During Kharavela’s Reign

[Full title: Political and Religious History of Orissa (4): During Kharavela’s Reign]

In the first century CE Kharavela of the Chedi dynasty was ruling Orissa. He was a devout Jaina. He had hewed the caves at Khandagiri and Udaygiri (near Bhubaneswar) for the Ajivikas. Being a Jaina he was lenient towards Brahmanism. The Hatigumpha inscription (Banerjee 1997:486-507), datable to first century CE states about this all-embracing attitude of the great Jaina King Kharavela. In the inscription, Maharaja Kharavela is described as “the worshipper of all gods and goddesses” (savapasandpujaka) as well as “the builder of temples for all gods and goddesses” (Satapathy 2000: 70). (Savadevajatana samkara karaka) but probably Buddhism could not gain royal patronage for the time being during his reign.

The history of Orissa from the end of Kharavela’s rule till the middle of fourth century CE is not very clear and lack substantive facts at present. The Allahabad pillar inscription of Samudragupta (De 1952: 254) mentions that Kalinga was divided into several small principalities in or about 350 CE. But within a few years of Samudragupta’s expedition, Matharas established their rule over this area, which roughly falls in between River Mahanadi in the north to river Godavari in the south. The Early Mathara rulers described themselves as ‘Paramadaivata, ‘Paramabhattarakapadabhakta’ and ‘Pitrapadabhakta’ in their royal charter. But Chandraverman and Nandaprabhanjanavarman used the title ‘Paramabhagavata’ in their records. While in the Ningondi grant (Satapathy 2000:71) Prabhanjanavarman of this family styled himself as ‘Bhagavatsvami Narayanapadanudhyata’. Anantavarman calls himself ‘Paramamahesvara’ in his Siripuram plates. Thus, Matharas patronized both Vaishnavism and Saivism. From the Ceylonese records it is known that they also patronised Buddhism (Mishra 1984:4)