Ancient Orissa was a confluence of racial
streams. History tells us that the Aryans entered Orissa from the north-east,
subjugated the primitive people living there and imposed on them their language
and culture. The story could not be so simple; for the people then living in
the land were not perhaps all of the primitive type, nor were they subjugated
culturally. What might have happened in all Probability was a racial and cultural
amalgamation.
Geographically Orissa stands as a coastal corridor between the northern and
southern India cut off by the intractable Vindhyas. It is natural therefore
that an assimilation of the races and cultures of the Aryans and the Dravidians;
must have taken place here in the days of gore. At the same time successive
racial and cultural tides might have surged up from the different sides, rolled
in and broken over this Bound culminating in the indo-cultural synthesis.
Orissa, which is largely rural, the traditional values are still kept alive.
In general the values have no doubt weakened but they are not lost. Among die
innocent Advisees dwelling in the wooded hinterland and forested hill slopes,
India's earliest civilization is retained in its pristine form. Not only in
their secluded hamlets, bet also in the countless thousands of villages in the
country sides one can catch a glimpse of the dwindling horizon of humanity,
through the innocent and benign outlook of tile villagers. A sensitive person
who happens to be a prisoner of the modern society with its stress and strain
will not, while in a typical village, fail to mark the relationship of its common
people with God, nature and their fellow men.
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