History of Orissa from the Earliest Times to the British Period v2.c41.10

v2.c41.10

Upon the death of Rāmachandra Deva II of Khurda in 1742-43 Mir Ḥabīb tried to place the rājā of Paṭiyā Padmanābha Deva on the throne, but Padmanābha was slain by the adherents of the house of Khurda. The succession of the Khurda *gadi* now passed on to Vīra Kiśora Deva I, a grandson of Rāmachandra Deva II. The war with Padmanābha Deva took place in the second *aṅka* or the first year of his reign. The *Mādalā Pāñji*, as the late Mr. Monmohan Chakravarti has recorded, states that the Mughals were driven out of Orissa in his fourth *aṅka* or 1745-46. Vīra Kiśora I ruled in troublesome times. The Marathas laid waste the *parganah* of Khinda and captured Puri in the seventeenth *aṅka* or the fourteenth year of his reign. He continued to rule till 1779.¹ In the twenty-third *aṅka* the Khurda territories were attacked by another chief named Nārāyaṇadeva of Parlakimedi and Vīra Kiśora's *Diwān* was sent to Katak to beg for help from the Maratha governor. Nārāyaṇadeva was expelled, but the *parganahs* of Lembai,² Rahang and Puri town had to be mortgaged to the Marathas. He was bled systematically by his general (*Bakhshī*) Dāmodara Bhramaravara, who captured the king and carried him a prisoner to Katak, where the Maratha governor Rājārām Pundit kept him in prison. Two dreadful famines are recorded as having broken out during the reign of this prince.³