Ramai Deva

Ramai Deva or Ramai Deo was a Rajput ruler who founded the Chauhan Dynasty rule in the erstwhile Patna state in today’s Bolangir district of Odisha in the year 1360 A.D. At the young age of twenty he staged a coup with the popular support of the commoners and overtook the Astha Mullicks or the eight regional Gauntias ruling as independent warlords in oligarchy after the Eastern Ganga administrator of the region died. The central control of the Gangas had nearly collapsed due to outside invasions. As an energetic and remarkable leader, he established his firm control of the erstwhile Patna state Odisha that might have included some parts of Chatishgarh as well.

Ramai Dev ruled for 20 years as stated in the Sanskrit work of Kosalananda Kavyam written in the seventeenth century by poet Pandit Gangadhar Mishra from Puri.^[1] The details about Chauhan rule and Ramai Deva's rise to power in the region, is corroborated by three literary works in three different languages i.e. Kosalananda Kavyam (in Sanskrit), Jayachandrika (in Hindi) written by Prahallad Dubey the court poet of Surguja in the late eighteenth century and Nrusimha Mahatmya (in Odia) by Lakshmana Mishra in the late nineteenth century. Besides these Prabodha Chandrika written in the fifteenth century by the Raja Vaijala Deva of Patna state who is a Chauhan descendant of Ramai Deva himself also corroborates facts about him.^[2]