Contemporary Odisha offers visitors nature in all its glory with beaches, rivers, waterfalls, hills, forests and tribal life plus a rich tradition of architecture, monuments and sculptural art Odisha (formerly Orissa) is most well known for being the epicentre of the ancient Kingdom of Kalinga. Emperor Ashoka, king of Magadh, invaded Kalinga in 261 BCE and embarked upon a great slaughter in the Kalinga war. But so great was the carnage and human suffering, that the emperor experienced a momentous change of heart and embraced the principle of ahimsa or non-violence embodied in Buddhism, to which he converted after the war. Subsequently, the ancient state rose to prominence during the reign of Emperor Kharavela, a great practitioner of Jainism. Other great rulers were the kings of the Kesari and Eastern Ganga dynasties who built great temples and monuments. With the kingdom committed to peace and industrious prosperity, the Kalinga school of architecture flourished from the 7th to 13th centuries AD. In the popular imagination, the ancient kingdom of Odisha, now a fully-fledged state of the Indian Union, is a backward area on the eastern seaboard. Yet this state is culturally rich and its history and temple architecture have been carefully preserved. Consequently, contemporary Odisha (pop. 47 million) offers visitors nature in all its glory with beaches, rivers, waterfalls, hills, forests, wild and tribal life, plus a rich tradition of architecture, monuments and sculptural art. Some of its monuments date back to the 3rd century BCE and are extant to this day. As a result the state offers more than 4,000 protected monuments and archaeological sites. These include early Jain cave temples; Buddhist monasteries (viharas); domed structures (chaityas); pillars (stupas); ancient and medieval forts, palaces and colonial architecture. Bhubaneswar Known as the ‘temple city of India’, Bhubaneswar is the administrative capital of Odisha. Visitors are certain to marvel at the magnificence of the three monuments which dominate the city’s skyline — the soaring spire of the Lingaraj temple; the white-domed Peace Pagoda of Dhauli hills and the Ochre temple of Mahavir Jina in the Khandagiri hills. These ancient temples epitomise the advent and ascendancy of Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism in Odisha’s rich history. Bhubaneswar offers the visitor several other places of historical interest. Close to the hallowed field of the bloody Kalinga war which transformed Emperor Ashoka into an apostle of peace, is the earliest rock sculpture of India in the shape of a stately elephant atop the Ashokan Rock Edict at Dhali, which commemorates the world’s first great mass religious conversion. Also worth a visit is the cave complex of Udayagiri which houses the famous inscriptions of Emperor Kharavela in Hatigumpha. The Udayagiri inscriptions, the exquisite sculptures and reliefs of Ranigumpha and the colossal statue of Mahavir Jina on the Khandagiri hills mark the high point of Odisha’s cultural ascendancy in ancient India. In succeeding eras, royals vied with each other in building temples. Consequently at one period in its civic history, Bhubaneswar hosted over one thousand temples many of…
