The Antiquities of Orissa v2.c18.21

v2.c18.21

**[149]** This description was apparently obtained from a correspondent who was by no means an accurate observer and its details are obviously faulty. It shows, however, that the place was at the time, about the close of the 16th century, still flourishing and not totally deserted as it now is. The *Temple Annals* say that the images of Sūrya and Candra, which were the presiding divinities of the Koṇārak Temple, were brought away to Puri by Narasimḥa Deva. (A. D. 1628-1652). It must follow that the accident which knocked down the temple, however caused, must have occurred between 1602, when Abul·Fazl died, and the seventeenth century. With the removal of the sacred images, from a place which had no manufactures or commerce, nor any large navigable rivers, its desertion by the people who gave it *eclat* was a consequence which took only a few years to be consummated. The sea also had been gradually receding from its old shore-line, for originally the town was situated close by the sea-beach and it is now more than a mile away from it, and that must have also told upon the prosperity and contributed to the desertion of the place.