India Guide
Orissa
Orissa State Museum
Address: At the top of Lewis Road
Price: Rs50
Opening time: Tues– Sun 10am–5pm
The Orissa State Museum has a collection of "tribal" artefacts, illuminated manuscripts and various archeological finds. On display in the downstairs galleries are pieces of religious sculpture, including pre-twelfth-century Buddhist statues. The upstairs rooms feature ethnographic material from indigenous Orissan societies, including reproductions of chitra muriya, the folk murals seen on walls and floors in village houses around Puri. The museum's real highlight, however, is its collection of antique painting and illuminated palm-leaf manuscripts. Only the National Museum in New Delhi holds finer examples of this traditional Orissan art form.