Person · Eastern Ganga king · India
Narasiṃhadeva I
Also known as Narasimhadeva I, Narasimha Deva I, Langula Narasingha Deva
The Eastern Ganga ruler who checked the Bengal sultanate's advance into Odisha in the 1240s and built Konark — a temple in the form of the sun god's chariot, on a scale that broke the dynasty's finances and, in the end, the building's own structure.
- Date
- r. 1238 – 1264
- Function
- Authority & administration
- Confidence
- Not assessed
- Location
- 19.888, 86.094
Worth knowing
The Baya Chandi inscriptions and the Madala Panji temple chronicle both credit him with Konārk. Tradition gives the work twelve years and twelve thousand men, and has the chief architect's son Dharmapada solve the crowning problem and then drown himself so the masons would not be blamed.
About the place
Placed at Konark, which he built and which is the monument his reign is remembered for. His capital was at Cuttack.
Connections (3)
- PatronageKonark Sun Temple
Narasimhadeva I built Konārk from about 1250, by most readings as a monument to his campaigns against the Delhi Sultanate's governors in Bengal. The Madala Panji gives the work twelve years; the deul it was meant to crown was raised beyond what Kalinga construction could carry and came down, leaving the porch.
- PatronageJagannātha Temple, Puri
The Eastern Gangas built the Jagannātha temple at Purī under Anantavarman Chodaganga and Konārk under Narasimhadeva I, a century and a half apart. Konārk was the attempt to go beyond Purī in scale; the sailors who used both as landmarks called one the White Pagoda and the other the Black.
- CampaignGaur (Lakhnauti)
Narasimhadeva fought the Bengal sultanate under Tughral Tughan Khan through the 1240s, took Lakhnauti's forces at the Rajmahal pass and raided into south Bengal — the only Indian ruler of the century to carry a war into the sultanate's own territory and hold his own. Konark was begun in the aftermath and is usually read as the monument to it, which means the largest temple in eastern India is a victory over the power that had taken the whole Ganges plain.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, “Narasingha Deva I”. The Madala Panji temple chronicle of Puri; Debala Mitra and K.C. Panigrahi on Odishan temple architecture; Archaeological Survey of India records.
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