History of Orissa from the Earliest Times to the British Period v1.c8.3

v1.c8.3

The country of Kalinga was divided from very early times into three parts and was called Tri-Kalinga. This term was translated into the Dravidian languages as Muḍu-Kalinga, which the western writers, Megasthenes and Pliny, transliterated into "Modo-Galingam." Some modern writers say that Muḍu and Kalingam become Mukkalingam, if combined according to the rules of modern Telugu grammar. Mr. Ramdas suggests that this term is derived from Modugula, the name of a village in the Vizagapatam district.¹ But Mr. Ramdas has not proved whether the modern rules of combination (*sandhi*) held good in the 1st century A. D. or not. The existence of the term *Tri-Kalinga* in Sanskrit tempts us to accept *Muḍu-Kalingam* as a direct translation of the Sanskrit form or *vice versa*. The natural division of the northern extremity of the Eastern coast of the Bay of Bengal is very well suited to the term *Tri-Kalinga*. The country of Kalinga originally extended up to the modern districts of Medinipur and Howrah in Bengal. Even in Mughal times the Suvarṇarekhā river, now in the south-western part of the district of Medinipur, was regarded as the northern boundary of Orissa. Even now the titles of the majority of Hindu Zamindars of Medinipur prove that they were land-holders and feudatories of the Hindu kings of Orissa at no distant date. The people of south-western Medinipur are very much like those of Balasore and the Mayurbhañja State in manners, customs, language, and caste. Towards the west the language of Orissa gradually merges into that of the aboriginal tribes, who live in the secluded valleys of the Eastern Ghats, beginning with Dhalbhum and Singhbhum to the north and west of Mayurbhañja and ending with the States of Karond, Kanker and Bastar in the Central Provinces. The districts of Khammamet and Nalgonda in the Nizam’s dominions lie on the Ghats immediately to the west of the Kṛṣṇa-Godāvarī *Doāb* and these are the northern-most districts of the Telugu country on the Deccan plateau. The vast country on the eastern shore of the Bay of Bengal, which extended from the Delta of the Ganges to that of the Godāvarī was called Kaliṅga in ancient times. Nature has divided this tract into three different parts, the first of which consists of the flat alluvial plain which begins from the western bank of the Damodar and contains the hill tracts of Mayurbhañja, Keunjhar and Angul. This tract is intersected by the great rivers Rupnārāyan, Haldi, Suvarṇarekhā, Barabalang, Vaitaraṇī, Brāhmaṇī and the now defunct Prāchī. The second division begins from the right bank of the Mahānadī and contains the hilly tracts between that river and the Godāvarī and is bisected by the Rushikulyā river. Here the hills extend almost to the sea and the width of the coast land is extremely narrow with certain extensions, as in the tract of the country between the Mahānadī Delta and the Chilka lake and again between the Southern bank of the Chilka and the basin of the Rushikulyā river. To the south of Berhampur-Ganjam, the ghats almost touch the sea and reach one of their highest points at Mahendragiri in the Mandasa Zamindari. To the south of Mahendragiri there is a stretch of plain flat country along the banks of the Lānguliyā river and it was on this part of the coast that Kaliṅga-nagaram, the ancient capital of Kaliṅga, was situated. There are no important rivers between the Lānguliyā and the Godāvarī, and the country also is much less productive. Originally the Andhra country seems to have lain to the south of the Godāvarī, though the Telugu language has now crept up northwards along the coast in the Vizagapatam district. The northern part of the Andhra country was very important as providing direct access into the interior of the Deccan plateau along the Rekapalli-Bhadrachalam road and again by the pass followed by the Bezwada-Warangal section of the Nizam's Guaranteed State Railway. This tract contains numerous creeks as well as the famous lake of Kolar.