The Antiquities of Orissa v2.c17.32

Language: English

v2.c17.32.1

All the places named are still extant and form the boundary marks of the circuit which a pious pilgrim is expected to go round when visiting this holy spot. This circumambulation is called “going round of the city,” (*Kṣetra parikramaṇa*) and takes several days to accomplish. The *Ekāmra Purāṇa*, however, does not insist upon this large circuit; it assigns the inner circle formed by a radius of one mile round the Great Tower as the proper boundary of the circumambulation; but it recommends the operation to be repeated three times, and gives directions how it is to be performed, and what mantras should be repeated when starting on the journey.¹⁵ The religious merit of the operation is even greater than the performance of ten thousand horse sacrifices. All sins that might be contracted in other sacred places are wiped away by visiting Svarnakūṭa (Khaṇḍagiri), but what are contracted in the last-named place can be destroyed only by making the circumambulation of the sacred city.

v2.c17.32.2

This is obviously a counterpart of the practice observed at Benares where no pilgrim can fulfil all his religious obligations without traversing the boundary of the city or performing what is there called *pañcakoṣi yātrā* or “five *koṣ* pilgrimage,” i.e., circumambulating the boundary road.¹⁶ And this is borne out by the fact that *Ekāmra Purāṇa* is satisfied with a circuit formed by a radius of one mile round the Great Tower or the inner circle which is nowhere beyond [61] five *koṣ* or ten miles from the temple of Viśveśvara. This shows that the boundary described is no fiction, and the road, or foot-path,—for in some places there is no distinct road now perceptible,—is the landmark of the ancient boundary. The area, however, is too large for any ancient city proper, and I am disposed to believe that it includes what formerly constituted a considerable portion of its suburbs. Anyhow this much is certain that Dhauli at one time was a part of the suburbs of Bhuvaneśvara. Now, the low hill at Dhauli, as already stated (ante p.

v2.c17.32.3

[46]), bears the Orissa edition of the celebrated edicts of Aśoka, and, as it would be absurd to suppose that edicts, intended for the good and guidance of mankind at large, had been put up in a desert place, it must follow that the place round or near Dhauli was not only largely inhabited, but was the provincial capital, or a place of such considerable importance as would justify the selection of it as the locale where the publication of the mandates of a distant suzerain would suffice for the whole province. The edicts were widely disseminated, but not very numerously. As yet only five complete sets have been met with on living rocks ; 1st, at Dhauli, on the eastern coast of India ; 2nd, at Girnār in Guzerat, on the western coast ; 3rd, at Shābhāzgheri in the Yusafzai country, on the extreme north-western frontier ; 4th, at Khālsi ; 5th, at Ganjām. Of solitary edicts on rocks there are : 1st, found at Bhābrā, which has been transferred to the Asiatic Society at Calcutta ; 2nd, at Bairāt ; 3rd, at Rūpanāth ; 4th, at Saserām ; of which the first has been translated by Major Kittoe, and the other three by Dr. G. Bühler in the *Indian Antiquary*. The edicts on the Pillars are also not numerous ; we have two at Delhi, one at Allahabad, one ar Arirāj, and one at Lauriyā. If we assume one set of edicts for every provincial capital, it would be much more than what available evidence at present would justify ;

v2.c17.32.4

nor could we under any circumstance assume that a provincial capital would anywhere be postponed in favour of a village or town of secondary importance. Thus, we must conclude that the neighbourhood of Dhauli was the site of the Orissan capital, whose countenance and support were sought in favour of the edicts, and, as on the other three sides of it there is no vestige of any ancient town, it must follow that the side where Bhuvaneśvara stands was the site. This inference is considerably strengthened by the fact that, a century before the time of Aśoka when the cave dwellings of Udayagiri were occupied by Buddhist monks, there was absolute necessity for a large town in their neighbourhood, whence the monks, pledged to life-long mendicancy, could obtain their daily supplies of food by itinerant begging, and that town would be too far away if it existed beyond Dhauli, whereas Bhuvaneśvara is most centrically and conveniently situated both for Dhauli and Udayagiri. As in the case of Dhauli so in that of Udayagiri, there is no vestige of any ancient town to its north-east or west. Dhauli itself was a place of some note as the site of a tope (ante p. [53]), and its present name Gar Dhauli shows that it was also the site of a small fort ; it is too far from the caves of Khaṇḍagiri to be the likely locale of the capital. It is also not large enough in area for such a purpose.

v2.c17.32.5

Again, the inscriptions of Udayagiri repeatedly refer to the kings of Kaliṅga, and sometimes to Kaliṅga-nagarī, 'the city of Kaliṅga,' but the word Orissa does not occur in any one of them ; and this would suggest the idea that the kings then were known by the name of their capital, as many other Indian kings have since been known in the same way, and that the Oḍs, who still prevail in Khurdā in the neighbourhood of Bauvaneśvara, had not then risen to sufficient importance to give their name to a city, though they unquestionably have since given it to the province. Of course there is nothing tangible to show that the Kaliṅga-nagarī of the inscriptions is the modern Bhuvanes'vara; but as it would be unreasonable to suppose the existence, in the third century B.C., of a large town of such importance as would attract the attention of Aśoka, which was not a capital, nor of a metropolitan character, we may very reasonably suppose that the town in question was the chief seat of power of the Kaliṅga rājās; and if this be admitted the *Kaliṅga-nagarī* or 'city of Kaliṅga' of the Elephant Cave of Udayagiri would be the same.