History of Orissa from the Earliest Times to the British Period v1.c9.16

v1.c9.16

The Bhuiyāns of Bihar and Orissa were pushed by the Hos to Northern Orissa. At present they stretch in a line from the State of Nilgiri to that of Gangpur. Mr. B. C. Mazumdar is inclined to connect the Bhuiyāns with the Bhumijes.² He is also inclined to think that the Bhañja kings of old epigraphic records “were not in those days far above the social influence of the Kols, because a princess of the Bhañja house once fell in love with a genuine Muṇḍa.”³ There are many instances of ladies of Indian royal families falling in love with their slaves or servants. If Kamalādevī of the Chālukya dynasty of Gujarat fell in love with her captor, Alāuddīn Muḥammad Shāh Khaljī, will it prove that the Baghelas were in the habit of inter-marrying with Musalmans? Such methods of argument are incomprehensible. Beyond the similarity in names there is no other similarity, not even of language, between the Bhuiyāns and Bhumijes and the idea of social intercourse between the Bhañja kings and the Muṇḍās is as absurd as such analytic and synthetic methods.