OR CUTTACK. 289 



and were put to death by them. An anarchy of twenty-one years duration 

 then ensued, during which the Afghan Mohammedans possessed the whole 

 of the open country, and there was no Raja, 



The several accounts which have been handed down Of Kalapahars in- 

 vasion of Orissa, differ widely in the details, though the main facts are well 

 known and established. The story told by the Musselman writers is that, 

 Mukund Deo, apprehending the designs of the king or governor of Ben- 

 gal, encamped with a large part of his army on the Ganges, but Kalapahar 

 turning his position got a-head of him into Orissa, and began to plunder 

 the country and attack the temples of the Hindus with relentless fury, 

 jbefore any force could be brought to check him. A battle at length took 

 place at Jajipur in which the Raja lost his life. The Afghan chief then 

 went onto Sambhelpur where he was killed by some of the Bhuyans. Others 

 say that on his passing the great temple of the Ling Raj at Bhuvaneswara, a 

 swarm of bees issued from the throne of the idol and stung him to death. 

 The Puri Vynsavali makes the Raja to have been busy in Khurda when 

 the Afghan army suddenly advanced upon Cuttack, defeated the Gover- 

 nor Gopi Sawant Sinhar, and plundered the palace and treasury, alarmed 

 at which news, Mukund Deo fled out of the province not daring to op- 

 pose so powerful a force, and died shortly after in the king of Delhi's do- 

 minions. The relation in Gladwin's Bengal of the Raja building fort Ba- 

 rabati, when he heard of Kalapahar's approach, and going to sleep for 

 many months according to custom, until roused by the alarming sound of 

 the magic kettle drum, is a third version of the story which carries with it 

 its own refutation. All the native writers however agree in speaking with 

 horror of the cruel excesses committed by their Afghan conqueror, and the 

 wide destruction of images and temples occasioned by his unrelenting per- 

 secution of the Hindu faitfo t 



The adventures of the great idol form a curious episode in the history of 



