ABSTRACT
The Britishers had always justified their subjugation of India with the claim that it was they who for the first time united India as a nation, and prior to their colonization, it was nothing but a bunch of segregated political units without any political or psychological sense of unity. India was considered a mere pre-civilization geographical expanse that could not be cogitated as a nation. Winston Churchill, the pre-eminent British politician, was at the forefront advocating permanent subordination of India with the warning that it would disintegrate once the Britishers left the country. Both the Ramayana and the Mahabharata have been translated into every Indian regional language. The vernacular versions of these two epics are uniquely different from each other but have a distinct regional flavour. The essence of Odisha’s philosophical and cultural tradition and thought revolves around Lord Jagannath manifested in various ways by thinkers, philosophers and litterateurs since the ancient period.
