pilgrimage.
Most of the Tamluk legends, however, refer to
making money; and appropriately enough in a commer-
cial maritime city, water has generally something to do
with the process. A great merchant, by name the Lord
of Wealth,” sailing in his ships to Tamluk, found a well
or lake that turned everything into gold. He accordingly
bought up all the brass vessels in the market, transmuted
them into the precious metal, sailed to Ceylon, where he
sold them to the natives, and returning, built the great
Tamluk temple which is generally ascribed to the first of
the Fisher-Kings. Another sea-going merchant found the
Philosopher's Stone, probably foreign commerce; and his
wealth attracted the envy of the king, who insisted upon
its being made over to him. The upshot of the story is,
that the diligent trader could not transfer the source of
of the god. The word appears in the itineraries of the Buddhist pilgrims
from China as Tan-mo-li-ti, derived by M. Julien and General Cunningham
from the Páliform of the Sanskrit Támralipta, which I find is also explained
by a local tradition, that a Kshattriya king of the name of Támradhwaj
(literally Copper-Banner) once reigned there. Tamolipta is the name which
the Bengali Dictionary, Sabdartha Ratnamálá, gives for Tamluk, and it is
the correct Sandhi product of its component parts, tamas + lipta.
* The details of Tamluk, and its curious temple with triple walls, will
be given in my Statistical Account of Midnapur, to which District Tamluk
now belongs. My Pandit remarks the fewness of Bráhmans. The Kaibartta,
or Fisher-caste, numbers from seven thousand to eight thousand families.
They cultivate land, engage in commerce, act as petty officials, and, in short,
constitute almost the whole of the population.
* Dhanapati. His son Srſmanta was also a distinguished navigator to
Ceylon; and besides the local traditions which my Pandit has picked up at
Tamluk, their voyages are celebrated by an old Bengali poem, the Kavi-
Kankan-Chandſ. $
ZAMZUK, THE ORISSA HARBOUR. 3I3
his riches to the slothful monarch; the shipowner was
drowned, and the king found himself no richer than
before. Indigo, mulberry, and silk, the costly products
of Bengal and Orissa, form the traditional articles of
export from ancient Tamluk; and although the sea has
long since left it, the town continued until 1869 the great
maritime outlet from Orissa. In 635 B.C. the Chinese
traveller found the city washed by the ocean; the earliest
Hindu tradition places the sea eight miles off, and it is
now fully sixty miles distant. The process of land-making
at the mouths of the Ganges has gone slowly but steadily
on, gradually pushing out silt-banks and sandy ridges,
which by degrees have settled into solid land, and left
Tamluk an inland village on the Rúpnáráyan River. The
peasants, in digging wells or tanks, come upon sea-shells
at a depth of ten to twenty feet; and an almost forgotten
name of the town, the Mine of Gems,” alone comme-
morates its former wealth. The constant changes of
the river, and its all-covering alluvion, have buried the
ancient city. Even its principal temple is now partly
underground, and the remains of old masonry, wells, and
houses may be found at a depth of eighteen to twenty-
one feet below the surface.” -
Although finally transferred in 1725 to Bengal,
Tamluk bears witness to its ancient connection with
Orissa by its legends, by its local customs, and by its
vernacular speech. The District which separates it still
retains the name of the Middle Country;” and although
we have introduced Bengali as the language of official
800 Ratnākar.
* I trust for these measurements to the Pandit, Nabin Chandra Ban-
dopadhyāya, whom I sent to make investigations. I would also express my
obligations to Babu Jádab Chandra Ghosh, late Deputy-Collector of Tamluk.
* Madhyades, now the District of Midnapur,
3I4 IXECZ/AWE OF MARAZTIME AEAVZTEAEAR/SE.
life, a mixed patois and a compound written character of
Bengali and Uriyā until very recently prevailed in Tamluk.
Many Orissa idioms survive, and the surnames of the
people bear witness to their Orissa origin.” The children
in some village schools” of Midnapur District learn
Bengali in the morning, and Uriyā in the afternoon.
They still adhere to the Orissa Almanac, counting the
last day of the Bengali month as the first of the next
one, and beginning their new year according to the Orissa
style.” Until 1869, when the Kendrápérá Canal opened
out the Orissa seaboard, Tamluk continued to monopo-
lize by a long land route through Midnapur the whole
exports of Orissa, although it had ceased to be able to
send them out to sea.”
The ruin of Tamluk as a seat of maritime com-
merce affords an explanation of how the Bengalis ceased
to be a sea-going people. In the Bhuddist era they sent
warlike fleets to the east and the west, and colonized the
islands of the Archipelago. Even Manu, in his inland
centre of Brähmanism at the far north-west, while forbid-
ding such enterprises, betrays the fact of their existence.
