Kalahandinagara

Kalahandinagara was the royal centre now known as Junagarh in the interior of Odisha. Its name appears in the Dadhivaman temple inscription of 1718, issued by the Nagavamsi ruler Juga Shahi Deo III. This was a court in the country earlier called Kamalmandala, where local dynasties governed between the wooded uplands and cultivated valleys of eastern and central India.

The rulers of Kalahandi acknowledged the Gajapatis of Odisha before the collapse of that kingdom's power in 1568. They subsequently exercised an independent authority that court tradition extended over eighteen forts. The Bhonslas of Nagpur brought Kalahandi under their ascendancy in the middle of the eighteenth century, making relations with the Maratha court a central concern of the local dynasty. British victories over the Marathas in 1803 changed the political surroundings without immediately ending that connection. Even after Nagpur accepted British supremacy in 1818, Kalahandi remained attached to its Maratha overlords. Temples, royal inscriptions and the old capital embodied a continuing local kingship through these changes in the larger powers to which it owed allegiance.