1859.] Notes and Queries suggested by a Visit to Orissa. 103 



mindar eaunot oust them at will. There is a report of Mr. Forster's 

 on this subject which well deserves reprinting. 



J 8. Hill people of Orissa. The hill population of Orissa is very- 

 different from that of the plains, they belong to the aboriginal tribes 

 but little is known of their original languages and traditions. 

 Their Rajas were the Rob Roys of their districts, the oldest family 

 is that of the Raja of Kurdah. Six centuries ago they came from 

 the North West of India. It would be worth enquiry what Scy- 

 thian or Celtic remains are to be found in those hills, any structures 

 in the form of cairns, cromlechs, burrows. Dr. Wise in his paper 

 in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Vol. XXI. 

 Pt. II. p. 255 shews the general identity in idea and design of the 

 Celtic structures of Europe and the Buddhist relics of India; Pro- 

 fessor Westergaard has written on a similar subject with regard to 

 Iceland. 



19. Jagannath temple, origin of its peculiarities. The interior 

 of the temple of Jagannath cannot be seen by Europeans, I have 

 found the natives of Orissa more jealous about allowing Euro- 

 peans into their temples than the natives of Benares, — is it that 

 never having felt much of the rough hand of the Moslem dealing 

 unscrupulously with their prejudices, they have therefore become 

 so exclusive? The interior of the temple is said to be a regular 

 pantheon having temples to Hanuman, Vibhishan, Suryea, Indra, 

 Nanda, Kuvera, Sitala.* There are various points besides this in 

 connection with Jagannath, which seem to indicate that it was an 

 eclectic system selecting from different sects and incorporating all ; 

 thus though Jagannath gives much ascendancy to the Vaishnavs, 

 yet the Pandahs at Jagannath all belong to the Shakta sect of the 

 Sivites, they do not, however, practice those horribly obscene rites 



* It would be worth enquiry as to when the worship of Sitala, the goddess 

 of the sniall-pox, arose. Dr. Wise of Dacca collected much information on this 

 subject which he has taken to Europe with him. Near Calcutta there is a temple 

 to the goddess of cholera erected forty years ago, when this epidemic arose in 

 India. It would be interesting to know also when the worship of the gram devatd 

 or village gods arose in Bengal, the briihmans do not admit their pedigree ; to tho 

 South of Calcutta a god called Dakhin Roy is worshipped as the protector of the 

 ryots against Hoods and tigers. Is (his a god of the old aborigines of Bengal ? 



2 B 