He makes a difference in the hire * of river boats and of
* For example, Mahāpātra, Behárá, Jáná, Māhanti (Máiti), Patnáik,
Panda, Sámanta, Sántrá, etc., all of which are Uriyá. Some Kaibartta
settlements from Tamluk have imported these family names into the 24
Parganás, and as high as Huglí or even Bardwan.
* Pátsálás. Our system of Public Instruction is rapidly destroying
such local distinctions.
* Thus, when Baisàkh has thirty days, they count the 30th Baisãkh as
the 1st of Jyaistha; and their year ends on the twelfth day of the Srában
moon, as in Orissa, and not on the last of Chaitra, as in Bengal.
* It formed part of Jaleswar Sarkār under the early Muhammadans.
Murshid Kulí Khán annexed Midnapur from Orissa to Bengal in 1706.
Jaleswar Sarkār was divided into four sub-districts—Jaleswar Proper,
Maljhetiya, Mazkuri, and Goâlpárá, to which latter Tamluk anciently be-
longed. In 1728 it formed part of Huglí. Mr. Bayley’s MS. Memorandum,
pp. 92, I28, etc. * Cap. iv. Sloka, 406. Calc. Ed.
AJAECZ/AVE OF MAR/TIME EAVZTERPRISE. 315
sea-going ships, and admits that the advice of “merchants
experienced in making voyages on the sea, and in ob-
serving different countries, may be of use to priests and
kings. But such voyages were associated chiefly with the
Buddhist era, and became alike hateful to the Brähmans
and impracticable to a deltaic people, whose harbours
were left high and dry by the land-making rivers and the
receding sea. Religious prejudices combined with the
changes of nature to make the Bengalis unenterprising
upon the ocean. But what they have been, they may
under a higher civilisation again become. The unwarlike
Armenians whom Lucullus and Pompey blushed to con-
quer, supplied, seven centuries later, the heroic troops
who annihilated the Persian monarchy in the height
of its power.” To any one acquainted with the re-
volutions of races, it must seem mere impatience ever to
despair of a people ; and in maritime courage, as in other
national virtues, I firmly believe that the inhabitants of
Bengal have a new career before them under British rule.
The foregoing sketch of Orissa under Native rule
has occupied itself chiefly with the incoming of new races
from the north, and with the rise and fall of their suc-
cessive creeds. The wars and ambitions of princes
dwindle into their proper insignificance when viewed
through a vista stretching backwards two thousand years.
Those to whom a list of kings and dates may be useful,
will find them set forth with the utmost attainable pre-
cision in the Appendix. The silt of the Delta has long
ago buried the palaces of the monarchs, but it has
spared the temples of their gods. Rightly to understand
the intensely religious, or, as some might call it, the
Superstitious nature of the Orissa peasant, and the
* Under the Byzantine Heraclius, 623–625 A.D.
316 STATISTICS OF ORISSA (474–1132 A.D.).
monastic institutions which still cover the Province, we
must remember that his sole monuments of the past
are the edifices of his deities, and that the whole back-
ground of time is for him filled up with dim august revo-
lutions of creeds. I propose, however, before entering
upon the next stage of Orissa history, very briefly to
exhibit the statistics and resources of the Province
under the two dynasties whose works this chapter has
described.
Whatever may have been the extent of the mythi-
cal realm of Kalinga which stretched down the coast
from the Hugli to the Godāvarí, Orissa under the
Lion-Line (474–1132 A.D.) pretended to much more
modest dimensions. It formed a strip of about 185
miles long by 60 broad, extending from the Kánsbáns
River, a little to the south of Balasor City,” to the
Rasakuliá River in Ganjām District, and inland from
the sea to the Tributary State of Dhenkánal. This little
kingdom of eleven thousand square miles included all
the richest part of the present Province, and yielded
a revenue of 4406,250 a year.” The founder of the
* For the position of the Kánsbáns, see my Statistical Account of
Balasor, Appendix II. p. 35.
* Expressed in the Palm-leaf Records as fifteen lakhs of Márhas.
(Purúshottama Chandriká, 36–40. See also As. Res. xv. 27.I.) My calcula-
tion is as follows: The Márha was an Uriyá weight equal to one-fourth of a
Karishá; therefore, 4 marhas – I karishā; I karishá = I tolá; I tolá of
silver = I rupee. Fifteen lakhs or màrhas therefore equal (1,500,000 + 4)
375,000 tolás or rupee-weights of gold. For ascertaining the ratio of gold
to silver in Orissa in the twelfth century, no materials exist. General Cun-
ningham informs me, however, that in the thirteenth century, under Jalāl-ud-
dín and Alá-ud-din, the proportion in Hindustán was I of gold to Io of silver.
