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Studies in the Geography of Ancient and Medieval India c11: VII. Orissa

Studies in the Geography of Ancient and Medieval India c11

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VII. Orissa

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Orissa is spelt *Oḍiśā* in the language of the Oriyas. This name seems to be derived from an earlier form like *Auḍriya-viṣaya* through forms like *Oḍḍi-visaa* and *Oḍi-visā*. The Tibetan author Tāranātha mentions the name as *Oḍi-viśa*.¹ The tribal name Uḍra or Oḍra lies at the root of all these forms. But Uḍra, Oḍra or Auḍra cannot be regarded as the earliest name of Orissa.

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¹ *Ind. Ant.*, Vol. IV, pp. 365-66.

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In ancient times a powerful people called the Kalingas lived in the present Orissa region. In the third century B.C., the Maurya emperor Aśoka (*circa* 369-332 B.C.) conquered the Kalingas and annexed the Kalinga country to his empire. The province of Kalinga in the Maurya empire was divided into two administrative units. The north-eastern part of the country had its headquarters at Tosali (although the land around the city was later often called Tosala) which is the modern Dhauli near Bhubaneswar in the Puri District of Orissa. In a later age, kings of the Ārya-Mahāmeghavāhana family of the Chedi clan, which is represented by Khāravela, described as ‘the supreme lord of Kalinga’, appear to have had their capital at the same place. In Maurya times, South-Western Kalinga had its headquarters at the city of Samāpā near modern Jaugaḍa in the Ganjam District. Indian literature intimately associates Kalinga with the Mahendra-giri now standing on the borders of the Ganjam District of Orissa near those of the Srikakulam District of Andhra Pradesh. But there is no doubt that the Godāvarī or the Kṛṣṇā was often regarded as the south-western boundary of the Kalinga country. This is indicated by the fact that, about the fifth century A.D., some rulers, enjoying the title *Kalinga-ādhipati*, not only had their capital at Piṣṭapura, modern Pithapuram in the East Godavari District, but sometimes even claimed lordship over the whole coast land between the Kṛṣṇā and the Mahānadī.¹ Actually however, the north-eastern boundary of the ancient Kaliṅga country lay even beyond the Mahānadī, although Kaliṅga did not include the whole of modern Orissa. The north-eastern part of coastal Orissa was included in early times in the land of the Utkalas while the Patna-Sonpur region in the upper valley of the Mahānadī formed the eastern part of the country named Dakṣiṇa-Kosala till the early medieval period. But the Utkalas and some of their neighbours may have been ethnically related to the Kaliṅgas. Indeed, an ancient tradition recorded in the *Mahābhārata* and some of the Purāṇas² regards the progenitors of the Aṅgas of East Bihar, the Vaṅgas of South Bengal, the Kaliṅgas, the Puṇḍras of North Bengal and the Suhmas of West Bengal as co-uterine brothers. Early European writers sometimes represent the people of South Bengal (Gangaridae) as a branch of the Kaliṅga people.³

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¹ Cf. *Ep. Ind.*, Vol. XXX, p. 144.

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² *Mahābhārata*, I, 104, 53; *Bhāgavata*, IX, 23, 5; *Vāyu*, 99.

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³ Pliny, *Hist. Nat.*, VI, 21 ff.

