हिंदीOn this day

Eastern Gangas

Anantavarman Chodaganga joined Kalinga to Utkala and began the present temple of Jagannath at Puri. His heirs built Konark and held Odisha against the Bengal sultans for two centuries.

  1. Anantavarman Chodaganga1078–1147
  2. Kamarnava1147–1156
  3. Raghava1156–1170
  4. Rajaraja II1170–1190
  5. Anangabhima II1190–1198
  6. Rajaraja III1198–1211
  7. Anangabhima III1211–1238
  8. +8
Period: 1078–1434 CE (an earlier line ruled Kalinga from the 5th century)Region: Kalinga and Utkala: Odisha from the Ganga delta’s edge to the GodavariCapitals: Kalinganagara (Mukhalingam), Cuttack (Abhinava Varanasi Kataka)
Photo: Joydeep · CC BY-SA 4.0

01Chodaganga and Puri

The Gangas of Kalinganagara, by the Vamsadhara river, had ruled a small kingdom since the fifth century. Anantavarman Chodaganga, whose mother was a Chola princess, came to the throne in 1078 and over seventy years carried his rule north to the Ganga’s mouth. He began the great temple of Purushottama Jagannath at Puri, whose deul still rises over the sea-town. His capital moved to Cuttack, between the Mahanadi and the Kathajodi.

02The king as Jagannath’s deputy

Anangabhima III declared that the kingdom belonged to Jagannath and that he ruled only as the deity’s rauta, his deputy. Every Gajapati of Puri since has swept the chariot path at Ratha Yatra with a golden broom, the chhera pahanra. His son Narasimhadeva I carried war into Bengal in the 1240s, attacking the sultan’s frontier, and then built the chariot of the Sun at Konark: twenty-four carved wheels, seven horses, and a tower, now fallen, that once stood near the sea.

Madala Panji of the Jagannath temple
Evidence · Palm-leaf chronicle kept over centuriesMadala Panji of the Jagannath templeThe temple chronicle of Shri Jagannath: the kings of Odisha, the rites of the temple and the dangers it passed through.Read →

03The long close

Later Ganga kings fended off raids from Bengal and from Delhi; Firuz Shah Tughluq marched into Odisha in 1360 and plundered Puri. The line grew weak, and in 1434–35 the minister Kapilendra seized the throne from Bhanudeva IV and founded the Suryavamshi Gajapatis. The Madala Panji, the temple chronicle of Puri, keeps the memory of these kings year by year, and the Ganga style of temple building shaped every Odia shrine that followed.

The rulers

  1. 1Anantavarman ChodagangaUnited Kalinga and Utkala; began the Puri temple1078–1147
  2. 2Kamarnava1147–1156
  3. 3Raghava1156–1170
  4. 4Rajaraja II1170–1190
  5. 5Anangabhima II1190–1198
  6. 6Rajaraja III1198–1211
  7. 7Anangabhima IIIDedicated the kingdom to Jagannath1211–1238
  8. 8Narasimhadeva IBuilt Konark; fought the Bengal sultans1238–1264
  9. 9Bhanudeva I1264–1278
  10. 10Narasimhadeva II1278–1306
  11. 11Bhanudeva II1306–1328
  12. 12Narasimhadeva III1328–1352
  13. 13Bhanudeva IIIFiruz Tughluq’s raid on Puri, 13601352–1378
  14. 14Narasimhadeva IV1378–1414
  15. 15Bhanudeva IVLast king; throne taken by Kapilendra1414–1434

What they left

  • The Jagannath temple at Puri
  • Konark Sun temple, a UNESCO World Heritage Site
  • The Gajapati’s chhera pahanra at Ratha Yatra
  • The Madhukeshvara temples at Mukhalingam

Places

Suryanarayana Temple, ArasavalliStanding
The Age of Great Kingdoms

Suryanarayana Temple, Arasavalli

One of the few temples of Surya still in daily worship in India, where twice a year the morning sun passes through the gopuram and falls on the feet of the murti.

Mukhalingam Temples (Kalinganagara)Standing
The Age of Great Kingdoms

Mukhalingam Temples (Kalinganagara)

The old Eastern Ganga capital Kalinganagara on the Vamsadhara, where three Shiva temples show the Kalinga style in its youth, before Bhubaneswar and Puri.

Srikurmanatha Temple, SrikurmamStanding
The long resistance: Sindh to Tarain

Srikurmanatha Temple, Srikurmam

The only major temple in India where Vishnu is worshipped as Kurma, the tortoise who bore Mount Mandara at the churning of the ocean. Its walls carry Eastern Ganga inscriptions and old painted murals.

Shri Jagannath Temple, PuriStanding
Cholas and the Southern Seas

Shri Jagannath Temple, Puri

Purushottama Kshetra, the eastern dham of the Char Dham, where Bhagwan Jagannath, his elder brother Balabhadra and sister Subhadra sit in wooden forms renewed in the Navakalevara rite. The present temple rose under the Eastern Gangas and survived repeated raids because the priests carried the deities away and brought them back.

Cuttack and Barabati FortStanding
Cholas and the Southern Seas

Cuttack and Barabati Fort

For about seven hundred years the capital of Odisha, under the Ganga and Gajapati kings, the Afghans, Mughals, Marathas and British, until the seat moved to Bhubaneswar in 1948. Its fort, Barabati, is now a mound and a gateway, and its Bali Jatra still remembers the ships that sailed to the islands.

Konark Sun TempleRuined
Cholas and the Southern Seas

Konark Sun Temple

Surya’s chariot in stone, with twenty-four carved wheels and seven horses, raised by Narasimhadeva I around 1250 at Konark, the Arka Kshetra. The great tower has fallen; the jagamohana still stands, filled with sand since 1903 to keep it standing.

Varaha Lakshmi Narasimha Temple, SimhachalamStanding
Cholas and the Southern Seas

Varaha Lakshmi Narasimha Temple, Simhachalam

The hill of the lion above Visakhapatnam, where Bhagwan is worshipped as Varaha and Narasimha in one form, hidden under sandal paste all year but one day.

Ananta Vasudeva Temple, BhubaneswarStanding
Sultanates, Vijayanagara and the kingdoms that stood

Ananta Vasudeva Temple, Bhubaneswar

The great Vaishnava temple of Shaiva Bhubaneswar, on the bank of Bindu Sagar, where Krishna, Balarama and Subhadra stand in full stone form. Its kitchen cooks a mahaprasad for thousands each day, as Puri does.

Evidence

Madala Panji of the Jagannath templeChronicle
Palm-leaf chronicle kept over centuries

Madala Panji of the Jagannath temple

The temple chronicle of Shri Jagannath: the kings of Odisha, the rites of the temple and the dangers it passed through.

On the timeline

  • 1244 CE

    Narasimhadeva I carries the war into BengalResistance

    The Eastern Ganga king of Odisha beats back Tughral Tughan Khan at Katasin and then besieges Lakhnauti, the Sultanate’s seat in Bengal. Minhaj-us-Siraj, who was present, records the Odia advance.