Under Akbar in the sixteenth century, the official ratio at the mint was 1 to
94. (Abul Fazl. See also the elaborate and now conclusive proofs in The
Pathán Kings of Delhi, by Mr. Edward Thomas, late C.S., p. 424. 1871.) In
the seventeenth century it again returned to I to Io (Purchas. i. 217); and as the
East India Company poured in its yearly freights of silver, the proportion
gradually rose in the eighteenth century to I to 14. Sir James Steuart speaks
STATISTICS OF OR/SSA (474–1132 A.D.). 3I7
Vishnuvite or Gangetic Dynasty in 1132 added to it his
paternal southern domain, from the Godāvari River
northwards to Orissa. This strip had, as we have seen,
formed the maritime part of the kingdom of Proli; the
inland mountainous region having been granted away
to his brother.” The first of the Gangetic line also
extended Orissa on the northwards to Tamluk, thereby
restoring the limits of the pre-historic kingdom of
Kalinga from the Hugli to the Godāvari River. He
or his successors afterwards pushed their territory inland
to Bod, which still continues the westernmost of the
Orissa Tributary States.
This vast kingdom included three distinct tracts:
(1) The Central region, comprising the present Province
of Orissa, two hundred miles long by one hundred and
of this as the ratio ‘hitherto adopted.’ (Principles of Money applied to
Bengal, privately printed for the East India Company. Small quarto, 1772.)
In 1766 the ratio fixed by Government was 2462.88 grains of pure silver to
14972 grains of pure gold, or I of gold to 16:45 of silver. In 1769 the
Bengal authorities readjusted it at 281472 grains of silver to 190’o86 grains
of pure gold, or I of gold to 148 of silver. Both these ratios were, however,
severely criticised by Sir James Steuart (1772), and Adam Smith estimates
the proportion in India (1784) at I to 15. But in the parts of Asia which
were not affected by the enormous importation of silver from Europe during
the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, the ratio of gold to
silver remained more stationary. In the middle of the last century the value
in Japan was 1 to 8, while ‘in China and the greater part of the other markets
of India, ten, or at most twelve, ounces of silver will purchase an ounce of
gold.” (Wealth of Nations, 1784, pp. 95, 97 ; J. R. M'Culloch's edition.)
All the evidence, therefore, goes to show that the safest ratio to take for
gold to silver in India in the twelfth century is I to Io. Therefore 1,500,000
marhás, or 375,000 tolás of gold, equal 3,750,000 tolás or rupee-weights of
silver. But the current rupee contains only 165 grains of pure silver instead
of a full tolá of 180 grains, and it is necessary to add the difference of ſº,
or 1%, to the sum, in order to get it in current rupees. The revenue of Orissa
in the twelfth century under the Lion-line, therefore, was 3,750,000 plus ſº-
Rs. 4,602,500, or, at the nominal exchange of two shillings per rupee,
44O6,250. It is possible that the value of gold, as expressed in silver, was
less in Orissa, whose rivers produced gold, than in Upper India ; but I to Io
is the safest ratio to adopt.
*19 Amte, p. 278.
318 STATISTICS OF GAAWGETIC LINE (1132–1532 A.D.).
twenty broad, or twenty-four thousand square miles.”
(2) The narrow strip, with the sea on one side and
the mountains on the other, running south from the
Chilká Lake to the Godāvarí,” three hundred miles
in length, with an average of forty in breadth, and an
area of twelve thousand square miles. (3) On the
opposite or northern extremity, the kingdom extended
to the Hugli; that is to say, it embraced the present
District of Midnapur, a tract of three thousand five
hundred square miles.” Orissa, therefore, under the
Gangetic Dynasty (I I32–1532 A.D.), consisted of three
Provinces, consisting respectively of 3,500, 23,907, and
12,000 square miles, according to British surveys, or a
total of 39,407 square miles. The third monarch of the
line, between II 75 and I2O2 A.D., measured his kingdom
with reeds” ‘from the Hugli to the Godāvari, and from
the sea to the frontier of Sonpur.' About 1820, at a
time when we did not ourselves know the extent of the
country, the British Commissioner converted the native
survey of the twelfth century into English measures,
and gave the result at forty thousand square miles.
Recent surveys return the total at 39,407 | Such mar-
vellous accuracy bears witness, along with the survey
of Todar Mall in the sixteenth century, to the im-
memorial skill of the Hindus in land measurements.
