234 J. Beames —Notes on the History of Orissa. [No. 3, 
Balasore now begins to be more important. The road to Bengal 
was open and the Muhammadan forces passed and repassed and fought 
many battles along it. 
Before entering into the somewhat interesting details of the 
Musalman invasion, settlement and government of Orissa, it will be 
advisable to state briefly the general position of India. 
Akbar ascended the throne in A. D. 1556, and though very young, 
soon commenced to consolidate his power. But in all parts of India 
there were Hindu Bajas who had either themselves wielded independent 
power, or whose immediate ancestors had done so. There were also numer¬ 
ous bands of Mughals and Afghans who, during the unsettled reigns of 
Akbar’s predecessors, had penetrated into various distant parts of India in 
search of plunder, or with a view to carving out principalities for them¬ 
selves by the sword. All these classes were only with extreme difficulty 
and after repeated chastisements reduced to obedience, and the history of 
Akbar’s reign is chiefly occupied, as are those of his son and grandson, with 
the accounts of expeditions directed against refractory vassals. 
Of the latter kind were the Afghan adventurers who so long 
held Orissa. In 1567 Sulayman Shah Ivirani was viceroy of Bengal; 
he was in fact king in all but name. He it was who sent Kala Pahar 
into Orissa ; the accounts of the histories differ widely as to the date as 
well as the progress of this invasion. From local legends it would appear 
that Mukund Deo, after vainly endeavouring to hold the fort of Baibanian, 
retreated southwards fighting as he went, and was killed at Jajpur. As 
Kala Pahar was an ultra-fanatical Musalman, in the estimation of himself 
own. At Srijanga, a village ten miles south of Balasore, I found on the edge of a 
large tank called the “ Achyuta Sagar” an upright stone covered with an inscription. 
This stone I removed and set up in the compound of my house at Balasore, where it 
now is. The inscription, as partly decyphered by myself and several Pandits, yields 
the following results: The tank was dug by a Khandait who describes himself as 
“ Achyut Baliar Singh son of Daitari Biswal, sole ruler in this region” ; and he says 
he erected it when Man Singh, general of Akhar Padshah was in Orissa, in the 4699th 
year of the Kali Yug, in the 1520th year of the Saka era, in the 30th year of the 
“ Yavan bhog” or Musalman invasion, and in the 37th an/ca or year of the reign of 
Bam Chandra Dev, first Sudra king of Orissa. Now both the Yug and the Saka years 
agree in corresponding with A. D. 1598. Consequently if 1598 he the 30th year of 
Musalman invasion, the first year of that period must be 1568 as Ahul Fazl reckons, 
and not 1558 as Stirling, following the Oriya annalists, puts it. The 37th anlca would 
he the 28th year of Bam Chandra’s reign, because in reckoning the anlca , the first two 
years and every year that has a 6 or a 0 in it are omitted, we must thus omit the 
years 1, 2, 6, 10, 16, 20, 26 and 30. This takes us back to 1570 as the year of Bam 
Chandra’s accession, which leaves 1569 to represent the period of anarchy when there 
was no king, according to the native annalists. This discovery of the Srijanga stone 
is thus valuable as elucidating a disputed date in history. 
