Place · Gajapati princely seat · India
Paralakhemundi
Also known as Parlakhemundi
Paralakhemundi in Gajapati district on the Odisha-Andhra border was the capital of the eastern Gajapati Suryavamshi line after the fall of Cuttack, and from 1768 of the independent princely state of Paralakhemundi — the senior royal house of Odisha and the maintainers of the Jagannath cult at Puri. The town's Gothic-plus-local Brundaban Palace was built in 1900 by Vastu Vihari Krupamaya Deva Dev; Maharaja Krushna Chandra Gajapati, Paralakhemundi's most famous ruler, led the agitation that detached Odisha from the Madras Presidency as a separate state on 1 April 1936 and became its first Prime Minister. The town's Shri Mukteswara and Mahendragiri shrines are centres of the regional Shaiva and Vaishnava cults.
- Function
- Authority & administration
- Patron dynasty
- Gajapati of Paralakhemundi
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 18.782, 84.092
Connections (1)
- Site adjacencyCuttack
Paralakhemundi is the junior cadet seat of the Suryavamsha Gajapati house whose senior line sat at Cuttack's Barabati Fort until the Afghan conquest in 1568; from the eighteenth century the Paralakhemundi branch became the senior royal house of Odisha and the ritual patron of the Jagannath temple at Puri. Krushna Chandra Gajapati, the Maharaja of Paralakhemundi, led the agitation that detached Odisha from the Madras Presidency to form the separate state on 1 April 1936 and became the first Prime Minister of Odisha, moving between his palace at Paralakhemundi and the new secretariat at Cuttack.
Sources
Standard reference.
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