This vast kingdom yielded a nominal revenue of
811 The exact area is 23,907 square miles.
81? The southern capital of the early princes of the Gangetic Line was
Rájmahendri on the latter river. -
* The exact area of the present Midnapur District is 4836 square
miles, but it includes several Fiscal Divisions that belonged to Bengal and not
to Orissa. The early Uriyā part is, as nearly as may be, 3500 square miles.
* Nal, still used in Eastern Bengal, a measure which varies in length
in proportion as the marshes of the Delta are deeper or shallower, and the
reeds which grow in them longer or shorter.
STATISTICS OF GANGETIC ZINE (1132–1532 A.D.). 319
4947,917” a year; but the southern part of it, which
stretched down the coast from Orissa Proper to the
Godávari, gave endless trouble, and was a source of
weakness rather than of strength. As early as 1164
A.D.” the Southern Strip rebelled, and a century and
a half later the Orissa Kings had to call in the aid
of the rising Muhammadan power” to subdue their
refractory southern vassals. One monarch of the Gan-
getic Line was taken captive and beheaded in the
attempt. Nevertheless, the Orissa princes continued
to exercise supremacy down the maritime strip until
the beginning of the sixteenth century. They built
temples, gave grants of land to Bráhmans, and left their
names in the local lists of kings as far south as the
Godávarſ.” The revenue-yielding part, or Orissa Proper,
was substantially the same size as at present. But although
the southern strip along the Madras coast did not pay,
the claims to it were fondly cherished; and a southern
expedition forms the stock incident in the reign of
almost all great monarchs of the Gangetic Line, from its
commencement in 1132 to its extinction in 1532. But
the records of the struggle yield nothing of interest to
the historian, and the native annalists have enveloped
* 3,500,000 márhas of gold. Purúshottama Chandriká, and As. Res. xv.
* Under Ala Raddi, in the neighbourhood of Kondapalli. Mackenzie
MSS. vol. xii., in the As. Soc. Library, Calcutta. Vol. xii. is one of the un-
paged folios. Would that some young Civilian would take in hand these
invaluable MSS. 1 -
* Mackenzie MSS. ut supra, vol. xv. pp. 325 to 329. Mr. Elphinstone
gives a slightly different account, and puts the event earlier than these MSS.,
I think with good ground, p. 396, ed. I866. See also Ferishta, apud As.
Res. xv. 278, etc. -
* The Telingá. Mss., translated by Mr. Blake in 1803, contain a list
of the Gajapati or Orissa Kings. The Orissa monarch, Purúshottama Deva
(1479–1504 A.D.), built the temple at Sinháchalam. The son of the preceding
king, Kapilendra Deva (1452–1479 A.D.), had carried the war inland to the
mountains of Kimidi, and attached them to Orissa.
326 AAEGENDS OF SOUTHERAW ZEXAEED/ZZOAVS.
the whole in a mist of exaggeration and falsehood. They
gravely relate that the last of the Gangetic Line” led
a great force to the narrow straits which divide India
from Ceylon.
A narrative of confused and miscellaneous fighting is
not history.” Three centuries of expeditions to the south-
ward have left but a single story worth preserving. The
King of Orissa, Purúshottama Deva (1479–1504 A.D.),
having heard of the beauty of the Lotus-Eyed daughter
of the Conjevaram Prince, sent a rich embassy to ask her
in marriage. But the Conjevaram monarch worshipped
another god,” and swore that he never would give his
daughter to the Orissa King who acted as sweeper before
Jagannāth. So the Orissa Prince gathered his armies
together, and marched southward to lay siege to Conje-
varam ; but his troops fled in the battle, and he came
back in sorrow to Puri, and threw himself at the feet of
his god. Then the good Lord Jagannāth had pity on him,
and told him to lead another army to the southwards,
and that a sure sign would be given him. Hearing this,
he rose up hastily, and again called his captains together,
and they marched southwards, praising the Lord of the
World. And as they marched they looked out for the
sure sign; but no sign was given them, until the hearts of
the captains and of the companies began to sink within
them.
* Raja Pratāb Rudra Deo (1504-1532 A.D.). He is popularly called
the last, as his two sons Káluyá and Katháruyá only reigned a year apiece.
* The obscure revolutions and uninstructive struggles on the southern
strip between Orissa and the Godávarí are set forth in a desultory way, but
with many interesting details, in the Mackenzie MSS. ; more succinctly in the
Purúshottama Chandriká, and, so far as his materials permitted, in Stirling's
admirable Essay, As. Res. xv. Stirling's list of kings is defective, but a
complete one will be found in Appendix VII.
