The Antiquities of Orissa v1.c6.11

Language: English

v1.c6.11.1

Even the origin of its very name is involved in doubt. Unquestionably the word Orissa is a corruption of the Sanskrit *Oḍra-deśa*, the country of the Oḍras or Uḍras; but who the Oḍras were, remains yet to be determined. According to grammarians the word Oḍra is derived from the root *uḍ*, "to embrace"; but this derivation does not in any way serve to elucidate how the province came to be so designated. According to some, it is a compound of the prefix *ā*, "slight increase" and the root *undi* "to soil" with the affix *raka*, the *d* being changed to *ḍ*, meaning "the country of the dirty people", the Uriyās being, in the estimation of the Bengalis, unmindful of cleanliness; but the derivation, on the face of it, appears so fanciful that it may be at once rejected as an afterthought. Lassen takes it to be a Prakrit form of the Sanskrit *uttara* "north"—the northern country.⁶ A common ornamental plant with large bright red flowers (*Hibiscus rosa sinensis*⁷) is in Sanskrit named *Oḍra*, and it has been alleged that the province derives its name from the plant, "the land of hibiscus flower", in the same way that India is called Jambudvīpa "the island of the *Jām* fruit "from the *Eugenia jambolana* which is said to have been at one time very widely spread over the country.

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I do not, however, remember to have noticed the hibiscus or shoeflower as particularly abundant in those parts of the Puri and Cuttack districts through which I have passed, and, though greatly esteemed by the Uriyās under the name of *mandāra*, or the representative on earth of the fabled *pārijāta*⁸ of Indra's heaven, it does not appear to form by any means a prominent feature in the flora of Orissa. It is not likely, therefore, that the province should be named after the plant. In the Institutes of Manu mention is made of a tribe of men named Oḍras who were originally Kṣatriyas,⁹ but who were degraded and deprived of the privileges of their caste for non-observance of religious rites. They are put under the same class as the Pauṇḍras, Drāviḍas, Kāmbojas (Afghan), Yavanas, Śakas (Scythians), and other aboriginal or non-Aryan races.¹⁰ The *Mahābhārata*, in the *Harivaṃśa Parva*, names them along with the Surāṣṭras, Bāhlikas, Madras, Ābhiras, Bhojas, Pāṇḍyas Aṅgas, Kaliṅgas, Tāmraliptakas, Pauṇḍras, Vāmāculas and the Keralas,—most, if not all of whom were [3] either aboriginal or non-Aryan.¹¹ In the same way the *Rāmāyaṇa*¹² reckons them along with a great number of barbarous races, none of whom found a place within the pale of pure Brahmanism, and it may be fairly concluded that they were a race of aborigines like the Coles, Bheels, Khonds and other primitive races, and the province was named, as supposed by Sterling, after its inhabitants, "the country of the Oḍra race".

v1.c6.11.3

If this inference be tenable, it would afford a curious clue to the meaning of the second name, *Utkala*, by which the province is known to Sanskrit writers.¹³ Mediaeval etymologists take it to be a compound of *ut* "above," or an expletive, and *kal* "to go", meaning "one who travels with a load", "a porter," and secondarily Uriyās who are extensively employed even to this day as load-carriers and *pālki*-bearers. The root *kal* also means "to sound indistinctly", and some imagine that it has been used to indicate the imperfect sounds of Uriyā speech.¹⁴ Both these derivations are, however, fanciful, and we must look to other than the Sanskrit for the true radicals of the word under notice. *Oḍra* is by far the most extensively used term for the Uriyās, and its vernacular form is *Oḍ*, or *Uḍ*, both according to the rules of the Prakrit grammar and popular usage. If this, as a specific tribal designation, be added to *Kola*, the generic name for the aborigines, we get Uṭkola "a *kola* of the *Oḍ* or *Uḍ* class", the sonant *ḍ* being required by a well-known euphonic law to change to the surd *ṭ*. The subsequent conversions of *uṭ* into *ut* and *Kola* into *kala* are the results of phonetic decay, or vernacular corruption and regeneration of which innumerable examples may easily be adduced.

