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| Cultural and Archaeological Heritage |
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Since remote past Orissa has been the meeting ground of different faiths and sects that, patronised by the successive royal dynasties, left behind a galaxy of religious monuments, temples architecture with spectacular Gods and Goddess iconography.
Nowadays Buddhism and Jainism have little impact but in the pre-Gupta times, from the Ashokan period (3rd century B.C.), Orissa was a stronghold of Mahayana Buddhism and Jainism that left important Buddhist and Jain monuments and archaeological sites:
- the rock-cut Jain caves of Khandagiri and Udayagiri;
- the Ashoka rock edict inscription of Dhauli testifying the Kalinga war episode (261 B.C.) when king Ashoka became a follower of Buddha;
- the extensive ruins of the remarkable Ratnagiri-Lalitgiri-Udayagiri Buddhist complexes with their sculptured stone portals and remarkable esoteric Buddhist images. Ratnagiri played a conspicuous role from the v c. AD to x c. AD in spreading the Buddhist-Tantric Vajrayana culture, although erotic imagery is not present, all the Orissan Buddhist goddesses have a prominent sensual looking.
Udayagiri Buddhist complex |
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The subsequent Hinduism revival of 8th-13th c. AD brought to Orissa the golden age of Bhubneshwar the City of Temples, here more than a hundred temples, masterpieces of the Orissan architecture, still stand in a various state of preservation. Most of the temples of Bhubaneswar are Saivite: Mukteswar (950 A.D.) Lingaraj, Rajrani Temple (1100 AD). In 7th century A.D. Pasupata, the earliest of Saiva sect, with its offshoot the esoteric Kapalikas, found the way into Orissa. Lakulisa, the mythical founder of the Pasupata sect, is depicted in Parsurameswar, Vaital Deul, Sisiresvara and other temples in Bhubaneswar. The Kapalikas, worshippers of Bhairava and his consort Chamunda seem to have the centre of their secret practices in Vaital deul and the 64 yoginis temple of Hirapur, one of the best preserved in India with its beautiful yogini images, a rare examples of Tantric sculptural metaphysical art, elsewhere disappeared after the Muslim domination that wiped-out Tantric cults.
Of particular interest is the rich iconography of the monumental Sun Temple at Konark, the zenith of Kalinga architecture, with its profuse erotic images of early Tantric art, in the same manner of Khajuraho temples.
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Mukteswar
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Like elsewhere in India, images of Goddess Durga are extremely popular; the Goddess is shown from two-armed to twenty-armed varieties, killing the demon with the he-buffalo head. In Orissa cults like the one of the Dashamahavidyas (the ten malevolent manifestations of the Goddess) are still present.
The cult of the Goddess |
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All the esoteric cults introduced into Orissa were gradually assimilated into one form of religion that contains the principle of each cult. The worship of Jagannath is the best example of this synthesis. The holy city of Puri with its famous Jagannath Temple (xii c. AD) is a great Vaishnavism centre. Other Vaishnavite shrines are in Koraput (the temple of Jagannath consciousness) and in Bhubaneswar (Ananta Vasudev Temple).
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Jagannath cult
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Orissa has basically a tribal religious tradition which moves round the worshipping of natural features as well as invisible forces, even the Jagannatha cult, which synthesizes Vedic, Puranic, Tantric and tribal features, is itself of tribal origin.
Tribal Orissa |
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