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The Early History of the Deccan (Parts I–XI) v1.c6.s6.t7: Kaliṅga

The Early History of the Deccan (Parts I–XI) v1.c6.s6.t7

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Kaliṅga

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It has been stated above that according to an inscription of the fourteenth century A.D. the Andhra-khaṇḍa-maṇḍala extended to the borders of Kaliṅga. Unlike Andhra this last mentioned territory is not expressly named in any Vedic text, but is known to Pāṇini, the Mahāgovinda Suttanta, several Jātakas, the Uttarādhyayana Sūtra of the Jainas, and the great epics of ancient India. It is also referred to by Aśoka and the Hāthīgumphā inscription of Khāravela. Pliny alludes to it in clear terms, and an echo of the name is recognized in the Kalliga of Ptolemy.

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The Bodhāyana Dharmasūtra regards Kaliṅga as an impure country, outside the Brāhmanical pale, but not unfrequented by Aryans. There was, however, a considerable Brāhman population in the day of Aśoka (third century B.C.).

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According to the tradition recorded by the Mahābhārata it was watered by the river Vaitaraṇī in Orissa. The Purāṇas carry the western boundary to the Amarakantaka range, the source of the Narmadā, the Son, and the Mahānadī. The southern boundary of the janapada was not well defined. Kālidāsa pushes it as far as the Mahendra mountain and uses the title Mahendranātha, lord of the Mahendra Hill or Range, as a standing epithet of the ruler of Kaliṅga. In the fifth century A.D., the southern limits reached even Piṣṭapura or Pīṭhāpuram in the East Godāvarī district.¹ But usually they stopped at Yellamañchili and Chīpurupalle in the Vizagapatam district. A late medieval text carries the southern boundary much farther south to the banks of the Kṛṣṇā.² But in the days of Khāravela (second or first century B.C.) Pihuḍa in the Masulipatam region is clearly distinguished from Kaliṅga proper, and the Aihole inscription of 634 A.D. makes separate mention of Piṣṭapura and Kaliṅga, thus restricting the latter to the region north of the East Godāvarī district. In Sanskrit texts like the *Bharata Nāṭya Śāstra* and the *Bhuvanakosha* of the *Purāṇas*, Kaliṅga is distinguished both from Kosala in the upper valley of the Mahānadī, and from the Andhra country watered by the Godāvarī and the Kṛṣṇā. The Aśokan inscriptions carry the northern boundary in the third century B.C. beyond Tosali (in the Puri district). But Bharata distinguishes the Tosalas from the Kaliṅgas. In the days of Yuan Chwang Kaliṅga is distinguished from Wu-t'u (Orissa), Kung-yü-t'o (Koṅgodamaṇḍala, a part of the Gañjām district), Kosala, and Andhra (Pedda-Vegi region between the Godāvarī and the Kṛṣṇā). In the *Ā'in-i-Akbarī* we have a reference to the *sarkār* (district) of Kalang daṇḍpāt which lay beyond Parsotam (Purushottama-kshetra, i.e. Puri, which was included in the *sarkār* Kaṭaka), but did not extend as far as Rājahmundry which gave its name to a separate *sarkār*.

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¹ *Ep. Ind.*, xii, 2.

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² *Indian Culture*, July 1941, 38.

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Pargiter remarks that Kaliṅga as a settled kingdom appears to have consisted properly of the plain between the Eastern Ghāṭs and the sea. But its kings seem to have exercised sovereignty over the forests and hills farther inland, for the Amarakantaka range in which the Narmadā rises is said to be in the western part of Kaliṅga—*Kaliṅgadeśa paścārdhe parvate'marakaṇṭake*. That large tracts of the country were covered with jungles appears from references to *Kaliṅgāraṇya* in Pāli texts and to *Trikaliṅgāṭavi* in inscriptions—*Veṅgimaṇḍalam Trikaliṅgāṭaviyuktam*.

