History of Orissa from the Earliest Times to the British Period v1.c14.48

Language: English

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of orders of the Gajapati Mahārājās of Orissa who are the hereditary trustees of the Temple, and the annals of these Mahārājās. This last section of the Mādalā Pāñji was first brought to the notice of the students of history by A. Stirling in his ‘An Account—Geographical, Statistical and Historical—of Orissa Proper, or Cuttack,’ published in the Asiatic Researches, Vol. XV, 1825.”¹ Mr. Chanda notes that “It is said that in the beginning of the Kaliyuga, 18 kings of the Somavaṁśa or the lunar dynasty beginning with Yudhishthira ruled for 3,781 years. In the reign of Śobhana Deva, the 17th king of this dynasty, Raktabāhu, the Amir (amurā) of the Mughal Pādshāh (Patishā) of Delhi, invaded Orissa and ravaged the kingdom. According to one manuscript, C, Raktabāhu, the Mughal from Delhi, came across the Sea in a ship (Jahāja), Śobhana Deva fled to the Jhāḍakhaṇḍa where was succeeded by Chandrakara Deva. The Mughals held the kingdom for 35 years. Yajātikeśarī then siezed the kingdom and is said to have reigned for 52 years up to Śakāvda 448 (A. D. 526). Stirling and Bhavānī Charan call this Raktabāhu a Yavana, but the latter refers to a Mughal invasion in the reign of Nirmala Deva, the grandfather of Śobhana Deva, I have not been able to trace the manuscript of the Rājacharitra used by Stirling. As stated above, none of the manuscripts I have hitherto examined are so called. As in all and in the one used by Bhabānī Charan, the foreigners who invaded Orissa in the 5th century A. D.

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are called Mughals, it may be safely concluded that the sections relating to the pre-Mughal period of these records were first compiled in the Mughal period.”¹ The summary of these records as reproduced by Rama Prasad Chanda, Bhabānī Charan Bandyopādhyāya and A. Stirling tend to show that in these records is preserved the account of one or more foreign invasions of Orissa. The term Mughal may be taken to mean a foreigner in Oṛiyā, just as the same term came to mean a non-Indian Musalman in the 18th century. The traditional account is certainly incorrect, as Chanda has proved with regard to the mediaeval kings of Orissa. Inspite of their pretended superiority in Sanskrit scholarship, Oriya scholars have failed to notice in their national chronicle, the Pauranic account of the thirty-two kings of Kaliṅga who intervened between the Mahābhārata war and the reign of Mahāpadma Nanda. Śobhana Deva and his grandfather Nirmala Deva may or may not be fictitious names, but we may accept with caution the account of a foreign invasion of Orissa. There is a certain amount of corroboration of a foreign invasion of Orissa in the period intervening between that of the overlords of Kaliṅga and the rise of Yayātikeśarī or Mahāśivagupta-Yayāti in the 11th Century A. D.

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We now know the history of Orissa pretty accurately from the beginning of the 7th century and, therefore, it is possible for us to state with a tolerable amount of certainty that this foreign invasion did not take place after the time of the Śailodbhava prince, Mādhavarāja II. The corroborative evidence I have spoken of above is a class of copper coins, termed “Puri Kushan” by Numismatists in India, without much reason. These coins were current in Orissa and Chhoṭa Nagpur up to a fairly late date. They are generally uninscribed, but one or two specimens, which it was my good fortune to describe, bore the word *Taṅka* in character of the 8th Century A. D.¹ These coins are very rude in appearance. The late Dr. V. A. Smith was of opinion that "They may have been issued by rulers of Kaliṅga in the fourth or fifth century, and it is possible they may have been struck only for use as temple offerings. All Numismatists acknowledge that they exhibit a reminiscence of the characteristic Kushan type."² The latest described hoard of these coins was discovered on the Northern slope of the Rakha hills in the Singbhum district in 1917. The majority of the coins show the standing figure of a man holding a crescent in his left hand, which reminds one very strongly of the figure of the standing king on the obverse of Imperial Kushan coinage. A similar figure, with or without the crescent, is to be found on the reverse. Mr. E. H. C. Walsh, I. C. S., C. S.

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I., described the hoard from the Rakha³ mines. The term "Puri Kushan" was applied to these coins by Dr. A. F. R. Hoernle, who examined the earliest known specimens found in the Gurbai Salt Factory at Manikpatna in the Puri district. In 1858 a hoard of similar coins was found at Purushottampur in the Ganjam district and described in the Madras Journal of Literature and Science.