A IjlTTLE KNOWN PROVINCE OP THE INDIAN EMPIRE. 125 



as of any account or value for priestly offices, to which they 

 do not now aspire. They managed to secure a monopoly 

 of the cultivation of the coco-nut tree, asserting that serious 

 misfortunes would happen to men of any other, especially 

 lower, caste who grew them. The Christian missionaries dis- 

 regarded this interdict without suffering any evil consequences, 

 and latterly large numl)ers of coco-nut trees have been planted 

 on the canal banks, with the result that the lower castes have 

 become sceptical as to the ills which might ensue, and are also 

 planting the trees, the profits from T^diich are considerable. 



Some time about 950 a.d. the town of Cuttack, the present 

 capital of the province, was founded by one of the Lion line of 

 Kings, It is situated on the tongue of land, formed by the 

 bifurcation of the Eiver Mahanuddy, which thenceforth is 

 divided into the two rivers, the Mahanuddy and Katjoree. A 

 massive revetment was built to preserve the town from inun- 

 dation in the great floods to which these rivers are subject ; 

 and renewed and strengthened, it still serves the purpose, 

 though it has several times been within great peril of being 

 washed away. A later monarch of the same line built several 

 bridges, notably the one leading into the town of Puri and 

 another at Eruckpur, involving not an arch but a series of 

 overlapping stones, which serve the same purpose ; 1 am not 

 aware that a similar mode of construction has been practised 

 elsewhere. 



But we are now coming to the real religion of the people. It 

 is the country of Jaganath, and there are many legends as to the 

 origin of this form of devotion and the manner in which the 

 idol was first obtained ; these mythical stories form at once the 

 fairy tales and the religious books of the Uriya children. Shiva 

 worship was always more a royal creed than a popular religion. 

 The temples of the people are dedicated to some incarnation of 

 Vishnu, whilst the descendants of the imported Brahmans 

 worship Shiva as their special deity, and some of their settlements 

 still hold lands granted by princes of the Lion line more than a 

 thousand years ago. The religion of terror was supplanted by 

 . Vishnuism pure and simple, or some incarnation of that deity, 

 or sun w^orship. There are legends of a sun dynasty extending 

 • from 1132 A.D., when the last monarch of the Lion line died 

 childless, to 1324 A.D., when the Gangetic line took their place. 

 The origin of the dynasty which succeeded the Lion line is a 

 matter of dispute. It is not improbable that it came from the 

 south, where one Proh had carved out a kingdom, whence his 

 'brother Chargunga pushed northwards, seized Orissa ani:l 



