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Debendra K. DashDipti R. Pattanaik 55economic activity. Due to lack of surplus wealth and support of theruling dynasty, there was virtually no growth of Oriya literature.Only three to four translations into Oriya can be identified as havingbeen produced in this area during a time span of almost hundredyears (Sahoo: 1969). Consequently, the Oriya-speaking populacebecame merely the receivers of the texts produced in the eastern andsouthern segments in the wake of Bhakti movement, and notparticipants in a vibrant literary/translational culture.However, southern Orissa continued to be a site of literaryand translational activity. The Qutbsahi rulers who occupied thesouth in 1574 were very liberal, They patronized the Telugulanguage and literature. The local Oriya chieftains also encouragedtranslation and literary activity in Oriya. The same state of affairscontinued even after the Mughals occupied the region and it wasruled by the Nizam of Oudh. Therefore, whatever systematicdevelopment of Sanskrit and Oriya literature and translation activitywe do come across can be located in the southern part of theprovince. Most of the palm-leaf manuscripts of translated textsdiscovered so far can be traced to this area.The Bhakti movement and the political dependence of Oriyapeople on non-Oriya centers of power had a cumulative effect onliterary and translational discourse. Earlier all the translationalactivity in Oriya was confined to the source language of Sanskrit.There were of course subversive translations of Sanskrit texts, butthe dominant position of Sanskrit was implicit in that practice. Thecontact with contiguous languages like Telugu and Bengali had notbeen made popular. After the diminution of the status of Sanskritand the loss of political independence of the Oriya-speaking people,translation activity from Bengali, Telugu and Hindi gainedmomentum in the later part of the 18 th century. For example,Sadanand Brahma, a noted Sanskrit scholar himself, translated a