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We have seen how the river Kṛṣṇā was sometimes regarded as the south-western boundary of the ancient Kaliṅga country. But in the fourth and fifth centuries A.D., the Śālaṅkāyanas ruling over the coast land between the Kṛṣṇā and the Godāvarī with their capital at the city of Veṅgī (modern Peddavegi near Elūru in the West Godavari District, Andhra Pradesh) did not claim to be lords of Kaliṅga. In the sixth and seventh centuries the Viṣṇukuṇḍins were ruling over the same area. They also did not claim to be rulers of the Kaliṅga country. If the identification of the *Andhr-ādhipati*, mentioned in the Haraha inscription⁴ of the time of Maukhari Īśānavarman, dated V. S. 611 = 553-54 A.D., with a Viṣṇukuṇḍin monarch is accepted, the kingdom of the Viṣṇukuṇḍins was probably known as Andhra. During the second quarter of the seventh century, the Eastern Cālukyas established themselves at Piṣṭapura (Pithapuram in the East Godavari District) and ruled over the entire coast country from the Visakhapatnam District in the north-east to the Guntur District in the south-west for many centuries. But their kingdom became famous under the name of Veṅgī. During this period, the major portion of the Visakhapatnam District formed a part of Veṅgī, although the Yelamanchili Taluk of that District was called Elamañci-Kaliṅgadeśa. The Early Eastern Gaṅgas were ruling over the area about the Srikakulam District (Andhra Pradesh) with their capital at Kaliṅganagara, which has been identified with modern Mukhaliṅgam near Śrīkākulam, from the close of the fifth century A.D. They also enjoyed the title Kaliṅgādhipati or lord of Kaliṅga. In the early medieval period, it is only the kingdom of these Early Eastern Gaṅgas that was exclusively known as Kaliṅga, because, as will be seen below, the kingdoms in the Ganjam-Puri-Cuttack region assumed different names such as Koṅgoda, Tosalī, Uḍra, etc., since the latter part of the sixth century A.D. With the rise of the Imperial Branch of the Eastern Gaṅgas, and especially with the conquest of the coast land between the Godāvarī and the Ganges (Bhāgīrathī) by the Imperial Gaṅga monarch Anantavarman Coḍagaṅga (1078-1147 A.D.) about the beginning of the twelfth century, the major part of ancient Kaliṅga came under the Kaliṅga king. But the old name did not get time enough to become popular again as the successors of Anantavarman Coḍagaṅga soon transferred their capital to the Cuttack District (Orissa) far away from the Śrīkākulam region that had become famous under the name Kaliṅga during the many centuries’ rule of the Early Eastern Gaṅgas.¹ The Eastern Gaṅgas originally lived in the present Kannaḍa-speaking area of Mysore, whence they migrated to and settled in the present Telugu-speaking area of Śrīkākulam. The Kannaḍa origin of the Eastern Gaṅgas is not only supported by the copper-plate grants of Anantavarman Coḍagaṅga and his successors² but also by the following statement in the description of Coḍagaṅga in the Mādalā Pāñji³:

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⁴ *Ep. Ind.*, Vol. XIV, pp. 115. ff.

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¹ The tradition recorded in Yaśodhara’s commentary on the Kāmasūtra (VI, 6), composed about the middle of the thirteenth century (cf. Kieth, Hist. Sans. Lit., p. 469), that Kaliṅga lay to the south of Gauḍa seems to be based on the Imperial Gaṅga occupation of parts of South-West Bengal.

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² Cf. Ep. Ind., Vol. XXVIII, p. 239.

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³ Ed. Mahanti, p. 23. The statement is however anachronic.

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Cuḍagaṅga Karṇāṭa-deśaru āsi, etc. The mother tongue of the Imperial Gaṅgas was originally Telugu. This is clearly indicated not only by the great part Telugu plays even in their later documents but also by the popularity of names like Aniyaṅkabhīma which was later Sanskritised as Anaṅgabhīma through the intermediate form Aanaṅkabhīma. After the transference of their capital to the heart of Orissa, the Imperial Gaṅgas began to become Oriyas; but most of their matrimonial alliances were still contracted with South Indian royal families and a large number of their officials and protégés were South Indians.

