| |
|
Orissa |
 South of Bihar, on the Bay of Bangal, industrial India is
left behind. Green plain, river valleys, mountains, Forests
and beaches constitute the landscape of one of India' s most
thoroughly rural states. The whitewashed mud village houses
stand amidst bright green paddy fields and there are sandy
and un spoilt beaches as well as lakes. The Chilka Lagoon
is the largest brackish lake in Asia and has rich bird life.
Orissa offers the gournet a variety of sea food: lobster,
prawns and crab, all of which the Oriyans transform into delectable
creations. The hill forest of central Orissa are a tribal
area and the home of wild animals, including tigers and elephants.
Some 62 distinct tribal groups have been identified as living
in the state. They make excellent carvings of wood and soapstone,
exquisite silver filgree jewellery and children's toys, and
also colourful votive paintings on canvas- the famous pattachitra
folk paintings. Most of Orrisa's horn work, brass and ironware,
silk and handloom products-the Sambalpuri and Cuttack saris,
for example-owe their fineness to a rigorously developed folk
handicraft centers, but beautiful temple cities where pilgrims
come to worship and to celebrate festivals. The chief attractions
of Orissa-Bhubaneshwar, Puri and Konark-form a compact, easy-
to- visit triangle. The seventh to 13th centuries were the
great age of Orissan temple building, the age of Brahmin resurgence
under the Kesari and Ganga Kings. Before that, we hear not
of Orissa but of the kingdom of Kalinga where in 262 BC, after
a bloody war, the Mauryan emperor Ashoka converted to Buddhism.
From then until the fourth century Buddhism and Jainism held
sway, but after the seventh century Hinduism reasserted itself. |
| |
|
|
|
|
