'Seba' in Puri Temple and the the Balance of Power- The Case of Gajapatis and Gadajat Kings

The notion of temple seba indicated privileged access to the deity. The ritualized distribution of these services by the Khurda raja in the eighteenth century showed a desperate attempt on the part of Khurda Gajapati to retrieve his irretrievable status, which had been diminished in the eyes of feudatory states on account of defeat in the hands of Mughals and the marriage of Gajapati to a Muslim girl. The imposition of ritual obligations on feudatory states was an attempt to limit their resistance to the Gajapati King. In the end, the feudatory states created their own centres of power by replicating the architectonic of Puri Temple city in their respective capital cities. This resulted in the construction of magnificent temples in feudatory states of Keonjhar, Mayurbhan, Nilagiri, Khallikote, and in almost all other feudatory states of Odisha.