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RESEARCH ON MAHIMA DHARMA       The reason for the first publication on the Mahima Dharma was the spectacular attempt by a few followers of the section to force their way into the temple of Puri, in order to take out the statue of Jagannath and burn it. In 1882, the year following this offence, a short report of the "Commissioner of Orissa division" appeared in the proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal1 which gives a fairly good resume of the corresponding court records (see below). This report forms the basis for further short references made about Mahima Dharma afterwards in the District Gazetteer of Sambalpur, in the census, as well as by C.E. Buckland in Bengal under the Lieutenant Governors.2       While the first report called the followers of the sect "Hindu dissenters" and therewith aptly characterised its peculiar relationship with the Hindu tradition, there appeared two versions in 1911 in which an attempt was made to establish the neo-Hindu origin and character of Mahima Dharma. In B.C.Majumdar's book Sonepur in the Sambalpur Tract3 written on orders from the Raja of Sonepur in order to represent his rank and rights in relation to the British at the Royal Darbar in Delhi, an appendix is devoted to Mahima Dharma. The portrayal furnishes a useful source at several places, since it depicts the customs and dissemination of the movement in Sambalpur province between 1890 and 1911. However, it does not go beyond this account and confines itself to connect the doctrines of the sect with Digambara Jainism in a very general way.       In the same year, N.N. Vasu published his article on Mahima Dharma in two works.4 Vasu was the first to present the apparent connection between the doctrines of Mahima Dharma with the tribal religions on the one hand, and the medieval school of "Five Friends" (Pancasakha) on the other. On the basis of the fact that Pancasakha used Buddhist terms, as for instance the concept of emptiness (Sunyata), Vasu regarded them as crypto-Buddhists who declared themselves followers of Vaisnavism only nominally under the pressure of political environments and for this reason he described Mahima Dharma as a new Buddhist Institution. Vasu's portrayal of Mahima Dharma as "neo-Buddhism" probably got the widest propagation; it passed into standard works like Eliot's Hinduism and Buddhism5 and appears further in the most recent works on Orissa history of literature in which Bhima Bhoi, the actual "Prophet" of the sect gets attention.6 1On the origin and growth of the sect of the Hindu Dissenters who professed to be the followers of Alekha, in proceeding of the Asiatic Society of Bengal 1882, p.2-6. 2Compare: L.S. O'Malley Bengal District Gazetteer, Sambalpur, Calcutta 1909, p.59-62, C.E. Bucklald: "Bengal under Lieutenant Governors", Calcutta 1901, Vol-II, p.733-35. 3Calcutta 1911, APP.IV, p.126-136. 4The Modern Buddhism and its Followers in Orissa, Calcutta 1911, p. 159-172 The Archaeological Survey of Mayurbhanj, Calcutta 1911, VolI,p. CLXLV- CCLXIII. 5Charles Eliot: Hinduism and Buddhism, a historical sketch, London 1921, Vol.II p.115f. 6Compare also: M.Mansinha : History of Oriya Literature, New Delhi, 1962, p.150ff. John V.Boulton: Letteratura Oriya in : Storia delle Letterature d'Oriente Milano 1969, p.432

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