INTRODUCTION.
XIX
language of the country became sufficiently well developed, and a crop of good literature sprang up to exercise an abiding influence through all times. It will be a puzzle to those who are not intimately acquainted with the social life of India that the uncommon glorious deeds of heroism and patriotism of the three illustrious kings, Kapilendra, Purusottaraa and Pratapa Rudra, have not been sung by the poets of the period. Some lines composed in their eulogy are met with in some inscriptions, but they were all engraved at the instance of the rulers themselves and their ministers, on the occasion of recording some religious or semi-religious acts of these rulers, Kapilendra held tlie rising Muhammadan power in effective check and organised a good government in the country, but nothing relating to his prowess and wisdom appears in any literary work. Raja Purusottama Deva, son of Kapilendra, was no doubt only an ally of a Bahmani Sultan when he led an expedition to Kanchi, but for what he accomplished {though in a subordinate capacity) Orissa might justly be proud of; the contemporary poets, however, have not left any literature to show that the people became The conscious of their power and felt a new pulsation of life. incidents of the Kanchi-Kaveri expedition were recorded in the Madia Panji by those of the temple of Jagannath who had to look up to the Raja for his favour it is on a wall of the audience hall of the temple at Puri that a pictorial representation of the incidents appears. What gave a new turn to the literary imagination of the people was the religious movement which the Bengali religious teacher Chaitanya brought about in Orissa during the reign of Pratapa Rudra Deva. It should be noted however that since the establishment of the temple of Jagannath at Puri the influence of Vaisnavism has been deep and widespread in Orissa, and long before Chaitanya visited the land, many Vaisnavas of the nonBrahman classes had made themselves free from the domination of the Brahmans. The Sudra writers, though looked down upon by the learned Brahmans, came to the forefront during the early years of literary culture to lay the foundation, nay to raise the
It is significant superstructure of the national literature of Orissa. to note that the literature of the early period has always been very widely popular in the country, and may be designated as truly national ; those poets of the early mediaeval period, whose writings appear in selections in the first volume of the Typical Poetry, which Selections, have also been popular national poets. is wholly artificial, which does not represent the sentiments and aspirations of the people, and poetry which is wholly void of human interest, came into existence in the eighteenth century A.D., with the effusions of Upendra Bhanja. It is of much importance to note that the early poets took up
popular rustic metre and rustic tune for composing their verses, and in this respect the early poets have been followed generally by all
subsequent poets.
Mr.
Monmohan
Chakravartty,
who has
written two excellent essays on the history of Oriya literature, is not correct when he says that Sanskrit dominated the early poetry Neither the of Orissa in the matter of its form and metre.
