Coastal Shrines of Odisha and Maritime Networks in the Bay of Bengal: 2nd Century BCE-12th Century CE

Sea travel was fraught with peril and danger in early historical and medieval times, and not surprisingly, from an early period, a saviour or saviouress from sea danger was part of the Indic cultural tradition. First, in Buddhism in the form of Avalokiteśvara and Tārā, but later in Hinduism, the protective saviour deities emerged in the Indian Subcontinent, including in the eastern seaboard region of Odisha. The coastal shrines in the Indian Ocean World provided the cultural basis for the maritime transactions among the various regions of the Indian Ocean. The paper is an attempt to construct various coastal shrines in Odisha by analysing the historical-cultural context of their origin and growth. The paper uses archaeological, historical evidence, temple legend and local tradition to construct the maritime economic landscape of Odisha in the early historical and early medieval period, which includes accounting for the locations of ports on the riverine mouths. The location of these ports in the estuarine mouths or on the river banks is dependent on their hinterlands, and the paper analyses the role the goods and traders of Odisha played in the Indian Ocean trade. Given the dangers of sea voyages and belief in protective deities, the coastal establishments saw the emergence of coastal shrines in early historical and early medieval Odisha. Keywords: Coastal shrines, Transnational networks, Tārā as Saviouress, Siddha Yātrā, Mangalā