1S6 Notes and Queries suggested by a Visit to Orissa. [No. 3. 



was for ages predominant all through Orissa both among rulers and 

 people, — though Orissa be now the garden of Hinduism and Jagau- 

 nath its Jerusalem. Even Jagannath itself stands on the site of a 

 Buddhist temple and contained the celebrated tooth of Buddha,which 

 was kept there till the 4th century, A. D., when it was carried for 

 a short period to Patna, the ancient Palibothra, then the capital of 

 North India, it was soon after brought back to Puri, but on an 

 invasion of the country, it was conveyed A. D. 311 by a king's 

 daughter concealed in her hair to Ceylon, which was then becoming 

 a place of refuge to the Buddhists from the Brahmans' rage. Prin- 

 sep, Lassen, Burnouf have established from the evidence of MSS., 

 Inscriptions on pillars, rocks, &c, that Buddhism was the state reli- 

 gion of India from the days of Asoka 3 centuries B. C. to the 4th cen- 

 tury A. D., while the Chinese travellers Fa Hian and Hiuan Thsang 

 give us information of its prevalence up to the 7th century A. D. 



3. My enquiries in Orissa. I spent ten days at Puri and subse- 

 quently visited Bhubanesar, Kattak, the rock cut caves of Kandigiri, 

 the country on the borders of the Chilka lake; in all those places I 

 sought by procuring Sanskrit or Uriya MSS., by conversation with 

 intelligent pandits, natives and Europeans to ascertain the local 

 traditions and to gain any information which would prove a clue to 

 the past history of Orissa. Sterling's Orissa alas is the only work 

 written by an European that throws light on former days, with the 

 exception of Major Kittoe's account of his visits to the Cave tem- 

 ples at Bhubanesar. Subsequent books indicate that the writers 

 knew little of the people below the surface and are mere plagiarisms 

 from Sterling's work. 



4. Myths are sometimes truths in symbol. Lassen in his Indische 

 Alterthumskunde has shown that the Epic poems of the Ramayan 

 and Mahabharat, though myths, may yield their quota of geogra- 

 phic and historic truth to the careful investigator. Wilson has made 

 the Vishnu Purana subserve the same object, and we need for India 

 in the present day a Walter Scott who will render old legends, 

 popular songs, and mythic works conducive to the cause of historic 

 research. 



5. MSS. relating to Orissa. In the following MSS. procurable 

 in Orissa, are scattered data and hints, which may be of value to one 



