The Antiquities of Orissa v1.c6.40

v1.c6.40

The Desārene of this extract Dr. Vincent supposes, and very reasonably, to be no other than the coast of Orissa stretching from Masulipatam to Balasore, and it is remarkable that the article for which it is noted is the same for which the *Mahābhārata* gives it credit, namely, ivory, which was the most acceptable present which the king of the Oḍras could take to the Pāṇḍu sovereign.²⁹ According to Wilford, however, the Desārene of Arrian was formed of “ten forest cantons”—*daśa araṇya*—comprising the modern district of Chutia Nāgpur. He says “Ptolemy considers the Cocila and Brāhmaṇī rivers as one, which he calls *Adamas* or diamond river, and to the Mahānadī, he gives the name of *Dosaron*. He is, however, mistaken; the Mahānadī is the diamond river, and his Dosaron consists of the united streams of the Brāhmaṇī and the Cocila”.³⁰ Professor Wilson goes further, and places it in the Chatisgarh district on the strength of a passage in the *Meghadūta*, which describes the wild tribe of the Daśārṇas as dwelling to the north of the Vindhyan chain in the way of the Messenger cloud from Rāmgiri to Kailāsa.³¹ On the one hand, this identification carries a country avowedly on the sea-coast too far inland; on the other, if Desārene be the Greek corruption of the Daśārṇa of the *Viṣṇu Purāṇa*, the authority of the *Meghadūta* cannot be for a moment questioned. It is true that in geographical accuracy the Sequel is inferior to the first portion of the *Periplus*, and probably it was written from information received by Arrian from native mariners of Southern, or Western, India; still it is difficult to believe that he was so far misled as to leave the Orissa coast, which was then in a highly flourishing condition, and had extensive intercourse with the people of Southern India, altogether out of view, and to notice a district which never rose to any great celebrity, and was over two hundred miles away from the coast. The difficulty, however may be met by supposing that Arrian alluded to the river Dosaron of Ptolemy—the Mahānadī—and not to the savage tribe named in the *Viṣṇu Purāṇa*. The commentators of the *Meghadūta* derive Daśārṇa from *daśa* "ten," *ṛṇa* "a citadel," the district of ten citadels;³² and of citadels of little *gharis* there is no lack in the southern parts of Orissa. If we accept Wilford's derivation of "ten forests," still it would not be necessary to proceed so far as Chutia Nagpur in search of them. The Sundarban which flourishes from a little above Koṇārak to Balasore affords as extensive a range of forest land as any to be met with in the wildest part of Sirgujāh, and to it the name of Daśāraṇya may be applied with every propriety.