ପୃଷ୍ଠା:Typical selections from Oriya literature.pdf/୨୩

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INTRODUCTION.

XVll

Orissa during the rule of these Rajas, who had intimate connection with Bengal, can be easily imagined. T need hardly point out that even in natural independent course of things the Magadhi speech could not but sojourn in the intervening province ot Bengal before reaching Orissa. The Lunar kings of Kosala origin have very wrongly been designated as Kesarl Rajas in the Madia Panji the mistake has been due to a confusion of names of two different dynasties of kings. We learn from the inscriptions of Southern kings that for three centuries, beginning with the 9th, the Chola Rajas were invading Orissa from time to time and held a loose sovereignty over the land. A portion of this period is covered by the rule of Janamejaya and Yayati and their descendants. All these Chola Rajas bore the title KoSari, and it is suspected that one Karna Ke^ari was a Governor of theirs in Northern Utkala country. We get also from Southern India inscriptions that, in 1070 A.D., Rajendra Chola II, or Raja KesariTarman, who subsequently assumed the title Kulottunga Choladeva, deposed Para-Kesarivarman of the regular Chola line and seized the Chola crown. This Chola king overran the whole of the Trikalinga country and became at least nominally the overlord of Kalinga and Orissa. At the time of the conquest of Ori-sa by Choda Ganga the descendants of Janamejaya must have been ruling in Orissa, for Udyota, the last king of the line, continued to exercise his influence at Bhubanesvar, in the early period of the 12th century A. D. As the Madia Panji chronicle commenced to be maintained from a time not earlier than the middle of the 12th century A. D., the accounts of the Rajas who preceded the Gangas could not be properly recorded. The overthrow of the Chola Rajas (who all bore the title Kesarl) by Kulottunga Choladeva, and the conquest of Orissa by Choda Ganga, by coming in conflict very likely with Udyota, who alone of the kings of Yayati 's house is known to have assumed the title Kesari were hopelessly mixed up by the people in their memory of the historical incidents of the past time and this is why a fanciful list of the Kesari Rajas has been made out in the Madia Panji with Yayati at its head. I think that the early Rajas of the Ganga line had their c tpital in the Ganjam district, and ruled Orissa as a dependency of the Kalinga country. The accounts of the conflict between the later Ganga Rajas and the Muhammadans show that the later Rajas made Orissa their home. The Oriya language was, no doubt, making good progress during this time, for the vernacular literature, which came into existence after the overthrow of the Ganga rule, shows the language to be sufficiently forcible and expressive. It is no wonder that we do not get any Oriya literature of this period, since the Telegu Rajas of the Ganga line could not be expected to evince any interest in it. The Solar kings of Orissa, whom we may rightly style as Oriya kings, governed the country from about 1484 to about 1540 A.D. It is during the rule of these Rajas that the Oriya language became perfectly fit to be the vehicle of high thoughts and poetic expressions. The great historical events, which gave an effective stim;

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