NEXT STOP: ODISHA
Please alight for:
the original juggernaut
Odissi, India’s oldest dance form
the world’s largest turtle nesting zone
Dhanu Yatra at Bargarh, the world’s largest open-air theatre
Car 1 is reserved for estuarine crocodiles – mind the whiplash
Car 3 is strictly for white tigers – sightings not guaranteed
The buffet car is now serving pakhala (a fermented rice dish) and bela pana (a wood apple drink).
ଓଡିଶାକୁ ସ୍ୱାଗତ । Welcome to Odisha
Odi: ଓଡ଼ିଶା ōḍiśā — ‘Land of the Odras’ [Orissa]
From Skt/Pkt: odra/odda, ‘Odra (people)’; Skt/Pkt: visaya/rāṣṭra,/rājya, ‘kingdom, territory, region’.
Orissa was a British corruption of Odis(h)a, itself a variation of Odda Visaya, a name recorded in the 11th century and as Odra Rashtra or Rajya in the 15th century.
Odisha takes its name from people rather than rulers. The Odras appear early in Sanskrit and Prakrit sources as inhabitants of this stretch of India’s eastern coast. Orissa was a colonial spelling; Odisha restores both pronunciation and history. In 2011, the state also corrected the name of its language — Odia, not Oriya.
This is exactly the kind of history I explore at Place Names Wallah, where hundreds of Indian place names tell stories of language, migration, power and local identity.
Geographically and historically, Odisha aligns closely with ancient Kalinga, the coastal kingdom conquered by the Mauryan emperor Ashoka in the 3rd century BCE. The aftermath of that campaign — tens of thousands killed or displaced — produced one of the most consequential reversals in imperial history. Ashoka’s public rejection of conquest in favour of dhamma was not abstract philosophy; it was a response to violence committed here.
Orissa was India’s first modern linguistic state — and the template for what came later. Formed in 1936 under British rule, it brought together Odia-speaking regions that had previously been split between Bengal, Bihar, and Madras and the Central Provinces. Language, rather than religion or dynasty, was the organising principle — a precedent that would later shape the reorganisation of Indian states after Independence.
BHUBANESWAR — ‘Lord of the (Three) Worlds’
Odi: ଭୁବନେଶ୍ଵର bhubanēśvara From Skt: tri, ‘three’; bhuvanam, ‘world(s)’; and īśvara, ‘lord’, ‘master’ [see my guide to Indian place-name elements].
The traditional ‘three worlds’ in Hinduism are: swarga, the world of the devas (gods); martya or prithivi: ‘Earth’; and narka ‘hell’. As an epithet for Shiva it also means ‘Lord of the Universe’.
Bhubaneswar is a modern capital with an ancient core. Designed after Independence as a planned administrative city, it was laid out alongside — not over — an existing sacred landscape. The result is a rare pairing: rational urban planning adjacent to one of India’s densest concentrations of historic temples.
The old town contains temples spanning the 6th to the 13th centuries, built in the distinctive Kalingan style, including the towering Lingaraja Temple and the compact but finely carved Muktesvara. Of the thousands that once stood here, around four hundred remain.
What makes Bhubaneswar distinctive is not just scale, but convergence. Hindu, Buddhist and Jain traditions overlap in and around the city, giving it a religious breadth that mirrors its administrative role. It is less a ceremonial capital than a working one — a place where governance, scholarship and long-established religious practice coexist without needing to be reconciled.
PURI — ‘City (of the Supreme Being)’
Odi: ପୁରୀ purī [Purushottama Puri, Sri Jagannatha Dhama]. From Skt: purusha ‘spirit’, ‘soul’ ‘(male) being’; and uttama, ‘highest’, ‘greatest’, ‘supreme’.
Puri is one of the original char dham [Hin: chār, ‘four’; Hin/Skt: dhām(an), ‘abode’] pilgrimage sites for Vaishnavite Hindus who believe that visiting the four key sites dedicated to Vishnu (Badrinath, Dwarka, Puri and Rameswaram) will lead to moksha, ‘salvation’.
Puri is dedicated to Vishnu in the form of Jagannath — ‘Lord of the Universe’ [Skt: jagan, ‘world’, ‘universe’; nātha, ‘lord’, ‘master’]. In the annual ratha yatra Jagannath, his brother (Balbhadra) and sister (Subhadra) are paraded on enormous highly ornate temple chariots, the origin of the English word ‘juggernaut’.
The vehicle is remade every year and is 14 metres high with 16 wheels two metres in diameter. The event is devotional, but it is also logistical: crowd management, construction schedules, supply chains — a reminder that theology and performance in Puri has always been large-scale, physical, open air and public.
Puri relies heavily on Lord Jagganath. With 24 festivals a year attracting millions of devotees, the temple generates 80% of the city’s revenues. Pilgrimage here is not seasonal but continuous, structured around a dense ritual calendar. The Jagannath Temple underpins most of the city’s economy, directly or indirectly, and religious activity shapes urban life more visibly than civic planning ever could.
CUTTACK — ‘Royal Fort’
Odi: କଟକ kaṭaka [Bidanasi Katak] From Skt: kaṭakḥ, ‘royal capital, cantonment, fort or metropolis’.
Cuttack is the second largest city in Odisha, but no longer the capital which is Bhubaneswar.
Its original name was Bidanasi Katak, but the name was dropped leaving only the generic function. Cuttack is the state’s former centre of rule. Its name comes from kaṭaka — a fort, cantonment or royal capital — and for centuries Cuttack justified the label. Only after Independence did it lose capital status to Bhubaneswar, a shift from inherited authority to planned administration. Cuttack may no longer govern Odisha, but it retains institutional weight — legal, commercial and cultural.
That transition still shapes the city’s character. The ruins of Barabati Fort, reduced to gateways and earthworks, are reminders of medieval power rather than monuments to it.
Cuttack’s more fragile inheritance lies elsewhere: in tarakasi, its intricate silver filigree craft, once supported by courtly patronage and now struggling to survive globalised markets and declining artisanal infrastructure.
KONARK — ‘Angle of the Sun’
Odi: କୋଣାର୍କ kōṇārka From Skt: kōṇ, ‘corner’, ‘angle’; and arka, ‘the sun’.
Konark Sun Temple completes the picture. It is not a city and never was one in the modern sense, but it explains something fundamental about Odisha’s intellectual and religious history.
Built in the 13th century, the Sun Temple at Konark was conceived as a stone chariot for Surya, the sun god, pulled across the sky. Its sixteen wheels are not decorative: they function as precise sundials, capable of measuring time to the minute. Architecture here does not symbolise cosmology; it operationalises it.
Much of the structure is now ruined, but the ambition remains legible. Konark represents an approach to belief that values order, measurement and alignment — qualities that resonate strongly with the region’s long tradition of temple building, astronomy and statecraft.
For more on Indian place names and history - see Place Names Wallah