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Dr. K C Panigrahi appears to have correctly related the three names in the inscriptions, namely Narayana, Vinitesvara and Mandalesvara. According to the commonly accepted story, which was also mentioned by Buchanan and Martin, Munda the brother of Chanda, had established the Goddess Mundesvari. The real history of the shrine was apparently forgotten and the people came fondly to believe that the Goddess was established by Munda.
According to Panigrahi, this temple had seen “three periods of religious history viz.
(i) When it was a Vaishnava temple of the God Narayana,
(ii) When it was converted into a Shaiva temple of Viniteshwara, a name of Lord Shiva and
(iii) when it was last converted into the temple dedicated to the Goddess Mundeshwari, perhaps under the Chero kings, who were Saktas. The earliest sanctuary was of the 4th or 5th century AD, the existing ruins representing mostly the second period of its history, belong to the 7th century AD.
Kuraishi adds that midway “along the road to the temple is a large oval shaped boulder, about 10 feet in diameter, the upper surface of which is smoothed and carved with a 6 armed Yaksha figure, in relief, flying away to the left, with a large elephant in two of his hands raised overhead.” To the left of the Yaksha, he says, are traces of a small female figure seated on a stool, and below him a fox or a jackal. Below the figure are a few letters of inscription in Gupta characters. The figure appears to be much older than the Mundeshwari temple. Short records in Gupta characters containing only names of pilgrims are also reported by Kuraishi to exist on the hill; but the actual names of the pilgrims are not mentioned, nor are these short records referred to elsewhere.
To be continued....