238 J. Beames —Notes on the History of northern Orissa. [No. 3, 
In the time of Mir Taki Khan, who was Naib of Shujaucldin, 
Nawab of Bengal, all that part of the Sirkar of Jellasore lying north of the 
Subanrekha was transferred to Bengal, thus making that river the northern 
boundary of Orissa. It is much to be wished that this well defined boun¬ 
dary had been adhered to ever since. Taki Khan ruled Orissa from 1725 
to 1731. He was a bigotted Musalman, and in his time the Raja of 
Khurda found or affected to find it necessary to carry off the idol of 
Jaganath to the hills beyond the Chilka. All pilgrimage was in conse¬ 
quence put a stop to, and the revenues of the province greatly injured. 
Taki Khan lies buried in the Kadam Rasul at Cuttack, but the local tradi¬ 
tions of Balasore represent him as having spent much of his time in that 
town. He built the masonry tank, and reservoir and the mosque and 
gardens known as the Kadam Rasul in Balasore.* He is also said to have 
had a hunting palace at Remna five miles from Balasore under the Nilgiri 
Hills, a place still abounding with game, and whose name (Sanskrit Rama- 
na=a place of sport, or hunting-ground) supports the legend. There are 
still at Remna extensive ruins of Muhammadan tombs and buildings. Taki 
Khan is well remembered in Balasore, and his character for piety stands 
high. A curious legend is current that the Vaishnava, Nandha Gosain, 
whose temple is in Malikaspur a suburb of the town, was in the habit of 
making a great noise with drums and cymbals while celebrating his kir- 
tans or religious ceremonies. The Nawab’s devotions being disturbed by 
this noise, he ordered it to be stopped. That evening when the naubat, or 
beating of drums at sunset was about to take place, none of the drums 
would sound, and this state of things continued till the Nawab withdrew 
his prohibition from Nandha Gosain, when the drums again sounded as 
usual. 
In 1734 Murshid Kuli Khan was appointed governor of Orissa, 
and with him came as his Dewan the infamous Mir Habib who afterwards 
betrayed the province to the Marathas. The first thing Murshid did was 
to induce the Brahmans to bring back to Puri the idol of Jagannath which 
had been carried off for safety to the hills across the Chilka. By this step 
the revenues of the province were at once immensely increased, as the 
stream of pilgrims, which had for some time ceased owing to the disappear¬ 
ance of the object of their worship, now set in again, and the tax on them 
is said to have risen from a nominal sum to nine lakhs per annum. In 
1740 Ali Verdi Khan became Governor of Bengal and made himself 
virtually independant of the Emperor, whose power had been much shaken 
* Probably so named in imitation of that in Cuttack, which derives its name 
“footstep of the Prophet” from being supposed to contain some relics of Muhammad 
brought from Mecca. 