821 Ganesa.
LEGENDS OF SOUTHERW FIGHTING. 32 I
Yet the King believed that the good Lord Jagan-
náth would not forget his servants. And one evening, as
he halted on the banks of the Chilká near the boundary
of his kingdom, pondering on many things, a maiden
suddenly stood before him with a ring in her hand.
‘This ring, she said, ‘the good god sends to thee, O
Prince | Two horsemen, one on a black steed, the
other on a white, gave it to me for thee, and rode on to
the southwards.' Then the King knew that Jagannāth
had remembered his servant, and that the two riders
were the good Lord himself and his brother.
So the captains with their companies marched
southwards glad of heart, and after sore war they put
to flight the Conjevaram King who worshipped another
god, and took his daughter captive. But the Orissa
Prince, in his wrath at the slaughter of his people and the
contempt shown to the good Lord Jagannāth, swore that
the lady should be married to a real sweeper, and com-
manded his minister to wed her to a slave. Yet the
soldiers, when they saw her beauty, forgot their dead com-
rades and their own wounds, and had pity on her, and said,
‘Surely this lady is fit even for our lord the King; surely
our lord does foolishly to make her a scavenger's wife.’
But the old minister spoke not a word, waiting patiently
till the time of Lord Jagannāth's Procession should come
round; and meanwhile he kept the Princess shut up with
the ladies of his own palace. When the Summer Festival
was come, the good Lord Jagannāth sat aloft in his Car,
with the priests and the people thronging round, singing
his praises and blessing him, and tugging at the ropes;
and the King humbly swept the dust off the road in front
of the god who had given him the victory. Then the
aged minister brought forth the maiden, and placing her
VOL. II. X
322 AEND OF GAAVGEZYC ZINE (1532).
side by side with the King in the face of all the people,
said, ‘Take, oh my King, her whom the good Lord
Jagannāth has sent. My lord swore in his wrath that I
should marry the maiden to a sweeper of the street, and
I give her to thee, my King.’ So the King wedded the
maiden, and signs and wonders attended their married
life. But the queen died young, and her son, a man of
great wisdom, reigned in his father's stead.
Under this son” (1504–1532) the fortunes of the
Gangetic house culminated. Besides his mythical ex-
pedition southwards to the narrow seas which separate
India from Ceylon, he has left architectural monuments
at the two extremities of Orissa,” and the final extirpa-
tion of Buddhism belongs to his reign. In his earlier
years he leaned to the Buddhist Creed, and the Palm-
leaf Records relate the disputations and trials of
magical skill by which the Brähman priests at length
converted him to their faith. We have already seen how,
under his reign, that great stirring of the popular heart
took place which ended in the Vishnuvite reformation.*
For twelve years the holy Chaitanya preached the new
creed, silenced the sluggish Sivaite priesthood, and
strove with spiritual weapons against the King himself,
till the monarch forgot the pomp of his throne in the
humility of a disciple. In 1527 the apostle was myste-
riously rapt away from mortal sight, and five years later
his royal convert followed him. .
His death in 1532 marks the end of the Gangetic
Line. Of the thirty-two sons whom he left behind,
two succeeded, for a year apiece, to a throne which
822 Pratāb Rudra Deo.
** His most important building was the Barāha Temple at Jájpur.
*** Ante, p. 106.
REVENUE OF ORISSA (1132–1568). 323
brought only a more conspicuous and more speedy
death. The minister murdered sooner or later every
male member of the family, and seized the kingdom.”
The Muhammadans, who, as we shall see in the next
chapter, had long been oppressing Orissa, now closed in
upon the usurper and his successors. After twenty-four
years of confusion, the fierce Afghān Kálá Pahár swept
like a wave across the Province, throwing down the
temples, smashing the idols, driving Jagannāth himself to
hide his head in the slime of the Chilká, and extermi-
nating the last of the independent dynasties of Orissa.
* Practically, the revenue-paying parts of Orissa under
the Gangetic Dynasty stretched from the Hugli to the
Chilká, and from the sea to the Tributary States; a
compact territorial entity of twenty-four thousand square
miles. The Province continues the same size to this
day, having lost three thousand square miles on the
north, towards the Hugli, and gained about an equal
extent on the west, towards Central India. In the
twelfth century, when the Gangetic Line obtained the
kingdom, it yielded a revenue of 4406,250* a year.
Besides the doubtful southern strip, they added I 2,OOO
square miles of unproductive Hill Territory; and when
in the sixteenth century they sunk beneath the Musal-
máns, the revenue remained about £435,OOO. An early
Muhammadan geographer of the sixteenth century gives
the income of the parts of Orissa already subjugated by
** A.D. 1534, f
* 1,500,000 márahs of gold. See note 309, p. 316. That is to say, at
the close of the Sivaite Dynasty. The area was only 11,000 square miles; but
of the territory since added to it to make up the present Province, about 12,000
square miles are Hill States paying a tribute of only about £6000 a year.
