Socio-Culltural

Buddhism, the religion propound by Buddha has a significant aspect in the history and culture of Dakshina Kosala. Roughly comprising the upper Mahanadi valley in western part of Odisha namely the erstwhile undivided district of Sundargarh, Sambalpur, Bolangir, Kalahandi and others and also the neighboring and adjoining regions to it. There is no dearth of literary and archeological data corroborating the popularity of Buddha here. The text Ashokavadana further inform that his youngest brother name Tishya (who happen to be a Buddhist Monk) had came Dakshina Kosala and popularized Buddhism. Numbers of Sangharam, Stupa and enumerable Buddha Vihara were flourishing the text witnessed. The celebrated Chinese pilgrim and historian Hiun Tsang to have visited the country of South Kosala and spoken highly of the popularity of Buddhism in the kingdom. He further inform that Nagarjuna the celebrated Mahayana philosopher lived in a cave monastery of South Kosala at a place called Po-lo-mo-lo-ki-li which is identified by scholar as Parimalagiri in Gandhamardhana hill on the boarder of Bargarh and Balangir district of Odisha and also spoke of stronghold of Buddhism and a Buddhist stupa of Ashoka’s time near this place.