Chauhan

The Chauhans of Patna were an offshoot of the Chauhan clan, Rajput rulers of the Patna kingdom in the upper Mahanadi valley of Orissa. Their tradition, recorded in the seventeenth-century chronicle Kosalananda Kavyam, brought them from Garh Sambhar: when Raja Vishala Dev was killed fighting a Muslim king, his pregnant queen Jayanti Devi fled south and found shelter with a Brahmin family in Patna.

Her son Ramai Deva grew up among the people. In 1360, aged twenty, he overthrew eight local warlords as the Eastern Ganga empire crumbled and became raja of Patna. He married a niece of the Ganga king Bhanu Deva III and built the Patneswari and Kosaleswara temples.

His descendants spread across western Orissa: Balarama Deva founded Sambalpur, and branches ruled Sonepur, Khariar and Jarasingha. Chauhan houses long dominated the country between the Mahanadi and the Tel.