History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v1.c17.5

v1.c17.5

To return to the Yavanas who conquered Orissa, they were Buddhists and ruled the country according to the chronicles till 474 A. D. These Yavanas or Greeks have left Buddhistic monuments in caves and in images of gods and men with Greek profiles unmistakably detectable as stated by archæolgists a fact which well fits in with the view that these rulers were really Bactrian Greeks. This dynansty was overthrown by one Yayāti Kesari according to the palm-leaf records in 474 A.D. The kings of this Kesari line were worshippers of Śiva as elsewhere; though of course they reverenced Vishnu also as the All-preserver "For 150 years Buddhism and Śiva worship struggled for victory when the contest practically ceased. The reigning monarch was a worshipper of the all-Destroyer with Bhuvanesvara the temple city of Śiva as his capital. Year after year the Buddhist hermits in their cave-dwellings gazed across the five miles of fruit-bearing groves towards the great tower of Śiva slowly rising in the distance. Of the 7000 shrines which clustered rouud it, not more than 500 or 600 survive. They exhibit every stage of Orissa art from the rough conceptions of the sixth century through the exquisite designs and the ungrudging artistic toil of the 12th, the exquisite friezes, scrolls, and carvings which adorn these long deserted walls," (Hunter's Orissa Vol. 1 pp. 233-234 )