Odisha

“ North-West Provinces (46,905) , a province and lieutenant-governorship of British India, embraces the upper portion of the Ganges Valley and Doab, and reaches from Bengal to the Punjab, enclosing Oudh on all sides but the N.; area twice that of England, is the chief wheat province, and also raises opium, cotton, tea, and sugar; was separated from Bengal in 1835, and with it in 1877 was conjoined Oudh; Allahabad is the capital. ”

“ Andh.1—A low cultivating caste of Berār, who numbered 52,000 persons in 1911, and belong to the Yeotmal, Akola and Buldāna Districts. The Andhs appear to be a non-Aryan tribe of the Andhra or Tamil country, from which they derive their name. The territories of the Andhra dynasty extended across southern India from sea to sea in the early part of the Christian era. This designation may, however, have been given to them after migration, emigrants being not infrequently called in their new country by the name of the place from which they came, as Berāri, Purdesi, Audhia (from Oudh) , and so on. ”

“ Orissa (4,047) , the name of an ancient Indian kingdom, independent till 1568, and falling into British possession in 1803, is now restricted to the most south-easterly province of Bengal. It is larger than Wales, and comprises a hilly inland tract and an alluvial plain formed by the deltas of the Mahanadi, Brahmani, and Baitarani Rivers, well irrigated, and producing great crops of rice, wheat, pulse, and cotton. It has no railways, and poor roads; transport is by canal and river. ”

“ With the exception of a belt of government forest along the northern frontier, the rest of the province consists of a fertile and densely peopled plain. The greatest elevation (600 ft.) is attained in the jungle-clad plateau of Khairagarh in Kheri district, while the extreme south-east frontier is only 230 ft. above sea-level. Four great rivers traverse or skirt the plain of Oudh in converging courses -the Ganges, the Gumti, the Gogra and the Rapti. Numerous smaller channels seam the whole face of the country carrying off the surplus drainage in the rains, but dryin up in the hot season. ”

“ Oneypore!
The sacred city of Hindustan! The holy soil where the living descendants of the gods had ruled for over five thousand years—and one of them dead, on unclean, foreign soil—buried in unclean, foreign soil!
An outcast! He, the descendant of Rama, an outcast!
Oneypore! And it was a fascinating town, with crooked streets and low, white houses, cool gardens ablaze with mangoes and mellingtonia and flowering peepul-trees and, in the distance, a gigantic palace, built out of a granite hillside, and descending into the dip of the valley with an avalanche of bold masonry. ”

“ The Odiyas of the hills differ, however, from the Odiyas of the plains, the Odiyas of Ganjam from those of Vizagapatam, and the customs of one muttāh (settlement) from those of the next." Mr.Narasing Doss writes to me that "Odiya literally means an inhabitant of Odissa or Orissa. There is a separate caste called Odiya, with several sub-divisions. They are cultivators by profession. Marriage is infant or adult. They employ Brāhmans at ceremonials. Widows and divorcées are remarried. They eat fish and meat, but not fowls or beef, and do not drink liquor. They burn the dead. ”

“ At the north-eastern angle of that frontier, the Dihang river, the connecting link between the Tsanpo of Tibet and the Brahmaputra of Assam, bursts through the main axis of the range. At the opposite or north-western angle, the Indus in like manner pierces the Himalayas, and turns southwards on its course through the Punjab. This wild region is in many parts impenetrable to man, and nowhere yields a passage for a modern army. Ancient and well-known trade routes exist, by means of which merchandise from the Punjab finds its way over heights of 18,000 ft. ”

“ Janghera, thus happily placed between the rugged scenery of the upper provinces, and the smiling landscapes of Bengal, partakes of the nature of both: the Ganges spreads itself like a sea at the foot of the rock, which on the land-side overlooks a wide expanse of fertile country, having for a back-ground the low ranges of hills which separate Behar from Bengal. ”

“ These, with numerous lesser streams and tributaries, entering the country from the Himalayan chain and Tarai [1] forest, which separates Oudh from Nepal, and flowing gently through the country towards the Ganges, without cutting very deeply into the soil, always keep the water near the surface, and available in all quarters, and in any quantity, for purposes of irrigation. Never was there a country more favoured by nature, or more susceptible of improvement, under judicious management. ”

