Orissa - History
Over centuries, Orissa has evolved a unique political, social, religious, and cultural unity that has been greatly influenced by its geographical insulation from the rest of the country. Orissa has enclosed a semicircular coastal belt of nearly 480 kilometre long, forest-clad hills and mountain ranges of the Eastern Ghats. These hilly tracts have some rich river valleys.
This has made Orissa a separate geographical unit with a distinct political history. However, Orissa is not totally isolated from the rest of the country as there are three outlets in the northern and southern ends of the coastal belt and in the Mahanadi valley. Through these three routes came influences from the north-east, south as well as from central and northern India, and mingled with the local culture to form a new synthesised culture.
Another distinguishing feature is the presence of tribal elements in this culture. The tribal people have always been an important segment of the total population. Though they were more numerous in ancient and medieval Orissa, today also they constitute about a quarter of the population. The search for political, social, and cultural integration had taken place side by side.
Odisha has a long tradition of art and architecture. The early monuments date back to the third century B.C. The remnant of an Ashokan pillar, turned into a Siva Lingam and enshrined in the Bhaskaresvara temple at Bhubaneswar and the lion capital of an Ashokan pillar, presently in the State Museum, speak volumes of Odishas past glory. The rock-cut caves of Khandagiri and Udaygiri and the inscriptions recording Kharavelas short but eventful reign during the first century B.C. constitute the second phase of the evolution in Odishan art. The Naga and Yaksha images found in places around Bhubaneswar belong to the post-Kharavela era.
As centuries rolled by, Odisha continued to invite heros, Scholars and prophets alike. Famous Kings like Samudra Gupta and Harsha Siladitya came to Odisha on political missions while scholars like Prajna and Hieuen-Tsang came to learn at centers of learning. Hieuen-Tsang, the famous Chinese pilgrim of the 7th century who visited Odisha was surprised to see the University of Puspagiri imparting knowledge to innumerable scholars now lying buried under Buddhist complex at Ratnagiri-Lalitgiri-Udayagiri.
Orissa was known as Kalinga in ancient days. Another ancient name of this region was Utkal. It is widely known as the land of Lord Jagannath. Seaports flourished along the coast as early as the 4th and 5th centuries BC, when the sadhabs, the Odishan seafaring merchants, went to the islands of Java, Sumatra, Borneo and Bali with their merchandise. Not only did they bring home wealth and prosperity, they also carried the glorious Indian civilisation with them and helped its spread abroad. Vijaya, the first king of Ceylon, is believed to be a prince of Odishan origin.
The land had its martial glory in the past and the people had made their contact with the kingdoms South East Asia in ancient times. Kalinga had made its mark in the Indian history when the Nanda dynasty ruled the kingdom of Magadha. She posed a threat to the Maurya Empire.
Ashoka, the Great invaded Kalinga in 261 B.C. and conquered her. But the terrible bloodshed on the banks of the river, Daya that preceded Ashokas victory changed his heart. He embraced Buddhism and preached peace and goodwill for the rest of his life. Emperor Ashok conquer Kalinga and Kalinga war (3rd century B.C.) struck Ashok with remorse. Its territory formed a part of the ancient Kalinga of Mahabharat fame. Ashok the Mauryan King of Magadh, invaded Kalinga in 261 BC and this event has gone down in history as the Great Kalinga war. Then the people of Kalinga offered a relentless & dauntless resistance, but they lost at last.
How desperate was the battle, how bitterly was it fought, and how terrible were the results, are known from Ashok’s own descriptions. This is what he wrote about the Kalinga war in his thirteenth Rock Edict. The country of Kalinga was conquered when King Priyadarshan, beloved of the Gods had been anointed eight years. One hundred and fifty thousand were there from captured, one hundred thousand were there slain, and many times as many died.
But what was the result? The conquered Kalinga conquered her conqueror. This was the last war fought by him after which he became the great champion of Buddhism and upheld the values of peace and non-violence. The ancient state rose to prominence as a Kingdom under Kharavela, a great conquerer and patron of Jainism, in the second half of the 1st century B.C. Other great rulers belonged to the Keshari dynasty and the Eastern Ganga dynasty who were also great builders.
Kalinga reasserted her independence after the death of Ashoka and increased her strength. The Kalingan Empire reached the pinnacle of glory during the reign of Emperor Kharavela who even pursued the Greek King Demetrius out of India. The inscriptions on Hati Gumpha (Elephant Cave) on the Udayagiri Hill in Bhubaneswar record the story of his reign.
Kalinga maintained its trade links with overseas countries during the first three centuries of the Christian era but the kingdom itself was divided into a number of principalities. In the fourth century AD. Emperor Samudragupta invaded Odisha and overcame the resistance offered by five of her chiefs. Odisha came under the rule of King Sasanka and later King Harsha Vardhana in the 7th century A.D. when the Chinese traveller Hiuen Tsang visited Odisha. Towards the middle of the century the Somavamsi dynasty was firmly established in the land.
