The Antiquities of Orissa v2.c18.71

v2.c18.71

I have elsewhere shown that the story of Gayāsura is an allegorical representation of the spread of Buddhism in India and that Gayā and Yājapur represented the chief seats of that religion²⁶. I have also shown above (p. [58]) that the revival of Hinduism commenced from the north and gradually spread towards the south, and that Yayāti Keśarī, coming from Bihar, found the city of Yājapur conveniently situated to form the base of his operations in the south, and so made it his capital for a time. He did not build it, but took it as he found it, and it was then a place of considerable importance. The story of Gayāsura's navel leaves no room for doubt on the subject. Situated close to Dantapura, the locale of the sacred tooth-relic, it was probably in existence when Buddhism first spread in Orissa; at any rate it certainly was a sufficiently important seat of Buddhism when the Gayāsura story was got up in the 4th or the 5th century, to be called the navel of that religion, and its relics are not wanting even to this day. Yayāti, as a Hindu revivalist, first assailed it and brought it under subjugation. From that time to the middle of the 16th century, it flourished as one of the seven metropolises of Orissa and was enriched by numerous costly edifices by the architecture-loving sovereigns of that country. But even as the Hindus had expelled the Buddhists from the town and converted their sanctuaries into Hindu places of worship, so did the Muhammadans, a thousand years after, expel the Hindus and build monuments in honour of their faith with the materials of Hindu temples. Kālāpāhāḍa, the redoubtable champion of Islam and uncompromising iconoclast, assailed Orissa in the year 1558 and after the great battle fought before Yājapur²⁷, when the independence of the Uriyas finally succumbed to his sword, swept away every vestige of Hinduism that fell in his way. Temples were demolished and dismantled ; idols defaced, or pounded down, or cast into the river ; and the accumulated treasures of art of a thousand years were lost for ever. So complete was the havoc committed that, with the exception of a solitary monumental pillar and a few broken stones, there is nothing left now to convey a fair idea of what Yâjapur contained in the days of its glory.