128 



C. W. ODLING, C.S.I. , M.IXST.C.E., ON ORISSA : 



on fact. There may be an occasional suicide, usually of some 

 wretched creature, to whom pain and disease has rendered life 

 intolerable, and possibly instances of people being trampled 

 on during the progress of the cars ; but such cases are rare and 

 altogether accidental. The religious literature connected with 

 the festival contains no passage which could be twisted into 

 encouraging self-sacrifice, and Chaitana, the apostle of Jaganath, 

 regarded the destruction of the least of God's creatures as a sin 

 against the Creator. 



Turning again to the history of Orissa, which we left at the 

 legendary account of the Sun dynasty and its replacement in 

 the middle of the fourteenth century by the Gangetic line, w6 

 find that even as early as 1243 A.D, the Musalman ruler of Bengal 

 attacked Orissa, but was expelled by the peasant militia, and 

 throughout the next two hundred years there were incessant 

 conflicts with the Mohatnedans until, in 1567, the last of the 

 independent princes of Orissa was defeated by a great army of 

 Afghans under the King of Bengal. In 1578 Orissa passed from 

 the Afghans to the Moguls and became a province of Akbar's 

 empire. The ancestor of the present liaja of Puri, who is the 

 guardian of the Jaganath temple, received from Man Singh, the 

 emperor's prime minister, large fiefs, including the holy city of 

 Puri, and so reconciled the Hindu population to Mohameda;n rule. 



Orissa always remained an outlying part of the great satrapy 

 of Bengal, Behar and Orissa, and w^as the scene of numerous 

 revolts until, in 1751, it was formally ceded to the IMahrattas, 

 whose headcpiarters were at Xagpur. The deputy of the 

 Mahratta prince sold all offices to the highest bidder, plundered 

 the landholders and harried the people, until at length, such 

 Tcvenue, as was collected, was the result of an autumn 

 campaign and the village organisation formed the only civil 

 government. The value of the land was that of the standing 

 crop. The IMahrattas did not confine their attentions to Orissa 

 but devastated Midnapur and Hughli in the north and (xanjam 

 in the south, and it was owing to tlieir depredations in 

 Ganjam that Lord Wellesley determined to expel them from 

 'Orissa. The earliest connection of the English rule with Orissa 

 occurred long before the Mahratta rule of that province, and, 

 indeed, two settlements, Pippli on the Subunreka, founded in 

 16.')5,and Balasore on the Ibarra Bulong, founded in 16-12, formed 

 the basis of the English power in Eastern India. At that time 

 these places were secure harbours with a free approach to the 

 sea ; the former is now altogether deserted, and indeed was 

 •abandoned after a few years, as the harbour deteriorated, and 