The few hundred square miles added on the north in Balasor are more pro-
ductive, and the total revenue of the Province may now be put down at
Ž450,000.
324 REVEWUE OF OR/SSA (1132–1532).
the Musalmán arms at 4.368,333;” and the official survey
made by Akbar's minister, circ. 1580, gives the entire
revenue of the Province, including the tribute from the
Hill States, at 4.435,319.” As the Muhammadans more
firmly established their power, they gradually increased
the taxation, and in the seventeenth century a detailed
list of the Orissa Fiscal Divisions shows a revenue of
4537,495.” However the revenues might be deranged
from year to year by tumult or rebellion, the nominal
demand remained the same in the Imperial Account-
Books; and the Père Thieffenthaler, amid the Marhattá
anarchy of the eighteenth century, was still informed that
the Province yielded 4570,750.”
The revenue under the Gangetic Line (II 32-1532
A.D.), its last independent dynasty, may therefore be set
down at 4435,000 a year from the twenty-four thousand
square miles of Orissa Proper. The southern strip had
long ceased to yield any income to the Orissa Kings.
The present Province, comprising an equal area, yields to
the British Government, in round numbers, £450,000.”
But while the actual revenue remains about the same, its
purchasing power has completely altered. Under the
** Sicca Rupees 3,400,000, or Company’s Rupees 3,683,333. Haſt
IAElim, a Persian MS., apud Professor Blochmann.
** 160,733,237 dams, which, at the official rates of conversion under
Akbār, equal Sicca Rupees 4,018,330, or Company's Rupees 4,353,191.
Prinsep's Tables; Thomas’ Pathán Kings; As. Res. xv.
* Sicca Rupees 4,961,497, or Company's Rupees 5,374,955, under Sháh
Jahán, 1627–1658. As. Res. xv. 213.
830 Selon Manouchi. As. Res. xv. 212. This sum may possibly have
included outstanding arrears. Mr. Stirling, without stating any grounds,
conjectures that it included also the revenue of the Northern Circars; but
such a conjecture is opposed to the historical facts of the time, and to
the recorded statistics about the Orissa revenue.
881 The area is 23,907 square miles, but it has lost the fertile tract
towards the Hugli, and received in place of it an addition to its hill territory.
In 1870 the total revenue was 4,464,861, but this included the extraordinary
income-tax. A 450,000 is a fair average in round numbers. e
JZS AURCA/AS/AVG POWER. 325
native dynasty, it sufficed to maintain a gorgeous Court,
a vast army, innumerable trains of priests, and to defray
the magnificent public works of the Gangetic Kings.
. Under the English it barely pays the cost of administering
the Province. The charges for collecting the revenue
and protecting person and property amount to 4339,696;
the interest on one of the local public works, the Orissa
Canals, comes to 465,000 a year;” a single native regi-
ment at Cattack costs £17,000; and a petty balance of
4, 28,000 is all that remains over after paying the merely
local charges of holding the Province. Orissa contributes
scarcely anything to the general expense of govern-
ment. It does not pay its share of interest on the public
debt; it contributes nothing to the cost of defending the
Empire; and hardly does more than support the charges
of the local administration. Under the native dynasty,
the same revenue sufficed to support an administration
infinitely more minute, and, as regards its higher officials,
infinitely higher paid. None of the English governing
body in Orissa ever hopes to make a fortune; under
the Hindu Princes, Government employ was synonymous
with assured opulence. Sixteen great Ministers regulated
the kingdom, with seventy-two Deputies, and thirty-six
separate Departments of State. Under the English, the
revenue of Orissa with difficulty maintains seven hundred
sepoys; under the Hindu Princes it supported, besides
a peasant militia of 300,000 men, a regular army of
50,000 foot, Io,000 horse, and 2500 elephants. About
a vast militia being attached to the soil there can be
no doubt; and if Hindu chroniclers have magnified the
number of the regular troops, we know from the Musal-
mán annalists, that the Orissa King could at a moment's
* 14 millions sterling had already been spent on 31st March 1871.
326 VAZUE OF MONEY (1132–1532).
warning take the field with 18,000 horse and foot. But
the Public Works of the Hindu Dynasty attest the
magnitude of their resources in a way that admits of no
dispute. Thirty or forty thousand pounds were not con-
sidered extravagant for an ordinary temple. The accu-
mulations of one monarch” are stated at £1,296,750,”
and from this he set apart 4406,250 * for the holy
edifice of Jagannāth. A similar magnificence surrounded
the private life of the Orissa Kings. Their five royal
residences (%ałażs) still live in popular tradition; and
although the story of the Prince” who died just as he
had married his sixty-thousandth wife is doubtless a fable,
yet it is a fable that could only be told of a great and
luxurious court.
