Odisha

Cooked rice soaked in water, often fermented overnight, with curd and tempering. Odisha's summer staple.

Toor dal cooked with vegetables and finished with a roasted cumin-chilli powder and ghee. Odisha’s everyday dal and part of the temple Mahaprasad.

Soft balls of fresh chhena cooked in light sugar syrup, usually a pale cream colour. A GI-tagged sweet tied to the Jagannath tradition.

Fresh chhena kneaded with sugar and semolina and baked until the outside caramelises. Odisha’s ‘burnt cheese’ sweet.

Rectangles of chhena and semolina, fried and soaked in sugar syrup until it forms a light crust. A speciality of Pahala and Puri.

Soft fried chhena dumplings soaked in syrup, a speciality of the town of Nimapada in Puri district.

Flattened, fried discs of chhena soaked in thickened, cardamom-scented milk. Offered at the Baladevjew Temple in Kendrapara.

Crisp, layered fried pastry glazed with sugar syrup, sold in the lanes around the Jagannath Temple and part of its dry prasad.

Mixed vegetables cooked lightly with very little oil and spice, sometimes finished with milk. A gentle, healthy Odia dish.

Fish in a sharp mustard paste sauce, often soured with tomato or mango. A classic of coastal Odisha.

A thin, everyday Odia fish curry with potatoes, cooked with panch phutana and a simple spice paste.

Prawns cooked with potato or pumpkin in a light, spiced gravy, a favourite along Chilika and the Odisha coast.

The classical dance of Odisha, known for its sculpturesque poses, the tribhangi stance and its devotion to Lord Jagannath, with roots in temple dance traditions.

An acrobatic devotional dance of Odisha performed by young boys dressed as girls, singing as they dance in praise of Jagannath and Krishna.

The Odisha form of Chhau, a vigorous martial dance of Mayurbhanj performed without masks, telling stories from the epics and village life.

A lively folk dance of western Odisha, performed by young women to the beat of the dhol and nisan during the Dussehra festival of Dalkhai.

A powerful drum dance of Kalahandi in Odisha, in which dancers play an earthen drum, the ghumura, tied to their chest while they dance.

A ritual dance-drama of south Odisha held in the month of Chaitra, in which devotees perform acts of penance and dance in honour of Shiva and Shakti.

The Odia New Year, on Mesha Sankranti in mid-April. People drink pana, a cooling drink of bael (wood apple), curd, jaggery and water, and the Danda Nata performances of the season come to an end.

Lord Jagannath, Balabhadra and Subhadra ride three huge wooden chariots from the Jagannath temple in Puri to the Gundicha temple, pulled by lakhs of devotees.

The new-rice festival of western Odisha, held the day after Ganesh Chaturthi. The first grain of the season is offered to the deity Samaleswari and then eaten together by the family.

The eastern dham of the Char Dham, home of Jagannath with Balabhadra and Subhadra, famous for its Rath Yatra and its kitchen that feeds thousands every day.

A Shakti Peetha at Jajpur, where Sati's navel is said to have fallen. The Goddess is worshipped here as Biraja.

A Shakti Peetha at inside the Jagannath temple complex, Puri, where Sati's feet is said to have fallen. The Goddess is worshipped here as Vimala.

A Shakti Peetha at near Berhampur (Brahmapur), Ganjam district, where Sati's breasts is said to have fallen. The Goddess is worshipped here as Tara Tarini.

The eastern matha founded by Adi Shankaracharya.

One of the Char Dham pilgrimages of Hinduism, the 12th-century temple of Lord Jagannath at Puri is the heart of Odisha’s faith and the starting point of the Rath Yatra.

A 13th-century temple built as a giant stone chariot of the Sun God, with 24 carved wheels and seven horses, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The largest temple in Bhubaneswar, an 11th-century shrine to Shiva as Lingaraj (Harihara) and a classic example of Kalinga temple architecture.

Rock-cut caves on two hills in Bhubaneswar, carved as dwellings for Jain monks, with the Hathigumpha inscription of King Kharavela.

A hill near Bhubaneswar on the Daya river, linked by tradition to the Kalinga war, with rock edicts of Emperor Ashoka and a white Peace Pagoda.

Three hills in Jajpur and Cuttack districts with the ruins of Buddhist monasteries, stupas and sculptures, often called Odisha’s Diamond Triangle.

India’s largest coastal lagoon, where fresh and sea water mix, home to Irrawaddy dolphins and lakhs of migratory birds each winter.

Dense mangrove forests and creeks in the Brahmani–Baitarani delta, home to large saltwater crocodiles and close to the Gahirmatha turtle beach.

A large forested tiger reserve in Mayurbhanj, with sal forests, waterfalls and grasslands, also a UNESCO biosphere reserve.

13th-century temple built as the chariot of the Sun god, with 24 carved wheels.