हिंदीOn this day

Suryavamshi Gajapatis of Odisha

Kapilendra Deva took the throne of the Gangas in 1434 and built, for a few decades, the largest Hindu kingdom of the east. His grandson Prataparudra welcomed Chaitanya Mahaprabhu to Puri.

  1. Kapilendra Deva1434–1467
  2. Purushottama Deva1467–1497
  3. Prataparudra Deva1497–1540
  4. Kalua Deva1540–1541
  5. Kakharua Deva1541
Period: 1434–1541 CERegion: Odisha, and at its height the coast from the Ganga to the KaveriCapitals: Cuttack (Barabati)
Photo: PatiMadhusudan1958 · CC BY-SA 4.0

01Kapilendra Deva

Kapilendra was a minister under the last Ganga king. Taking power in 1434–35, he beat back the Bengal and Jaunpur sultans and then turned south. His armies took Rajahmundry and Kondaveedu from the Reddis, and his son Hamvira pushed as far as Kanchi and Tiruchirappalli for a short time. An inscription he set on the Jagannath temple at Puri orders his officers to act justly, and another on the Lingaraja at Bhubaneswar records his rule.

02Kanchi and Prataparudra

Purushottama Deva fought the king of Kanchi; Odia tradition tells how Jagannath and Balabhadra rode ahead of his army as two horsemen, and how he brought back the image of Sakshi Gopal and the princess Padmavati. His son Prataparudra lost the southern lands to Krishnadevaraya, who took Udayagiri in 1514 and Kondaveedu in 1516; the peace was sealed with a marriage. In 1510 Chaitanya Mahaprabhu arrived in Puri, and the king became his devoted follower.

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 end of Hindu Odisha’s freedom

Prataparudra’s sons were killed within a year of his death by his minister Govinda Vidyadhara, who founded the Bhoi dynasty in 1541. A later king, Mukunda Deva, was the last independent ruler; he fell in 1568 when the Afghan Karrani sultans of Bengal invaded, and their general Kalapahad raided Puri and the temples of the coast. The Gajapati title passed to the Bhoi rajas of Khurda, whose descendant still performs the chhera pahanra at Ratha Yatra.

The rulers

  1. 1Kapilendra DevaFounder; empire from Ganga to Kaveri1434–1467
  2. 2Purushottama DevaThe Kanchi campaign1467–1497
  3. 3Prataparudra DevaFollower of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu1497–1540
  4. 4Kalua Deva1540–1541
  5. 5Kakharua DevaLast of the line; killed1541

What they left

  • Kapilendra’s inscriptions on the Jagannath and Lingaraja temples
  • Sarala Das’s Odia Mahabharata, written in Kapilendra’s reign
  • The Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition at Puri, rooted in Chaitanya’s years there
  • The Sakshi Gopal temple near Puri

People

Kapilendra DevaRuler
reigned 1434–1467 CE

Kapilendra Deva

Founder of the Gajapati dynasty of Odisha

KrishnadevarayaRuler
reigned 1509–1529 CE

Krishnadevaraya

Greatest emperor of Vijayanagara, poet-king

Chaitanya MahaprabhuSaint
1486–1534 CE

Chaitanya Mahaprabhu

Saint of Nabadwip, teacher of sankirtana

Places

Lingaraja Temple, BhubaneswarStanding
Cholas and the Southern Seas

Lingaraja Temple, Bhubaneswar

The great temple of Ekamra Kshetra, from whose name Tribhuvaneshvara the city of Bhubaneswar takes its own. The swayambhu linga is worshipped as Harihara, Shiva and Vishnu together, with bilva and tulsi both offered.

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.

Sakshi Gopal Temple, SatyabadiStanding
Sultanates, Vijayanagara and the kingdoms that stood

Sakshi Gopal Temple, Satyabadi

The temple of Gopal who, in the katha told in the Chaitanya Charitamrita, walked from Vrindavan to bear witness for a poor brahmin’s promise. Pilgrims to Puri stop here so that Gopal may witness their pilgrimage.

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.