The Antiquities of Orissa v2.c17.s1.170

v2.c17.s1.170

**Post-Buddhist or Vaishnava period. Yayati's revival.** The doctrine of the identity of Buddha and Viṣṇu was probably first preached by casuists and polemical disquisitionists in the middle of the 3rd century. At the beginning of the 4th century, we find it openly avowed in the *Dāṭhavaṃsa*, and, though the attack of the confederacy against Guhaśiva is not acknowledged to have been prompted by religious differences, the anxiety the prince displayed in sending the sacred relic away from the reach of his assailants, would imply that the danger to his religion was as greatly apprehended as to his kingdom. At the close of the 5th century, the doctrine must have acquired such firmness as to render it easy for Yayāti Keśarī, the conqueror from the north, to give it currency, and to appropriate the Buddhist shrine of Puri to the service of Viṣṇu. It has been already shown (p. [58]) that Yayāti came from Magadha during the supremacy of the later Guptas. Those Guptas appear to have been mostly devout Vaiṣṇavas, for they describe themselves in the Behar Lāṭ inscriptions as *paramabhāgvatas*²⁴ ; and their general, it would be no great presumption to suppose, was a follower of the same creed. If so, it would follow that Yayāti was a Vaiṣṇava ; and, as a revivalist, it would be natural to suppose that he was the first to convert the Puri shrine to his own purposes. The Temple Records admit this, only representing the appropriation to be a revivalism of the ancient ritual. It is said that Yayāti, about the close of his career, made preparations for the erection of the Great Tower at Bhuvaneśvara when he finally settled in that city. This would, however, be by no means inconsistent. Vaiṣṇavas have not been usually so opposed to Śaivaism as to Śāktaism, and the dedication of temples both to Viṣṇu and Śiva by the same person has been by no means uncommon in India. Though Yayāti is said to have revived the worship of Jagannātha, his successors were all very ardent Śaivas, who devoted their resources to promote the glory of Śiva in the metropolis of their dominion, but doing little for the divinity at Puri. One of them, Alābu Keśarī *alias* Lalāṭendu Keśarī, the builder of the Great Tower of Bhuvaneśvara, erected at Puri a temple in honour of Śiva, and named it after himself ; another, Kuṇḍala Keśarī ( 811-829 ), dedicated a temple there to that divinity under the name of Mārkaṇḍeśvara ; another, Matsya Keśarī, ( A. D. 1034-1050 ) built the great bridge of Āṭhāranālā over the river in front of Puri ; and these erections show that the town was always regarded as an important one, and that it was never entirely forsaken.