BHUBANESWAR, March 12, 2015 : The Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH), Odisha, has set out to document monuments which existed along old Jagannath Sadak, the road stretch used by all pilgrims travelling from Kolkata to the Jagannath Temple at Puri in late 1700s.
INTACH’s initiative of exploring road and structures which had supported pilgrimage activities coincides with Lord’s Nabakalebara festival, which is to be celebrated after a gap of 19 years this year.
A four man delegation comprising INTACH’s State Convenor A.B. Tripathy, Ananta Mohapatro, Sanjeev Hota and Anil Dhir toured the entire stretch of the Old Jagannath Sadak from Jaleswar to Bhadrak recently.
According to INTACH, “The Jagganath Sadak was the old pilgrim road from Calcutta to Puri. It took form in the late 1700’s and was the lifeline for all pilgrims who came to the Lord’s abode at Puri. It was, from 1825, known as the Orissa Trunk Road, but for the devotees, it has always been the Jagannath Sadak.”
“The road had touched Midnapore, Balasore, Niligiri, Bhadrak, Jajpur, Dharamshala, Chhatia, Cuttack, Bhubaneswar and Pipili. Travellers used to cover distances by bullock carts, hackneys, palanquins, horses and elephants, but most of them trudged on foot,” it said.
INTACH said, “There were many amenities for the pilgrims and travellers. There were choultries, dharamshalas, wells, tanks, culverts, bridges, temples, rest-sheds and ghats. Many remnants of these are still visible on isolated stretches of the erstwhile grand road.”
In fact, toll tax from the pilgrims was collected from the time of the Mughals, a tradition which continued under the Maratha regime too, it said.
However, with the advent of the railways in 1892, the Jagannath Sadak fell into disuse and over the next few years was lost forever. The railways shortened the travel time from three weeks to eighteen hours.
As it was a coastal road, many stretches of the road vanished with time, it was encroached upon by villages and some lengths now form the NH-5 and the railway.
“There is wanton destruction of heritage monuments, structures, wells and ponds of the old road,” Mr. Tripathy lamented.
“This was the road which was taken by the marauding Mughals, Afghans, Marathas and later on the British to conquer Odisha. This was the road on which Chaitanya, Guru Nanak and Kabir travelled when they visited Puri. The road played a very important role in the formation of the State of Odisha and the spread of Jagannath culture,” INTACH members said.
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