“ That province of the Mogul Empire which lay on the Ganges immediately above Bengal, was so called, and still retains the name and character of a province, under the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, and embracing the ten modern districts of Patna, Sāran, Gāya, Shāhābād, Tirhut, Champāran, the Santāl Parganas, Bhāgalpūr, Monghyr, and Purnīah. The name was taken from the old city of Bihār, and that derived its title from being the site of a famous Vihāra in Buddhist times. In the later days of Mahommedan rule the three provinces of Bengal, Behar and Orissa were under one Subadar, viz. ”

“ Several districts belonging to Bengal lie interspersed within these mountains, but none beyond them; for to the westward they extend several degrees, and are in some parts impassable, as far as the province of Berar in the Decan; to the north they divide. Bengal from the southern division of BEHAR, and to the south, seem the natural separation of Bengal from ORIXA, which nevertheless has a tract of country within them extending 20 miles along the sea-coasts from Ballasore to the river of Pipley, which disembogues opposite to the Island of Sagore. ”

“ But on the north-east, as on the north-west, India has again a land frontier. The Himalayan ranges at the north-eastern angle (in about 28° N., 97° E.) throw off spurs and chains to the south-east, which separate Eastern Bengal from Assam and Burma. Stretching south-eastwards from the delta of the Irrawaddy, a confused succession of little explored ranges separates the Burmese division of Tenasserim from the native kingdom of Siam. ”

“ They prefer the title of Ajudhyabâsi, or residents of Ajudhya; by outsiders they are usually called Audhiya, or “Oudh men.” They claim to be really Banyas, and say that they emigrated from Ajudhya; but they have no means of fixing the time of their arrival in Fatehpur. One tradition is that their movement was connected with the expedition of Râma Chandra against Lanka or Ceylon.
Divisions. 2. They are divided into two classes—Ûnch or “high,” and Nîch, or “low.” The former are those of pure blood; the latter, the descendants of a woman of another caste, taken as a concubine. ”

“ A general term for the aggregate of low Hindu tribes who make their living by earth-work. But, besides these, there appears to be a real endogamous group of this name found chiefly in Bareilly, Gorakhpur, Basti, and Pilibhît. Mr. Risley122 describes under the same name a wandering Dravidian caste of earth-workers and navvies in Bihâr and Western Bengal, many of whom are employed in the coal mines of Râniganj and Barâkar. “Both men and women labour, the former digging the earth and the latter removing it in baskets carried on the head. ”

“ The comparatively recent growth of the caste in these Provinces is shown by its subdivisions. The principal subcastes of the Hindustāni Districts are the Pardeshi or foreigners, immigrants from northern India, and the Pūrbia or eastern, coming from Oudh; other subcastes are the Sri Gaur Mālas or immigrants from Mālwa, the Berādi from Berār, and the Māhure from Hyderābād. We find also subcastes of Jāt and Teli Barhais, consisting of Jāts and Telis (oil-pressers) who have taken to carpentering. ”

“ Rajmahal, Bhagulpore, Curruckpore, Monghir, Behar, Futwah, Patna, Hajeepoor, Dinapoor, Chupra, Arrah, Bishunpore, Buxar, Ghazeepore—all lie on or near the Ganges between the Hoogly and Benares. Some of these places are centres of commerce for the opium-trade; some are busy with the trading in rice grown in neighbouring districts; others are shipping-places for corn and other agricultural produce; while all regard the Ganges as an invaluable channel, affording intercourse with the rich districts of the west, and with the great focus of authority and trade at Calcutta. ”

“ The Indus traverses, too, a comparatively barren and deserted country, thinly peopled and poorly cultivated; while the Ganges expends its waters in irrigation, and blesses the inhabitants of its banks with rich and exuberant crops. The Indus, even in the season of inundation, is confined to its bed by steeper and more consistent banks than the other river ”

