Odia

The Odia people live along the Mahanadi delta and the Odisha coast, the ancient Kalinga, around Puri and Cuttack. Their Odia language descends from Odra Prakrit, itself born of Magadhi Prakrit; the earliest Old Odia inscription dates to 1051. Written in a curved Brahmic script, it has few Persian or Arabic borrowings.

After 1135 the Eastern Ganga dynasty ruled from Cuttack: Chodaganga began the great Jagannatha temple at Puri, and Narasingha Deva I built Konark's sun temple. In 1337 the Ganga kings still reigned; in 1435 Kapilendra Deva founded the Gajapati Empire, while Sarala Das wrote the Odia Mahabharata.

The last independent king Mukunda Deva fell in 1568, when Bengal's Sulaiman Khan Karrani and general Kalapahad overran Odisha and sacked its temples. The Mughals under Man Singh finished the conquest by 1593, making Odisha a subah with its seat at Cuttack; the Marathas took it in 1751 and the East India Company in 1803. The rajas of Khurda remained guardians of the Jagannatha cult.