History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v5.c74.t4.18

v5.c74.t4.18

According to Rajendralal Mitra the oldest temple in Purī is that of Alābukeśvara built by Lalātendu Kesarī (623-677 A. D.), the builder of the tower of Bhuvaneśvara; the next oldest is Mārkandeśvara and next comes the great temple of Jagannātha (vol. II. p. 112). Manmohan Chakravarti in his paper on the 'date of Jagannātha temple in Purī' (J. A. S. B., vol. 67 for 1898, part I pp. 328-331) quotes two verses from the Gaṅgavaṁśa copper plates of Orissa which state that Gaṅgeśvara alias Coḍagaṅga built the great temple of Puruṣottama¹⁵⁷⁹. As Coḍagaṅga's coronation took place in śake 999 (i e. 1078 A. D.) according to M. M. Chakravarti, he put forward the view that the *prāsāda* of Jagannātha was built about 1085-1090 A. D. Dr. D. C. Sirkar (in 'God Puruṣottama at Purī' J. O. R., Madras vol. 17 pp. 209-215) points out that the celebrated Oriya Chronicle *Mādalā-pāñjī* attributes the construction of Puruṣottama Jagannātha not to Coḍagaṅga but to his great-grandson -Anaṅga-bhīma III, who also installed an image of Puruṣottama in a temple at Vārāṇasī-Kaṭaka (modern Cuttack)