The Antiquities of Orissa v2.c18.70

v2.c18.70

**Yajapur.** The last of the four emblems of Viṣṇu, is represented by Yājapur. It was there that Viṣṇu dropped his club, whence its name Gadā Kṣetra. It is said that on the left bank of the Vaitaraṇī river in front of the town, Brahmā celebrated the horse-sacrifice ten times over and the place thereupon obtained the name of Yajñapura, or 'the city of sacrifices'. This is an adaptation of a story which is related in connection with one of the ghāṭs of Benares, which is called Daśāśvamedha Ghāṭ, and it is in perfect keeping with the opinion expressed above regarding the attempt made to reproduce Benares in all its details in Orissa. In course of the sacrifices aforesaid, there sprang from the flaming alter an embodiment of the divine mother Durgā in the form of Virajā, the immaculate, and in honour of her the place is called Virajā Kṣetra. Again, the great Titan Gayā, when laid prostrate before Viṣṇu, stretched so far and wide that while his head rested at Gayā, his navel was located at Yājapur, and its memory is preserved in the name of the place Nābhī Kṣetra. A well or natural fountain, still existing, is pointed out as the centre of the navel; and here *śrāddhas* are performed by Hindu pilgrims and the funeral cake is thrown into the pit of the well. Again, it is said, that as Yayāti Keśarī, in his march southwards, first established his metropolis at Yājapur, he must have built the city and named it after himself Yayātipura, which now survives in the abbreviated form of Yājapur. This derivation, however, is questionable. Under the phonetic rules of the Prakrita language, Yayāti would not change into Yāja; whereas Yaj, the radical of Yajña, even in Sanskrit, yields the noun Yāja or Yāga, 'a sacrifice', and thence Yājapur is an obvious and legitimate derivation.