The Kingdom of Orissa
Orissa was consolidated into a powerful kingdom by Anantavarman Choda Ganga during his long reign of more than seventy years (c. 1076-1148). It appears from several inscriptions that the kingdom then extended from the mouth of the Ganges to the mouth of the Godavari in the south. Choda Ganga’s achievements in the domain of peace were also remarkable. He was a patron of religion, and of Sanskrit as well as Telugu literature. The great temple of Jagannath at Puri stands as a brilliant monument to “the artistic vigour and prosperity of Orissa during his reign”. The successors of Choda Ganga effectively checked the invasions of the Muslims and maintained the prosperity of their kingdom. The most famous of them was Narasimha 1 (1238-1264), who, besides achieving a remarkable success against the Muslims of Bengal, probably completed the construction of the temple of Jagannath at Puri and built the great temple of the Sun-God at Konarak in the Puri district. After the death of Narasimha, the fortunes of this dynasty began to decline, and it was supplanted in about A.D. 1434- 1435 by a solar dynasty, which ruled in Orissa for more than a century.
The founder of the new dynasty, Kapilendra, was endowed with considerable ability and vigour, and restored the prestige of the kingdom of Orissa, which had sunk low during the reigns of the later Gangas. He suppressed the powerful rebels in his own country, fought successfully with the Bahmanas of Bidar and the rulers of Vijayanagar, succeeded in extending his dominions from the Ganges to the Kaveri, and even marched with a victorious army to the vicinity of Bidar in the heart of the Bahmani kingdom. It is stated in the Gopinathpur inscription that he took possession of Udayagiri, the seat of a Vijayanagar viceroyalty, and Conjeeveram. The beginning of the reign of the next ruler, Purushottama (A.D. 1470-1497), was marked by certain disorders during which the kingdom of Orissa lost its southern half from the Godavari downwards. Saluva Narasimha captured the country to the south of the Krishna and the Bahmanis seized the Godavari-Krishna Doab. But towards the end of his reign Purushottama recovered the Doab and regained a part of the Andhra country as far as the modern Guntur district. It cannot be said with certainty if he recovered any of the Tamil districts of the empire of Kapilendra.
Purushottama’s son and successor, Prataparudra (1497-1540), a contemporary and disciple of Chaitanya, inherited a kingdom extending from the Hugli and Midnapur districts of Bengal to the Guntur district of Madras, and including also a part of the high lands of Telingana. But it was not destined to maintain this extent for long owing to the aggressions of Krishnadeva Raya of Vijayanagar and of the growing Qutub Shahi kingdom of Golkunda on the eastern coast. As a result of three campaigns, Prataparudra had to cede to his more powerful Vijayanagar contemporary that portion of his kingdom which lay to the south of the Godavari. The Sultan Quli Qutub Shah of Golkunda, invaded the kingdom of Orissa in 1522.
Some believe that this political decline of Orissa was a sequel to the loss of martial spirit by her rulers and people due to the effect of Vaishnavism preached by Chaitanya. Be that as it may, the fact remains that the kingdom of Orissa lost its old power from the beginning of the sixteenth century. About A.D. 1541-1542 the dynasty of Kapilendra was supplanted by the Bhoi dynasty, which was so called because its founder, Govinda, formerly a minister of Prataparundra, belonged to the Bhoi or writer caste. Govinda, his son and two grandsons reigned for about eighteen years. The dynasty was ousted, in about A.D. 1559, by Mukunda Harichandana, who did his best to save the kingdom of Orissa from Muslim invasions till his death in A.D. 1569, and whose alliance was sought by Akbar in pursuance of his policy of attacking the Afghans of Bengal from both sides. The Kararani Sultans of Bengal annexed Orissa in A.D. 1568. The Hindu renegade, Kalapahar who had accompanied Sulaiman Kararani’s son, Bayazid, to Orissa, is said to have desecrated the temple of Jagannath and even made attempts to destroy the wooden idols. Then began a Mughul-Afghan contest for the possession of Orissa.
Mewar
Some of the Rajput States were stirred with the spirit of revival on the dismemberment of the Turko-Afghan Empire. The most prominent of these was the Guhila principality of Mewar, where the Rajput genius unfolded itself so brilliantly and which for generations produced a succession of brave generals, heroic leaders, prudent rulers and some brilliant poets. As early as the seventh century A.D. the brave and chivalrous Rajputs of the Guhila clan established their power in this territory. We have already narrated how ‘Ala-ud-din Khalji besieged and captured Chitor, the capital of Mewar, and how Hamir, or his son, delivered it from the hands of the Muslims and retrieved the lost honour of his race. Hamir died full of years possibly in A.D. 1364 “leaving a name still honored in Mewar as one of the wisest and most gallant of her princes and bequeathing well-established and extensive power” to his son, Kshetra Simha. Kshetra Simha being killed in the course of a family quarrel in or about A.D.1382 was succeeded by his son, Lakha. On Lakha’s death after 1418 (?), his son, Mokala, ascended the throne of Mewar, but he was assassinated in or about A.D. 1431 by two of his uncles. The next Rana of Mewar was Kumbha, one of the most famous rulers in the history of India. His reign was an important period in the annals of his country.
Kumbha fought against the Muslim rulers of Malwa and Gujarat, and although success did not attend all his enterprises, he could hold his own position against his ambitious neighbours. He was also a mighty builder, to whom Mewar is indebted for some of her finest monuments. Of the eighty-four fortresses built for the defence of Mewar, thirty-two were erected by Kumbha. The most brilliant monument of his military and constructive genius is the fortress of Kumbhalgarh, “second to none in strategical importance or historical renown”. Kumbha’s Jayastambha, also called the Kirtistambha (Tower of Fame), is another monument of his genius. Further, the Rana was a poet, a man of letters and an accomplished musician. He was assassinated by his son, Udaya Karan, probably in A.D. 1469. This cruelty of Udaya’s horrified the nobles, who acknowledged his younger brother, Rayamalla; as the Rana. Rayamalla’s sons quarrelled among themselves for the succession and ultimately one of them, Sangrama, or Sanga, as he was popularly called, succeeded to the throne of Mewar in or about A.D. 1509. Sanga was endowed with remarkable military prowess. A hero of a hundred fields, he bore the scars of eighty wounds on his body in addition to having an eye blinded and a leg crippled. He fought successfully against Malwa, Delhi and Gujarat, and organized the financial resources and the military forces of Mewar with a view to building her supremacy on the break-up of the Delhi Sultanate. Thus a contest between him and any other power then trying to establish supremacy in Northern India was inevitable. The battle of Khanua to be described in a subsequent chapter, was a logical outcome of this fact.
