Orissa

Capital: Bhubaneshwar
Area: 155,782 square km
Population: 36,706,920 (2004)

The State of Orissa lies along the eastern seaboard of India, south of Bengal. The main attractions of Orissa are the temple towns of Puri and Bhubaneswar and the great Sun Temple at Konarak. These three sites make a convenient and compact little triangle and Bhubaneswar is on the main Calcutta-Madras railway route. The state is predominantly rural with fertile green plains along the coast rising up to the hills of the Eastern Chats.

Orissa's hazy past comes into focus with the reign of Kalinga. In 260 BC he was defeated by Ashoka, the great Indian emperor, but the bloody battle left such a bitter taste with Ashoka that he converted to Buddhism and spread that gentle religion far and wide. Buddhism soon declined in Orissa, however, and Jainism held sway until Buddhism reasserted itself in the 2nd century AD. By the 7th century AD Hinduism had, in turn, supplanted Buddhism and Orissa's golden age was in full swing.
Under the Kesari and Ganga kings the Orissan culture flourished and countless temples from that classical period still stand today. The Orissans managed to defy the Moslem rulers in Delhi until the region finally fell to the Moghuls during the 16th century. Many of Bhu-baneswar's temples were destroyed at that time. Today Orissa is tapping the hydro-electric potential of its many rivers and fledgling industries are being started but the state is still a region of green fields and small villages.

Temple Architecture

Orissan temples, whether it is the mighty Lingaraj in Bhubaneswar, thejagannath in Puri, the Sun Temple at Konarak, or the many smaller temples all follow a similar pattern. Basically there are two structures — the jagamohan, or entrance porch, and the deul, where the image of the temple deity is kept and above which the temple tower rises. The design is complicated in larger temples by the addition of one or more entrace halls in front of the jagamohan. These are the bhoga-mandapa or 'hall of offering' and the nata-mandir or 'dancing hall'. The whole structure may be enclosed by an outer wall and within the enclosure there may be other smaller subsidiary temples and shrines. The most notable aspect of the temple design is the soaring tower and the intricate carvings that cover every surface of the temple. These may be figures of gods, men and women, plants, trees, flowers, animals and every other aspect of every day life, but to many visitors it is the erotic carvings which create the greatest interest. They reach their artistic and explicit peak at Konarak where the close up detail is every bit as interesting as the temple's sheer size and imagination.