her in the hope of staying an epidemic of cholera in the town. Nowadays sheep and goats take the place of human victims, but the flowers with which they are decked beforehand, which are brought specially from Nandapuram in Pottangi taluk, the old capital of the estate, are still known as meriah pushpa.
Sheep and goats are sacrificed on each of the first thirteen days of the Dasara and on the fourteenth some buffaloes as well. On that day, which is known in consequence as the Bodo Uppano ('great offerings') day, the Mahárája, dressed in white, himself visits the goddess' shrine and then holds, from a white throne, a darbar which is attended by the bollo loko (courtiers) and lampatas (servants) and others, while the senior Maháráni (called the Patta Mahádévi) does the same after him, receiving bhét (presents) from the ladies who attend. On the sixteenth, or Sanno Uppano ('little offerings'), day the Mahárája, who this time is dressed in scarlet, worships the goddess in the Darbar hall of the palace and holds, from a scarlet throne, a darbar at which bhéts are offered. Neither of these thrones are used except at the Dasara. It is customary for the Mahárája's feudal retainers to come into Jeypore with their followers to pay their respects at this second darbar, and many of the inams and mokhásas in the estate (see, for example, the account of Bissamkatak above) have been granted on the express condition that the grantees do this annual service.
On the eighteenth day, preceded by the goddess Kanaka Durga and a white flag which was captured long ago from the troops of Bastar in one of the many skirmishes which took place with that State, the Mahárája and his son, seated in ambáris on elephants and followed by the European and other officials of the place in howdahs on other elephants, go in procession to the Dasara poda in a mango grove to the north of the town. There worship is paid to the goddess by the Mahárája and afterwards the crowd proceed to shoot a brinjal off the top of a long bamboo. This custom is followed at Dasara all over the Northern Circars and the country west of them, and is supposed to symbolise the general rejoicings which took place when Durga succeeded in overcoming the buffalo-headed demon Mahishásura.
The family chronicles, a résumé of which has been kindly furnished by the Mahárája, ascribe a very ancient origin to the line of the Jeypore zamindars. Beginning with Kanakaséna of the solar race, a general and feudatory of the king of Kashmir, they trace the pedigree through thirty-two generations down to Vínáyaka Deo, a younger son who left Kashmir rather than
