The Antiquities of Orissa v2.c17.s1.193

v2.c17.s1.193

Twenty years after, during the reign of Rājā Rāmcandra Deva, the relic was rescued from its hiding place, images were made and their worship restored with much pomp and solemnity. A few years subsequently, during the Moghal invasion of Orissa, the images were, according to Stirling, ‘twice or thrice carried away across the Chilka Lake, and concealed amidst the hills, until the times appeared favourable for again setting them upon their thrones in the temple. This religious warfare was at last set at rest by the institution of the tax on pilgrims, which if we may credit the author of the work translated by Gladwin, under the title of *History of Bengal*, yielded to the Moghal government a revenue of nine lacs. Under such circumstances, religious antipathies, however strong on the part of the ruling power, must have yielded gradually to considerations of self-interest’³⁷.