How came it that the same amount of revenue which
made the Orissa Kings so rich, now leaves the English
governors of the Province so poor 2 I have already
shown that the great influx of silver which European
trade poured into India, so decreased the value of that
metal that it sank from I-10th the value of gold in the
twelfth century, to I-14th or I-15th six hundred years
later. But even this decrease would not explain the
affluence of the Hindu rulers of Orissa as compared with
the poverty of the English. It is when we consider the
value of silver as expressed, not in gold, but in food, that
the explanation becomes clear. Nothing like a regular
record of prices under the Gangetic Dynasty (I 132–1532)
exists. But fortunately the maximum price of food
during the great famines which in almost each genera-
tion decimated Orissa, have come down to us, with the
* Rájá Anang Bhim Deo. * 4,788,000 marhas of gold.
** 1,500,000 m3rhas of gold. Purúshottama Chandriká. As. Res. xv.
* Purúshottama, in the Solar List of Kings, described on a previous
page.
VAZUE OF MONEY (1132–1532). 327
proportion which those prices bore to the ordinary
rates. In the famine at the beginning of the fourteenth
century, unhusked paddy rose to sixty times its average
rate, and sold from six and eightpence to nine shillings
per hundredweight.” In the next century, under King
Kapilendra (1452–1479 A.D.), paddy rose to 62% times the
ordinary price, and fetched from 6s. I I d. to 9s. 11d. per
hundredweight.” Stirling, one of our first Commis-
sioners in Orissa, obtained an ancient paper showing the
exact rates under the Gangetic Dynasty. According to
it, unhusked paddy sold from just under a penny to 1%
* The following calculation, the first of the kind in Lower Bengal
history, is submitted with diffidence to Indian statisticians. While I believe
that the data here collected are absolutely correct, it will be seen that
several elements of uncertainty exist. In the famine at the beginning of the
fourteenth century, paddy rose to 120 Ådhams per bharan. The Orissa bharan
will be found fully explained in my Stat. Acc. of Purſ, App. I. p. 16. The
paddy bharan contains nominally about 9%, but practically 9 cwt. A káhan
is 1280 cowries, and 4 káhans, or 5 I2O cowries, were taken as the official rate
of exchange per rupee when we first obtained Orissa (1803). Afterwards
this rate was complained of, on the ground that a rupee cost 6 or 7 káhans
instead of 4; and this formed one of the alleged causes of the Khurdhá
rebellion in 1817. (Mr. Commissioner Ewers’ Report to Chief Secretary to
Government, dated Cattack, 13th May 1818, para. 95. O. R.) At present
the rate is 3584 cowries to the rupee, the great difference being due to the
fall in the value of silver which has rapidly gone on since we obtained Orissa ;
and so far as I can judge, the rate officially fixed in 1804 of 5120 cowries per
rupee was considerably under the actual rate of exchange. 120 káhans per
bharan of 9 cwt. would be 6s. 8d. per cwt. at the rate of 4 káhans or 512O
cowries per rupee, thus: 120 káhans = 30 rupees or 60 shillings; and if
60 shillings buy 9 cwt., the price of 1 cwt. will be 6s. 8d. On the other
hand, if we take the lower or present rate of exchange at 3584 cowries per
rupee, I2O káhans per bharan will equal 9s. 6d. per cwt. If we take the
exchange at the alleged old rate of 6 káhans or 7680 cowries to the rupee,
which I believe to be nearer the truth, the price would be reduced to 4s. 6d.
per cwt. But in this and the following calculations I have taken the rates
of exchange which would give the highest possible prices in the fourteenth
century, so as to avoid the risk of overstating the rise in prices since
then.
* 125 káhans per bharan of 9 cwt., i.e. 6s. 11; d. at 4 káhans or 5120
cowries per rupee; and 9s. IId. at the lower rate of exchange of 3584
cowries per rupee.
328 VAZU E OF MONEY (1132-1532).
of a penny per hundredweight,” husked rice at 2 ºd. to
3d. per hundredweight,” and cotton at from 2s. I}d. to
3s. of d. per hundredweight.”
From the above calculations we cannot take the
price of paddy under the Gangetic Line (1132–1532 A.D.)
at above I; d. per hundredweight. It was probably less.
Paddy now costs on the field in Orissa a shilling per
hundredweight, or at least eight times its ancient price.
