South of Bihar, on the Bay of Bangal, industrial India is left behind. Green plain, river valleys, mountains, Forests and beaches constitute the landscape of one of India' s most thoroughly rural states. The whitewashed mud village houses stand amidst bright green paddy fields and there are sandy and un spoilt beaches as well as lakes. The Chilka Lagoon is the largest brackish lake in Asia and has rich bird life.
Orissa offers the gournet a variety of sea food: lobster, prawns and crab, all of which the Oriyans transform into delectable creations. The hill forest of central Orissa are a tribal area and the home of wild animals, including tigers and elephants. Some 62 distinct tribal groups have been identified as living in the state. They make excellent carvings of wood and soapstone, exquisite silver filgree jewellery and children's toys, and also colourful votive paintings on canvas- the famous pattachitra folk paintings. Most of Orrisa's horn work, brass and ironware, silk and handloom products-the Sambalpuri and Cuttack saris, for example-owe their fineness to a rigorously developed folk handicraft centers, but beautiful temple cities where pilgrims come to worship and to celebrate festivals. The chief attractions of Orissa-Bhubaneshwar, Puri and Konark-form a compact, easy- to- visit triangle.
The seventh to 13th centuries were the great age of Orissan temple building, the age of Brahmin resurgence under the Kesari and Ganga Kings. Before that, we hear not of Orissa but of the kingdom of Kalinga where in 262 BC, after a bloody war, the Mauryan emperor Ashoka converted to Buddhism. From then until the fourth century Buddhism and Jainism held sway, but after the seventh century Hinduism reasserted itself.