Thanks to the industry of Stirling and others, the main outlines of the history of Orissa have been ascertained with sufficient accuracy to enable us to describe its architecture without the fear of making any important chronological blunders. It is true that the dates of only two of its temples have been ascertained with tolerable certainty. The great one at Bhuvaneswar is said to have been erected in or about A.D. 637, and that at Puri in A.D. 1174, nearly the first and the last of the series. My impression is that the series may be carried back to about the year 500, but in the other direction it can hardly be extended beyond the year 1200, but within these limits it seems possible to arrange the sequence of all the temples in the province without much difficulty, and to ascertain their dates with at least a fair approximate certainty.[415]
With the exception of the great temple of Juganât at Puri, all the buildings described in this chapter were erected under the great Kesari dynasty, or “Lion line,” as Hunter calls them. Few of the particulars of their history have been recorded, but we know at least the date of their accession, A.D. 473, and that in A.D. 1131 they were succeeded by a new dynasty, called Ganga Vansa, the third of whom was the builder of the great Puri Temple.
As mentioned in a previous part of this work, Orissa was principally Buddhist, at least from the time of Asoka, B.C. 250, till the Gupta era, A.D. 319, when all India was distracted by wars connected with the tooth relic, which was said to have been preserved at Puri—then in consequence called Danta Pura—till that time. If the invaders came by sea, as it is said they did, they probably were either Mughs from Arrakan, or the Burmese of Pegu, and if their object was to obtain possession of the tooth, they as probably were Buddhists; but as they have left no buildings that have yet been identified as theirs, it is impossible now to determine this. Whoever they were, they were driven out, after 146 years’ possession, and were succeeded in or about A.D. 473 by Yayati, the first of the Kesari line.[416] The annals of the race unfortunately do not tell us who the Kesaris were, or whence they came. From the third king before the Yavana invasion being called Bato Kesari, it seems probable it may have been only a revival of the old dynasty; and from the circumstances narrated regarding the expulsion of these strangers, it looks as if it were due more to a local rising than to extraneous aid. If they came from the interior, it was from the north-west, where a similar style seems to have prevailed. Their story, as told in their own annals, states that the first, or one of the first kings of the race, imported, about the year A.D. 500, a colony—10,000 Brahmans—from Ayodhya, and they being all bigoted Saivites, introduced that religion into the province, and rooted it so firmly there, that it was the faith of the land so long as the Kesaris ruled.[417] If we read 100 as the number of the Brahmans, and A.D. 600 as the date of their advent, we shall probably be nearer the truth; but be this as it may, these Brahmans were settled at Jajepur, not at Bhuvaneswar, and soon came into conflict with a class of “Old Brahmans,” who had been established in the province long before their arrival. Mr. Hunter supposes them to have been Buddhists—Brahmans converted to the Buddhist faith—which seems probable, but if this were so, they would certainly have become Vaishnavas on the decline of that religion, and such, I fancy, was certainly the case in this instance.
The architecture of the province seems to me to confirm this view of the case, for, unless I am very much mistaken, the oldest temple in the city of Bhuvaneswar is that called Parasurameswara ([Woodcut No. 230]), which from its name, as well as the subjects portrayed on its walls, I would take to be certainly Vaishnava. It may, however, belong to the preceding dynasty. Its style is certainly different from the early Kesari temples, and more like what we find in Dharwar and at other places outside the province. If, indeed, it were not found in a city which there seems every reason for thinking was founded by the Lion kings, I would not hesitate to give it a date of A.D. 450, instead of A.D. 500. It is not large, being only 20 ft. square[418]
at its base; but its sculptures are cut with a delicacy seldom surpassed, and there is an appropriateness about the ornaments greater than is seen in most of the temples.
230. Temple of Parasurameswara. (From a Photograph.)
The temple itself is apparently 38 ft. in height, and from the summit to the base it is covered with sculptures of the most elaborate character, but still without detracting from the simplicity and vigour of its outline.