The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c10.78

c10.78

² Nanda Rāja is mentioned twice in the mutilated Prākrit inscription at Udayagiri of the Jain king of Kalinga, named Siri Khāravēla Mahāmegha-vāhana. The text of the inscription has been settled as far as possible in 1917 by R. D. Banerji and K. P. Jayaswal (*J. B. O. Res. Soc.*, vol. iii, Dec. 1917, pp. 425–507). The inscription is a record of the royal doings in peace and war for thirteen years of the reign of king Khāravela of Kalinga or Orissa, who belonged to the Cheta dynasty and was a zealous Jain. He carried his arms far westwards, even to Berar, defying the might of Sātakarṇi, the third Āndhra king. The inscription is dated in the year 165 or 164 of the era of 'Rājā Muriya', *scil.* Chandragupta, which began about 322 B. C. and so is equivalent to about 157 or 158 B. C. It refers to a Nanda king, probably Nandivardhana, having made a canal about 300 years before the fifth year of Khāravela (165 B. C.), and therefore in about 465 B. C. (See, however, R. C. Majumdar's Notes on the Khāravela inscription in *Ind. Ant.*, 1918, p. 223 and 1919, pp. 187–191. He dissents from the interpretation of this date. The subject requires to be still further discussed, and for the present I accept the reading of Messrs. Banerji and Jayaswal.)