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The windows of the capital city in the days of Kālidāsa, as mentioned before, looked out on the sea, and the deep roar of the waves drowned the sound of trumpets:

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*yamātmanaḥ sadmani sannikṛṣṭo, mandradhvaniyājitayāmātūryaḥ*
*prāsādavātāyanadṛśyavīciḥ pravodhayatyarṇava eva suptam.*³

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³ *Raghuvamśa*, vi, 56.

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In literature we sometimes hear of seven Kaliṅgas. But usually only three seem to be mentioned. That is the meaning usually attached to the name 'Trikaliṅga' which occurs frequently in inscriptions. We have already referred to the expression Modogalingae used by Pliny which is analysed by some scholars as Mūḍu+Galiṅga, that is, three Kaliṅgas. Another view takes Trikaliṅga to denote not three Kaliṅgas but elevated, high, or hilly Kaliṅga¹—the expanse of hill and plateau that overlooks the plains of Gañjām and Vizagapatam. Modogalingae in like manner may be taken to stand for the Madra-Kaliṅga of the *Mahābhārata*, and for ‘Modugula’ of the Vizagapatam district. Another people, the Matsya Kaliṅgas, are mentioned in the *Rāmāyaṇa*. The name recalls the Matsyas of the Vizagapatam district mentioned in the Dibbida plates. The connexion of the Kaliṅgas with the Gangaridae of the lower Ganges valley has been discussed above in connexion with early foreign notices of the Deccan. Kālidāsa does not regard the two peoples as close neighbours. He makes the hero Raghu cross the Kapiśā (the Kāsāi river in Midnapore), and take the road pointed out by the Utkalas of northern Orissa towards Kaliṅga, which is expressly mentioned as the region round Mount Mahendra. Utkala thus fitted in between the mouths of the Ganges, occupied by the Gangaridae, and Kaliṅga proper. Pliny himself puts the distance from the mouth of the Ganges to Cape Calingon and the town of Dandagula at 625 miles.

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¹ *Ind. Ant.*, 1933, 35 ff.; *Journal of the Bihar and Orissa Research Society*, 1928, 539-47.

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As already stated above, Dandagula corresponds to Dantakūra of the *Mahābhārata* and Dantapura of the *Mahāgovinda Suttanta* and of epigraphs. The name of the city probably survives in that of the fort of Dantavakra near Chicacole, north-east of Vizagapatam. Many other capitals of ancient Kaliṅga stood in the same area, e.g. Simhapura or Singupuram and Kaliṅganagara, identified by many scholars with Mukhaliṅgam on the Vamśadharā, and by others with Kaliṅgapatam at the mouth of the same river. Rājapura mentioned in the *Mahābhārata* and Kāñchanapura figuring in Jaina works cannot be satisfactorily identified. The *Bhūmikhaṇḍa* of the *Padmapurāṇa* mentions another city in Kaliṅga named Śrīpura. The question of its connexion with Sirpur about forty miles east by north from Raipur must await future discoveries for a solution.

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In inscriptions we have reference to a tract called Madhyama-Kaliṅga or central Kaliṅga whose name points to the existence of other parts of Kaliṅga in the north and the south. Madhyama-Kaliṅga included the Bhogipura or Bhogapura *viṣaya*, which is perhaps to be identified with the Bhogapuram village and its neighbourhood in the Bimplipatam division of the Vizagapatam district. To its south-west, apparently separated from it by the river Nārada, lay the Elamañchi-Kaliṅga of Eastern Chālukya records, doubtless corresponding to the modern Yellamañchili. To the north-east of Bimplipatam, apparently beyond the River Gostanī, stretched the part of Kaliṅga that included the Rākaḷuva village, modern Rāgoḷu near Chicacole. It is referred to in the Rāgoḷu plates simply as Kaliṅga-viṣaya. The administrative divisions and districts (*rāṣṭra, viṣaya*), into which Kaliṅga was divided in the days of kings belonging to the Māthara, Vāsiṣṭha, Gaṅga, Eastern Chālukya, and other families, will be described a few pages farther on.

Cites (12)