History of Orissa from the Earliest Times to the British Period v1.c26.2

v1.c26.2

Rājarāja III was the only grandson of Anantavarman Choḍagaṅga to succeed to the throne of Orissa. He was the son of Anaṅgabhīma II by his queen Bāghalladevī. This King is known to us from one inscription only, at Śrī-Kurmam, but he is mentioned in the inscriptions of his descendants, Narasiṁha II, Bhānudeva II and Narasiṁha IV. During his reign the Musalmans of Bengal invaded Orissa for the first time. This was the beginning of the raids which continued to devastate Orissa till her final conquest by the Musalmans in 1568. According to the Ṭabaqāt-i-Nāṣiri, Ikhtiyāruddīn Muḥammad bin Bakhtyār Khalji, the conqueror of Magadha and Northern Bengal, despatched an army towards Lakhanor and Jajnagar on the eve of his departure on the ill-fated expedition to Assam. The first raid into Orissa was commanded by two brothers named Muḥammad-i-Sherān and Aḥmad-i-Sherān. It was directed against Lakhanor and Jajnagar. There are reasons to believe that Lakhanor was situated somewhere near the ancient town of Nagar in the Birbhum district of Bengal and Jajnagar is Jajallanagar in Chhattisgarh. The majority of Musalman writers of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries mention Jajnagar when they intend to refer to Orissa. In the case of the first Musalman raid into Orissa, the route mentioned shows that Muḥammad and Aḥmad came to Orissa by the old pilgrim road from Northern India. The result of this expedition has not been recorded but it is stated that when these two brothers received intimation of the great disaster that had befallen the Musalman army in Assam and the leader of Musalman freebooters in Bengal, they hastened back to their headquarters at Devkot.¹ This invasion took place immediately before the death of Muḥammad bin Bakhtyār Khalji in A. H., 602=June or July 1205 A. D. As Rājarāja III had come to the throne in 1198, the first Musalman invasion took place in his 10th Aṅka of 8th year. He ruled till 1211 A. D., and was succeeded by his son Anaṅgabhīma III. Rājarāja III is mentioned in the Chāṭeśvara inscription of his son as Rājendra. He married Mankuṇḍadevī of the Chālukya family, probably of the Eastern Chālukya family of Veṅgi.