Page:The Imperial Gazetteer of India - Volume 10 (2nd edition).pdf/446



434 ORISSA. Religions Classification.--Classified according to religion, the population of British Orissa in 1881, including the three Districts of Cuttack, Balasor, and Puri, and the two minor estates of Angul and Banki, was composed as follows:-Hindus, 3,634,049, or 95.43 per cent. of the total population; Muhammadans, 85,611, or 2'24 per cent. ; Sikhs, 152; Christians, 3982; Buddhists, 7; Bráhmos, 3; Jew, l; and others' (principally non-Hindu aboriginal tribes), 6930. Hinduism. —The staple of Orissa is religion. From the moment the Hindu crosses the Baitaraní river he treads on holy ground. On the southern bank of the river rises shrine after shrine to Siva, the AllDestroyer. On leaving the stream he enters JAJPUR, literally the City of Sacrifice, the head-quarters of the region of pilgrimage sacred to the wife of the All-Destroyer. There is not a fiscal division in Orissa without its community of cenobites, scarcely a village without con secrated lands, and not a single ancient family which has not devoted its best acres to the gods. Every town is filled with temples, and every hamlet has its shrine. The national reverence of the Hindus for holy places has been for ages concentrated on Purí, sacred to Vishnu under his title of Jagannáth, the Lord of the World. It has been estimated that sometimes as many as 300,000 pilgrims visit Puri in the course of the year; the Car Festival alone having been attended in some seasons by upwards of 90,000. The popular form of Hinduism is Vishnuite, although the bulk of the Brahmans are Siva-worshippers. The Brahmans of Orissa are divided into two great classes--the Vaidik and the Laukik. The former are said to be immigrants from Bengal or Kanauj, and date their oldest settlements in Puri District from about the 12th century. The legend runs that they had been settled for some hundreds of years previously at Jájpur in Cuttack, the ancient capital of Orissa, and that Rajá Anang Bhím Deo, the re-builder of the Temple of Jagannath, founded 450 colonies of them in Puri District, between 1175 and 1202 A.D. They are called the southern line of Orissa Bráhmans, and are sub-divided into two classes — the Kulins and the Srotriyas. The Kulin Brahmanis, who form the first class, include three families—the Bachha, Nanda, and Gautriya. These live on lands granted by former Rájás, or by teaching private students, or as spiritual guides, or more rarely as temple priests. They are few in number, for the most part in tolerable circumstances, though often poor, but held in such high estimation that a Srotriyá Bráhman will give a large dower in order to get his daughter married to one of them. But the Kulin who thus intermarries with a Srotríyá loses somewhat of his position among his ople. The pure brahman rarely stoops below thie Srotriyas, the class immediately next him, for a wife. The Srotrivás or ordinary Vaidik Bráhmans include the following nine families :--The Bhattamisra,