It gives me a great pleasure in presenting this volume on the study of Urbanization of a Great Traditional City, entitled "Rising India", which describes the processes and factors of urbanization of an ancient place of pilgrimage-Puri, which has been one of the four Dhams of the Hindus. Puri attracts lakhs of pilgrims from different corners of the Hindu Universe through-out the year. This traditional irtha of Puri has passed through the various historical phases, and therefore, has acquired many Sanskritic, Buddhistic, Tantric as well as the folk elements, which are evident in its "Sacred Complex" le. the sacred geography, the sacred performances and the sacred specialists (or different Niyogas). These aspects of this traditional pilgrim's centre have been highlighted by many scholars (viz. Patnaik, Rath, Mahapatra etc.) from time to time. However, besides these aspects, the increasing trend of urbanization of this traditional town of Puri, has been an important factor, and uptill now no anthropological work of any kind had been done on it. Thus, keeping in view the importance of both the sacred and urban dimensions of Puri, the Post-Graduate Department of Anthropology, Ranchi University, Ranchi, organised a field. expedition along with a batch of the Post-Graduate Research students under my guidance and supervision, which continued for nearly three months i.e. from December, 1974 to February, 1975 and the present volume is, thus, an out-come of that empirical field study.
While carrying out field work at Puri as well as analysing the field data at Ranchi, I have got helps and encouragements from a large number of persons and institutions. First of all, 1 express my deep sense of gratitude and gratefulness to Dr. L.P. Vidyarthi, University Professor and Head, Department of Anthropology, Ranchi University, Ranchi and President of the Xth World Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences, who not only provided me a golden opportunity to study the urban dimension of this traditional city, but also took a great pain to visit us directly in the field while returning from Cambridge after attending an International Conference on Pre-Farming and Marginal Tribes. His visit to the field and providing guidance at the spot, gave us multiple enthusiasm to I am also thankful to all complete the research assignment. the research students of Puri group, however, special thanks are due to Miss Neelam Taneja M.Sc. (Gold Medalist), Miss Surinder Khurana M.Sc., Mr. Jaiprakash M.Sc., B.L. (now advocate) and Mr. Ranjit Singh M.Sc., who were closely associated with the present work. My colleagues Dr. K. Ν. Sahay, Dr. Narayan Mishra, Dr. V.S. Upadhyay and Dr. A. N. Sandhwar have been very helpful at the time of analysing the field data and have given their comments and suggestions during seminars when the findings of this study had been presented. At Puri, Padmashri Pandit Ratha, Pandit Gopi Nath Mishra, the Veda pathi of the Mukti Mandap, Mr. P. N. Sinha and other officials of the Puri Municipality, Mr. Kanungo, Sub-Inspector of police and officer-in-charge of the town thana and other police officials etc., all helped us and therefore, I am highly obliged to them.
Messers. Classical Publications, New Delhi, has taken keen interest in publishing and bringing it out from the press at an early date and I am really very grateful to them for the same.
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