“ Lord Curzon, however, was determined to cut Bengal Proper and the Bengali-speaking community in two, giving 25,000,000 of the population to the new Province of Eastern Bengal and Assam with a new capital at Dacca, and 18,000,000 of the population to a Province still to be called Bengal, with the old capital of Calcutta, and bound up with the outlying districts of Behar, Chota Nagpur, and Orissa, all of which differ from Bengal in race, language, and civilization, as does Assam. ”

“ The province, Western Bihár, of which Patná was the capital, was one of the richest provinces in India. It contained a considerable number of native landowners, men of large estates and ancient lineage. English merchants, too, had invested large sums in the province in the cultivation of indigo, one of its staple exports. ”

“ The North-West Frontier Province is, with the exception of Behar, Chota Nagpur and Orissa, the youngest of the provinces into which British India is divided, while in respect of population and extent of territory administered according to British law, it is also the smallest. ”

“ Geographical distribution is all important, and the Pási is perhaps the best instance, The Pásis.—This ráce is confined to the province of Oudh, the division of Benares and Allahabad, and the district of Shahjahanpur, Their own- traditions are to the effect that Sandíla, Dhaurabra, Mitauli, Rankots in the district of Kheri, Hardoi, and Unao were all seats of their kings and power. Further, they do yet follow all such occupations as are absolutely necessary for the existence of a pastoral and agricultural race in a low state of civilization, and they have no divisions among themselves. ”

“ The Ganges and the Jumna are the great rivers that permeate it. As before, we give the names of the most familiarly known divisions or districts—Delhi, Meerut, Allygurh, Rohilcund, Bareilly, Shahjehanpoor, Bijnour, Agra, Furruckabad, Allahabad, Cawnpore, Futtehpore, Benares, Gorukhpore, Azimghur, Jounpore, Mirzapore, Ghazeepore; and if to these we add the names of towns not indicated by the names of their districts—such as Simla, Sirhind, Umballa, Loodianah, Shahabad, Buxar—it will be seen how many places noted more or less in Indian affairs lie within this province or lieutenant-governorship. ”

“ The whole character of the country is luxuriantly tropical, and though the lowlands are not more fertile than the matchless delta of the Ganges, the more varied prodigality of nature shows itself alike in the waving forests of cocoanut, which are common all along the coast, in the rich tobacco-fields of Madura and Coimbatore, in the plantations of cinchona, pepper, cardamoms, and other spices on the slopes of the Nilgiri highlands, and in the splendid growths of teak, ebony, and sandalwood that clothe the Western Ghats. ”

“ All the countries lying to the east of the great and lesser Ganges, excepting the island of Cossimbuzar, were defended by these rivers from the calamities which afflicted Orixa, the western part of Bengal, and the southern region of Behar, where the pusillanimous inhabitants were continually taking flight, even on imaginary alarms, and wandering from their homes found no resources of charity in their countrymen ”

“ So much for the north-western frontier. In the south-west, while Greek prince after Greek prince in the north was minting coins that were to carry his name idly, ineffectively, through the centuries, an aboriginal Dravidian people, driven, no doubt, thousands of years before from the fertile fields of the Gangetic plain by the steady advance of the Aryan immigrants, were as steadily regaining their hold upon Central India. The Andhra race was not slow to seize opportunity. The death of Asôka gave them the chance of casting off their allegiance to the Maury a empire, and they took it. ”

“ The country is flat; but the quaint conical Bengali houses that line the shore, with their carefully-laid thatch roofs, the cocoanut and date palms growing in great luxuriance on the alluvial deposit of the river front, and the wide reaches of the rich rice-fields, through which the winding river makes its way, all present a picture of rare tropical interest and beauty. ”

“ The Indravati, the Sabari and the Tal or Talper, are the chief rivers of the district; all of them affluents of the Godavari. The soil throughout the greater portion of Bastar consists of light clay, with an admixture of sand, suited for raising rice and wet crops. In the jungles the Marias, who are among the aboriginal tribes of Gond origin, raise kosra (Panicum italicum) and other inferior grains. Aboriginal races generally follow the migratory system of tillage, clearing the jungle on selected patches, and after taking crops for two or three years abandoning them for new ground. ”