Mayurbhanj

Mayurbhanj was a forested hill state on the border of Orissa and Bengal. Its Bhanja rulers traced their line to Khijjinga and ruled as feudatories of Orissa’s Eastern Ganga kings.

From the fifteenth century the capital stood at Baripada, where the royal palace was built in 1804. Mayurbhanj came under Maratha supremacy in the eighteenth century and paid six thousand rupees annually. In 1829 it became a British protectorate, retaining its Bhanja raja.