History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v1.c7.23

v1.c7.23

Lastly in Northern India and in subordination to Harsha we have to mention the kingdom of Odra or Orissa and the kingdom of Kongadu or Ganjam along the coast of the Bay of Bengal. These were Indo-Aryan kingdoms on the border of the Dravidian Kalinga kingdom to the south. With Kongadu Hiuen Tsang notices the change in language. (Curiously enough their written language was the same as that of India.) With Kalinga the change in the language was complete. "In talk and manners they differed from Mid-India" (Watters, Vol. II, p, 198). The kings in these two countries are not mentioned by Hiuen Tsang, nor can we find them out with certainty. According to the palm leaf chronicles of the temple of Jagannath in Cuttuck, Orissa was under the Kesari dynasty from the 7th to the 12th Century A. D., but it is probable that that dynasty established itself there after the time of Harsha. (See Cuttuck Gazetteer.)