This image agrees in style and technique with images belonging to the great temple and so it may be recognised as a work of the same epoch. The form of the Nagari letters indicates that this record and therefore this image should be assigned to the eleventh or twelfth century A.D. A Raja Rajabhañja of Khijjinga or Khiching we know from a copper-plate grant found in the Bamanghati subdivision of the Mayurbhanj State and published 55 years ago.1 Two other copper-plate grants of Rajabhañja's father Ranabhañja have also been published.* From these records we obtain this account of the Bhañja chiefs of Khiching. Adibhañja Virabhadra was miraculously born of the egg of a peahen and brought up by Rishi Vasishtha, the priest of the solar Ikshāku line of the Kshatriyas. In the line of Adibhañja was born Koṭṭabbañja, "fire to the forest of his foes." Kotṭabhañja was succeeded by his son Digbhañja whose feet were worshipped by hundreds of vassal chiefs. Digbhanja's son was Raṇabhañja who lived at Khijjingakotta (Khiching). Raṇabbañja's son and successor was Rājabhañja. It seems to me that it was Digbhañja who first settled at Khiching and he or his successor Raṇabhañja built the great temple. The letters of the copper-plate grants referred to above closely resemble the letters of the inscription on the image of Avalokitesvara and therefore the identification of Raja Rāyabhañja of this inscription with Raja Rajabhañja of the copper-plate grant is unavoidable. The early Bhañja chiefs of Khiching as well as the artists they employed for building and decorating their temples were not of local origin, for no trace of any monument of an earlier age marking an earlier stage of development of the art has been discovered at Khiching or its neighbourbood. Wherefrom, then, came the Bhañjas and the artists they employed? By stylistic analysis it is possible to suggest a provisional answer to this question.

Plate 3 represents a side piece of one of the three main niches on three sides of the perpendicular part of the great temple, and

1 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Vol. XL., 1871, Pt. I, p. 169. • Ibid., p. 165; J.B.O.R.S., Vol. IV, 1918, pp. 172-177.