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In corroboration of this derivation it may be observed that in Sanskrit, *Utkala* means a birdcatcher, a term which is peculiarly appropriate to a *kola* ( *Anglice Cole* ), whether of the *Oḍ* or any other tribe. According to Colnel Wilford, Utkala is equal to *udkala*, and “implies the great and famous country of Cola”;¹⁵ it is the same with the “*Encolla*” of Nonnius mentioned in his *Dionysiacs*.¹⁶ Dr. Hunter, in his Dissertation on the non-Aryan Languages of India, accepts *Oḍ* to be the archetype of *Oḍra*, and then points out its previous transmutations through three different stages. “The specific term for man among a large section of the Indian aborigines is”, he observes, “*ha* or *ho*, lengthening through the *Visarga* into *hah*, *has*, *haḍ* (*har*) *hoḍ* (*hor*)”. Dropping the *h* of the last by a process of cockneyism of which instances may be met with in many Indian vernaculars and notably in that of Dacca, where the common people are as averse to pronounce the initial *h* as a London labourer, the remnant is *Oḍ* “whence, *Oḍra*, *Uriyā*, *Urihay*, *Oḍāoñ*”, etc.¹⁷ He takes *kala*, however, to be also a modification of *ho*, and if this be admitted, the question arises as to how the same word should occur in two such markedly different forms as *ut* and *kala* in the compound *Utkala*.

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Two diametrically opposite series of changes of one word cannot simultaneously go on in one language, and it is not at all likely that the result of one of them should be adopted to imply a generic idea, and that of the other the differentia. It seems probable, therefore, that the *ka* series of race names are independent of the *ho* series ; or, what is more probable, the Brāhmaṇic races who first came in contact with the Coles in Upper and Central India, used it as a generic term, [ 4 ] and when they met the *Oḍs* in Orissa, named them as a separate tribe of the Coles—“the Oḍ Coles”. This is a question, however, which does not call for any lengthened discussion in this place. It is enough for our purpose here that *Oḍ* is generally supposed to be a tribal designation, and what is of greater importance, that this supposition is not a mere conjecture, but is fully borne out by tangible living evidence. In many parts of Orissa and particularly in the Pargannah of Khurdā there exists to this day a race of agriculturists or *cāṣās* who profess to be Hindus, and are in no way different in their physical characteristics from the general population, but who are shunned by all their neighbours as degraded beings, and obliged to live by themselves in separate communities, having their own separate Brāhmaṇ priests, and peculiar customs, and social observances.

v1.c6.11.6

Although *cāṣās* by name, they are looked down upon as the lowest of the low even by the *telis* and other castes who, according to the *Paurāṇic* gradation, should themselves be lower. These men, like the fallen Moslim population of Bengal, or the oppressed Bhumiyās of Chutia-Nāgpur, consider themselves the real proprietors of the soil, and have a clear impression that the Rājās of Orissa were mere usurpers of a country which once belonged to them ; and Saralādāśa, a mediaeval Uriyā poet, supports their pretension in his translation of the *Mahābhārata* by describing Orissa as the kingdom of the *Oḍs*, *Oḍ rāṣṭra*. An equivalent term, *Oḍ Maṇḍala*, is also of common occurrence in old ballads. These Oḍs cultivate sugarcane, and carry burdens on bullocks, which no other Uriyās, particularly those living south of the Brāhmaṇī river, can do without losing their caste. Among the Māhintis and other Uriyā tribes, the woman throw off their brass *khārus* or bracelets, as soon as they can afford to purchase ornaments of more precious metals, but the wives of these agriculturists, whether rich or poor, are all required to wear them as long as their husbands are living, in the same way as Bengali women wear an iron bracelet, or a bit of iron twined round with a piece of gold wire, during the life time of their husbands.

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On occasions of public feasts, I understand from Bābu Candraśekhara Banurji, for a long time Deputy Collector of Cuttack, these people observe peculiar customs unknown to their neighbours. They spread a large mat made of the root of the *benà* or *khaskhas*, and heap thereon a quantity of a kind of baked rice called *hurum*. Everybody present, whether rich or poor, great or low, must sit around this heap, and eat a handful of it before partaking of any other food. Although Hindus by profession they have no caste distinction, and the four different tribes into which they are divided intermarry without offence. These tribes are severally known as, 1st *dahi-kalasā*, owners of the curd-jar, or men who rear cattle and sell curds; 2nd *pendākalasā*, keepers of gruel jar or, men who live on sour gruel; 3rd, *śūkaralachā*, or swine-herds; and 4th *benatiyā*, or dwellers in *khaskhas* bushes but their common designation is *Oḍ* or *Oḍ-cāṣā*, and we cannot but accept them as the remnants of the original inhabitants who gave their name to the province.