History of Orissa from the Earliest Times to the British Period v1.c11.2.1

v1.c11.2.1

The ancient history of Kaliṅga and Utkala begins, like that of all other provinces of ancient and mediæval India, with the references to it in Vedic and Epic literature. In the period of the earliest strata in the Vedic literature there is no reference to Kaliṅga, Utkala or Oḍra. It is in the second stage, the Brāhmaṇa period, that Kaliṅga, perhaps, makes its appearance for the first time on the stage of our political history. The earliest reference to Kaliṅga is perhaps to be found in the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa, though the statement is extremely doubtful. The first specific reference to this country, kingdom or nation is to be found in the Great Epic, Mahābhārata, as well as in the dynastic lists of Vedic kings as preserved in the Vamś-ānucharitas. Though incorporated in books compiled in their present form in the fifth or sixth centuries A.D., the dynastic lists of the Purāṇas contain historic material of the Vedic period as proved by Pargiter on many different occasions. The origin ascribed to the term Kaliṅga is mythical. It is said that the queen Sudeshṇā bore five sons to her husband, the Dānava King Bali, begotten on her by the sage Dīrghatamas according to the well-established Indian law of Levirate. These sons were named Aṅga, Vaṅga, Kaliṅga, Puṇḍra and Suhma and the countries over which they ruled were named after them. According to the genealogies Pururavas, the son of Budha by the *Kimpurusha* Iḷā was the progenitor of the kings of Kaliṅga.