The Katakarajavamsavali: The Colonial Biography of Puri's Sanskrit Chronicle of the Year 1820

In: Indian Historical Review, 38 (2011), Nr. 1. pp. 65-75. ISSN 0975-5977

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Abstract

The Katakarajavamsavali (KRV) is a free Sanskrit rendering of the Madala Panji, Puri's famous Oriya chronicle. Dated in 1820 and written by an unknown author, it reveals a fascinating 'biography', directly linked with the colonial quest for acquiring traditional Indian knowledge. In 1825 it was transferred to the India Office Library at London and remained unnoticed until its rediscovery in 1974 and publication in I 987. In 1820 two British 'administrators cum historians', Andrew Stirling, Secretary to the Commissioner at Cuttack, and Colin Mackenzie, Surveyor General of India, met in Orissa and seem to have entrusted 'a learned Brahmin of Puri' to write a new and systematic chronicle of Orissa in Sanskrit. A detailed analysis makes it very likely that the author was Jagannath Rajguru who had already been the main informant of Groeme for the compilation of his famous Report on the Jagannath temple in 1805 and who was twice appointed Head Pariksha of the temple. The KRY became the major historical source of A. Stirling's 'An Account, Geographical, Statistical, and Historical of Orissa Proper or Cuttack', published by the Asiatic Society at Calcutta in 1822 as the first 'modern' publication on Orissa.