History of Orissa from the Earliest Times to the British Period v1.c30.47

v1.c30.47

The religious element had become ubiquitous, as much as the cult of the Sun under Akhen-Aton, Louis Quatorze of France, Kumārapāla of Gujarat and the Mughal emperor Aurangzib Alamgir of Delhi. The decline of the power and prestige of Orissa is solely due to the national adoption of the sublime Bhakti-mārga of Chaitanya. The effect on the condition of the princes of Orissa may be judged by the Garhjat chiefs of the present day who worship Śākta images in secret and in subordination to Vaiṣṇava deities. On the society of the middle and lower classes the effect was far more terrific, compelling poor starving people who ate in the public kitchens during the famines of the British period into a separate class and caste still called Satra-Khiyās.