The southernmost district of Orissa, Puri is a popular Hindi pilgrim site that registers a considerable number of tourist footfalls that mostly constitute that of devotees paying visit to the highly venerated Jagannath Temple or the casual tourists looking forward to laze around in the Puri Beach. Whatever might be the purpose of your visit to Puri, the History of Puri, India is what you should know in order to get yourself familiarized with the place.
On flipping though the pages of the history of Puri, one comes to learn that Puri was once a hillock shrouded by deep forest that served as the asylum for a number of tribes belonging to the Austro-Asiatic linguistic genealogy. Another curious fact that one stumbled upon while delving deep into the history of Puri is that sacred Buddhist site of Dantapura might have been situated right here.
East Asia. The place assumed a religious significance when Shankaracharya, the great Hindu reformer declared Puri as one of his four Hindu centers. Thereafter Puri began to the visited by learned men and scholars from far and afar and the tradition continues unbroken till the present day.
The political and religious importance of Puri was strengthened by the kings belonging to the Ganga dynasty. It was in the first half of the twelfth century that Anatavarman Chodaganga commissioned the construction of the great temple in Puri in the memory of Purushottama, one of the thousand names of Lord Vishnu. Puri, for many years, remained as a sacred place, until the British East India Company realized its potential as a seaside resort. Puri was arrogated by the British in the year 1803 and in the very next year, the province was divided into the northern and the southern divisions. Puri remained the capital of Orissa until 1816 after which it was shifted to Cuttack.
