JAGANNATHA AND THE GAJAPATI KINGS OF ORISSA: A COMPENDIUM OF LATE MEDIEVAL TEXTS.

The present work consists of a comprehensive palm-leaf manuscirpt combining several originally separate Oriya texts of the 15th to 18th centuries, compiled by the Duela Karanas, the temple scribes of Puri, in the late 18th or the early 19th century. They provide firsthand and most authoritative information on land endowments to religious shrines throughout the medieval Orrisan period, on rituals and duties or priests and temple servitors, and, most important, on legendary and various hisotrical and cultural events during the reign of the Gajapatis.The present compendium is a unique source for the study of the cult of Jagannatha and the culture and history of precolonial Orissa. Coming to light for the first time, it may be regarded as the most important study of its genre after the publication of Puris temple chronicle, the Madala Panji, by A.B. Mohanty in 1940.