The end of the 8th century saw the emergence of Jajpur-on-Baitarani as an epicentre of Brahminical religion. Thus Buddhism and Jainism took a back seat for aome time, when Yayati Keshari invited ten thousand Brahmin pundits from Kanauja and settled them in different parts of his kingdom. He established Abhinaba Yayati Nagar which was abbreviated to Jajpur in course of time. The centre of political activities shifted to Cuttack, known as Abhinab Varanasi Kataka, in the eleventh century A.D. Illustrious Ganga kings ruled Odisha for nearly three hundred and fifty years and they were followed by Suryavamsi Gajapati Kings and Mukunda Deva Harichandan of the Chalukya dynasty. Pancha Kataka or the five forts protected the capital against any aggression.
The Kalinga School of architecture flourished from the 7th to 13th century A.D. The most important monuments of this period can be seen in and around Bhubaneswar and Puri. The Mukteswar Temple is the finest piece of architecture of Kalinga. The Lingaraj Temple of Bhubaneswar, the Jagannath Temple of Puri above all the world renowned world heritage Sun Temple at Konark is the epitome of temple architecture and sculpture. The construction of Konark Temple utilized 12 years of state revenue which can be compared to the mighty Moghul Empire, which also utilized its resources of 12 years for building world famous Taj Mahal.
From the pre-Christian era till the 16th century, Orissa had a flourishing overseas trade with the south-east Asian countries. The coastline was dotted with ports, that were connected by road to southern, western, and northern India. Internal trade and commerce flourished. Arts and crafts developed and agricultural prosperity was ensured through a light taxation system (one-fourth to one-twentieth of the gross produce) and a sound revenue administrative system.
The conquest of Orissa by the Afghan and the Moghul invaders in the 16th century slowed down economic progress. During their rule, foreign trade was restricted due to Portuguese dominance of the sea. Agricultural development slowed down, not due to the oppressive revenue system, but due to the rapacity and extortion by local officers posted in Orissa towards the end of the empire. During the later part of the Moghul rule and the Maratha rule, local officials became so oppressive that farmers left their lands and fled to the adjoining territories of feudal chiefs.
It has also shown its military strength and prowess during Buxi Jagabandhu, period of the warrior of Khurda Paikas. The glories of Odisha ended in later half of 16th century. The Hindu state of Odisha came under the Muslim rule in 1568 A.D. when King Mukunda Deva lost to the Sultan of Bengal, Suleiman Karni.
Odisha came under the Moghuls and the Marathas and finally in 1803 A.D., under the British, who administered the final blows by dividing the original territory in to several administrative units. Odisha formed a part of greater Bengal but didn't lose its own separate cultural identity. The political capital shifted to Patna when the state of Bihar-Odisha was carved out of Bengal. Odisha became a separate province in 1936 A.D. with Cuttack as its capital.
Ultimately, the British took over the state from the Marathas although a number of indigenous princely states continued to function in some parts of Orissa. There were as many as 26 of such states in Orissa. Under the British rule from 1803 till the great Orissa famine of 1866, no attention was paid to the plight of agriculturists, with more focus being laid on revenue collection than on farmers’ welfare. The temporary Zamindari Settlement System, which was in operation throughout the 19th century, proved to be detrimental to the development of agriculture.
The zamindars temporarily put their land out of cultivation in order to avoid assessment, and the ryots had no incentive due to lack of security of tenure. The land revenue policy and the sunset law led to large-scale replacement of Oriya zamindars by Bengali zamindars who were absentee landlords. Their agents in Orissa resorted to many illegal exactions. Heavy assessment of land tax was one of the main causes for the increase in poverty and deterioration of agriculture. During this period, due to lack of support, village industries and rural handicrafts decayed, and people of the artisan class resorted to agriculture for a living, leading to further pressure on land.
The British had a definite tribal policy consisting of three aspects: suppressing periodic tribal revolts; consolidating their position in the tribal tracts by setting up administrative machinery, and protecting the tribals from exploitation by non-tribals who came in large numbers to support the administration. This policy was applicable to tracts directly under their administration. However, with respect to tribals in the Princely States, the government followed a policy of non-interference, except when there was a grave law and order problem due to tribal revolts.
The spread of English education and the exposure to Western ideas made the educated Oriyas aware of their great heritage. They made a united stand to stop the plan of some Bengali officials to deny Oriya the status of a separate language and to declare it as a dialect of Bengali. Conscious of the utter neglect of Orissa and the lack of connectivity with the neighbouring regions (the reason why millions in Orissa division died in the great famine of 1866), the Oriyas agitated for a separate Province by unifying all Oriya tracts scattered in the neighbouring three Provinces.
All the agitating Oriya organisations united and formed the ‘Utkal Sammilani’ (Oriya Conference) under the leadership of Madhusudan Das and supported by eminent persons. Their continuous agitation bore fruit when, on 1 April 1936, Orissa became a separate Province, comprising seven districts. The independent state Odisha was constituted as a separate province by carving out certain portions from the provinces of Bihar, Odisha and Madras With the merger of 24 feudatory states in 1948 and 1949, Orissa regained its natural geographical boundary. Sardar Patel, the architect of Indian unity, brought about the merger of the Orissa princely states with the Union of India. In January 1949, princely states of Orissa completely merged with state. The young Province had to struggle to put in place a common administrative system and uniform revenue laws.
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