The Antiquities of Orissa v2.c17.s1.178

Language: English

v2.c17.s1.178.1

**Anangabhima Deva.** The fane, however, could not last for ever; in course of time it mouldered and decayed, and when the Śivite dynasty of the Keśarīs had passed away, and a new one, that of the Gaṅgāvaṁśīs with a strong Vaiṣṇavite leaning came to power, the necessity was felt for thoroughly repairing or renewing it. According to the *History of Puri* by Braja Kishore Ghose, ‘The temple was entirely covered with sand, in which it remained buried for a long time. This circumstance was brought to the notice of Rājā Anaṅgabhīma Deva, who immediately set out to discover it, and happened to find the spot where it had sunk; he then removed the sand, and the temple was restored in A.D. 1198’²⁹. This is a second edition of the incident alluded to in the history of Yayāti. Mr. Stirling does not refer to this burial in sand and subsequent exhumation of the temple. After adverting to the Rājā’s having incurred the guilt of killing a Brahman, to motives of superstition prompting him to construct numerous temples as an expiation for his offence and to the various public works he completed, he says, the Rājā ‘filled the whole Kṣetra of Jagannātha with sacred edifices, and the great temple was erected by his orders under the superintendence of Paramahaṁśa Bājapeyi, at an expense of about thirty to forty lacs. The date of its completion was A. D. 1196.

v2.c17.s1.178.2

He at the same time enlarged considerably the establishment, added fifteen Brahman and fifteen Sudra Sewaks or officiating priests, and gave fresh splendour to the worship of the deity of the place by the institution of numerous *bhogas* and *yātrās* (feasts and festivals)’³⁰. Dr. Hunter thus dilates on the circumstances which led to Anaṅgabhīma’s building the temple: ‘In the midst of his grandeur he was struck down by a great calamity. He unhappily slew a Brahman, and the rest of his life became one grand expiation of the guilt. Tradition relates that he built sixty stone temples to the gods; bridged ten board rivers; dug forty great wells and encased them with solid masonry; constructed one hundred and fifty-two flights of stairs on the river banks as bathing-places and points of transit; founded four hundred and fifty colonies of Brahmans upon lands granted out of the royal demesne; and excavated one million of tanks to protect the crops of the husbandmen. To him appeared lord Jagannātha in a dream and commanded him to journey to the sands of Puri, and there to call on his name, so the king in the twelfth year of his reign journeyed to Puri and offered up his prayers’³¹. He consulted his vassals and chief officers and addressed them at great length on the propriety of re-erecting the temple which he had in contemplation. ‘So the great temple of Jagannātha was built as it now stands, all the chiefs and princes applauding the king’s speech.

v2.c17.s1.178.3

Gold and jewels to the value of a million and a half measures of gold were set apart for the work, being estimated at half a million sterling in the money of our time. Fourteen years the artificers laboured and the temple was finished in A. D. 1198'. These details have been taken from the *Temple Annals* which had for some time before the date of Anaṅgabhīma [110] commenced to be daily recorded and for the period may be accepted as authentic ; and the account, therefore, is much more reliable than that of the historian of Puri who brought no other qualification for the task than a knowledge of routine figures acquired by his connection with the office of the Puri Collectorate of which he was the head clerk. Neither Mr. Stirling nor Dr. Hunter has, however, noted a fact of considerable importance mentioned in the *Temple Records* ; it is that the father of Anaṅgabhīma was the first to turn his attention to the Puri temple. Gaṇeśvara Deva, having been guilty of incest, was assassinated by his wife and followed in the sovereignty of Orissa by his son Kāmadeva Deva, who had the nick-name of Ekajaṭā on account of a lock of matted hair which he had on his head. He pulled down the old temple at Puri and commenced to build a new one. His reign, however, was limited to five years and he did not live long enough to finish the work he had taken in hand. His eldest son Madana Mahādeva had a reign of only four years.

v2.c17.s1.178.4

During that time he erected a temple to Nārāyaṇa under the name of Ālālanāthā at a distance of eight miles from Puri and then took in hand the great temple of Jagannātha ; but he made no great progress in the work. Anaṅgabhīma was his brother and to him therefore devolved the task. He took for his model the Great Tower of Bhuvaneśvara and in imitation of that monument, but at the same time to eclipse its grandeur, produced its counterpart. An inscription³² gives the date at Śaka 1119, i.e. A. C. 1197, and distinctly states that the temple was *caused to be erected* (*kārayāmāsa*) *and not restored* by Anaṅgabhīma Deva. There are frequent references too in works which cannot be later than the 9th or 10th century to the temple of Puri as an important place of pilgrimage and it is impossible to believe that the temple was then buried in sand entirely lost sight of. The temple existed and was visited by large numbers ; but it enjoyed not much royal favour during the supremacy of the Keśarī line and could not cope with the glory of the Śivite revival at Bhuvaneśvara. Its ascendancy therefore dates after the decline of Bhuvaneśvara when a new dynasty gave impulse to a different but by no means an antagonistic form of faith.