The Antiquities of Orissa v1.c6.79

v1.c6.79

None of the authorities referred to contain anything like real history: they all profess to describe provinces, towns, villages, sacred spots, holy streams, and sin-removing fountains; but they tell us nothing of their boundary, or their position—nothing regarding the people who lived in or by them, or of the sovereigns under whose sway they were. They tell the pious pilgrim all about the rewards which await him in a future existence, but nothing of what he may expect in this. For chronology they seem to have had the most sovereign contempt. From beginning to end, there is not to be found in any one of them a single date. If they ever condescend to give any idea of time, it is only to refer their reader to the fabulous or mystic cycles of the Satya, Tretā and the Dvāpara ages,—to the days of Brahmā, and the years of the Pitṛs and the Devas, but never to any current era.