An almost equal depreciation in the value of silver has
gone on in other parts of India. Thus, in Upper Hin-
dustán, under Alá-ud-din (1303–1315 A.D.), the officially
fixed rate of barley was a little under sixpence per hun-
dredweight,” and of peas fourpence halfpenny a hundred-
weight.” In the latter part of the century, under Firoz
Sháh (1351–1388 A.D.), the price of barley remained
exactly the same, viz. sixpence per hundredweight.” But
no sooner did the tide of European trade set in, than
the value of silver fell, and at the time of Akbar (1556–
1605 A.D.) the price of barley rose to 9%d. per hundred-
weight.” The price of barley in the same localities is
* Two káhans per bharan of 9 cwt., i.e. just under a penny, at 6
káhans per rupee; Iłd. at 4 káhans; and 1% of a penny at 3584 cowries
per rupee.
*49 Ten cowries per Cattack seer of Io; tolás.
* I pan and Io gamdas per seer. If, as seems possible, the rate in an-
cient times was at six or seven instead of four káhans to the rupee, these prices
would be a full third less ; and the depreciation in the value of silver would
be about one-twelfth instead of one-eighth of its former purchasing power.
** 4 fitals per man. The jítal was gºt of the silver Tanká of 175
grains ; or say ºr of the present rupee, or a farthing and a half. The man
of that period contained 28.8 lbs. avoirdupois. As barley cost 4 jítals or six
farthings per 28.8 lbs., the price was a little under sixpence per cwt. For a
full discussion of these weights, see Mr. Thomas’ Pathán Kings of Delhi,
p. 161, ed. 1871.
** 3.jſtals per man.
*4 jítals per man. Mr. Thomas' Pathán Kings, p. 283.
** 8 dams per man. The dém was officially reckoned at #6th of a
rupee; the man then contained 55.467 lbs. avoirdupois.
VAZ UE OF MOME Y (1132–1532). 329
now, on an average, about three and sixpence per hun-
dredweight retail, or seven times what it was throughout
the fourteenth century. - -
We may therefore fairly assume that, as estimated in
the staple food of the country, the value of silver in Orissa
has fallen to ºth of its purchasing power. Wages were
regulated then, as now, by the price of rice, and in fact were
mostly paid in grain. The Gangetic Dynasty of Orissa
(1 132–1532 A.D.), with a revenue nominally the same as
our own,” were therefore, as regards the home pro-
ducts of the country, and their ability to keep up armies
and pompous retinues, eight times richer than we are.
The reason clearly appears why a revenue which now
barely defrays the charge of collection and the cost of
protecting person and property, with one or two abso-
lutely necessary public works, formerly supported a great
standing army, a wealthy hierarchy of priests and Ministers
of State, and a magnificent royal Court. As the native
dynasty had practically eight times more revenue to
spend than we have, so they practically took eight times
more from the people. That is to say, their revenue
represented eight times the quantity of the staple food of
the Province which our own revenue represents.
The truth is, that a whole series of intermediate
rights has grown up between the ruling power and the
soil. I shall show in the next volume how the native
* The revenue under the Gangetic Line may in round numbers be set
down at £435,000, and under the English at £450,000 a year. With regard
to the present price of paddy, the people consider eight annas a cheap
rate for a Cattack man, containing 107 lbs. avoirdupois; or, as nearly as
may be, a shilling a hundredweight. This is the rate on the field; and as
will be seen in my Statistical Accounts (Appendices I., II., and IV.), the retail
price varies in different localities. In Purí District I found that an ordinary
rate in good seasons was 210 lbs. for two shillings. In Balasor town the price
has varied from 240 lbs. per rupee in 1850, to 140 in 1870. These are the
prices of the common sort of unhusked paddy, the staple food of the people.
33O VAZUE OF MONEY (1132–1532).
Kings of Orissa enjoyed the undivided ownership of the
land. Instead of a long line of part-proprietors stretching
from the Crown to the cultivator, as at present, and each
with a separate degree of interest in the soil; the plenum
dominium was firmly bound up and centred in the hands
of the Prince. The growth of these intermediate rights
forms the most conspicuous phenomenon in the history of
Orissa under its foreign conquerors. For centuries, under
the Musalmáns and Marhattas, the unhappy Province
knew no government but that of the sword; yet the very
roughness of the public administration allowed private
rights to spring up unperceived, and to harden into per-
manent charges upon the soil—charges which its native
princes would never have tolerated. Thus from long
anarchy and misery a fair growth of rights has blossomed
forth, and the magnificence which the Hindu Princes of
Orissa concentrated upon themselves, is now distributed
in the form of moderate prosperity among a long-de-
scending chain of proprietors, each with his own set of
rights in the land. -

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