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With reference to the geography of Kaliṅga, mention has to be made of the views of certain scholars based on the repeated reference to the country in the Ceylonese chronicles. Chapter 59 of the Cūḷavaṃsa says how king Vijayabāhu I (1055-1110 A.D.) of Laṅkā married the Kaliṅga princess Trilokasundarī and offered befitting maintenances to her relations Madhukārṇava (Madhukāmārṇava ?), Bhīmarāja and Balātkāra of Siṃhapura, capital of Kaliṅga, for settling them in his kingdom. The younger sister of the Kaliṅga princes, Sundarī by name, was given in marriage to Vijayabāhu’s son Vikramabāhu. In this connection, Geiger observes, “Siḥapura (Siṃhapura) is the town which according to the legend (cf. Mhvs, 6.35) was founded in Lāḷa (Rāḍha) by Vijaya’s father Sihabāhu. Lāḷa borders in the north of the Kaliṅga kingdom, the home of Tilokasundarī, as must be inferred from Mhvs, 6.1-5. The south-eastern district of Chutea Nagpur to the west of Bengal is still called Singbhum.”¹ It has however to be noticed that, in the age of Vijayabāhu (actually from about the end of the sixth to at least about the begining of the twelfth century), the name Kaliṅga was exclusively applied to the kingdom of the Eastern Gaṅgas of Kaliṅganagara near Śrīkākulam, who styled themselves as Kaliṅg-ādhipatis. Siṃhapura (modern Singupuram in the same neighbourhood) was, however, the capital of the Kaliṅg-ādhipatis in the fourth and fifth centuries A.D. and was no longer the capital of Kaliṅga although it may have been the residence of some scions.

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¹ Cūḷavaṃsa, trans., Part I, p. 211.

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of the Gaṅga family. Rāḍha and Kaliṅga do not appear to have had contiguous boundaries in any period of history. Siṃhapura in Rāḍha (probably modern Singur in the Hooghly District of West Bengal) cannot be regarded as the same as the Kaliṅga capital of that name, identified with modern Siṅgupuram near Śrīkākulam. The representation of Siṃhapura as the capital of Kaliṅga in the Mahāvaṃsa tradition seems to be due to the fact that the chronicle was composed about the fifth century while the Cūlavaṃsa appears merely to have continued the same tradition even though the later capital of the country was at Kaliṅganagara (modern Mukhaliṅgam near Śrīkākulam) and not at Siṃhapura.

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As regards the north-eastern limit of ancient Kaliṅga, a well-known passage in the Tīrtha-yātrā section of the Vanaparvan (114, 3) of the Mahābhārata has eṣa Kaliṅgaḥ Kaunteya yatra Vaitaraṇī nadī. This shows that the river Vaitaraṇī forming the eastern border of the Cuttack District of Orissa was regarded in ancient times as the boundary of the Kaliṅga country. Kālidāsa’s Raghuvaṃśa (IV, 38) speaks of the Utkala country lying between the land of the Kaliṅgas and that of the Vaṅgas. The eastern boundary of Utkala can be determined only when we know the exact area inhabited by the Vaṅga people.

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Early Greco-Roman writers represent the emperors of the Nanda and Maurya dynasties of Magadha as the rulers of the Prasii and the Gangaridae and speak of Palibothra (i.e. Pāṭaliputra, near modern Pāṭnā, Bihar) as the capital of the country of the Prasii. There is little doubt that the Prasii represented the Prācyas (i.e. the people of the Eastern Division of ancient Bhāratavarṣa) of Indian literature. But there is some confusion about the Gangaridae, their name being often Indianised as Gaṅgā-rāṣṭra, Gaṅgā-rāḍha and Gaṅgā-hṛdaya. Greek Gangaridae is however the plural form of Gangarid from a base like Gange or Ganges; cf. Sasan—Sasanid—Sasanidae; Akhamenes—Akhamenid—Akhamenidae. The word Gangaridae therefore means ‘the Gangetic people’. The land inhabited by this people is clearly indicated by the author of the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea (circa 80 A.D.) and the Geography of Ptolemy (circa 140 A.D.).

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Ptolemy¹ mentions the five estuaries of the river Ganges and says, "All the region about the mouths of the Ganges is occupied by the Gangaridae with the following city—Gange, the royal city (i.e. the capital of the country)." It is clear from this that the Gangaridae or Gangetic people received their name from there chief city called Gange, apparently named after the river Ganges. The *Periplus* (para. 63) however applies the name Ganges not only to the river and a city standing on the bank of its principal mouth but also to the country, of which the city was apparently the capital. This book says about the country called Ganges that 'there is a river near it called the Ganges' and that 'on its bank is a market-town which has the same name as the river Ganges'. The principal product of this country is stated to have been the Gangetic muslin which reminds us not only of the world-wide celebrity of the Dacca muslin in the medieval age but also of the *dukūla*, *kauśika*, *patrorṇa* and *prāvara* mentioned in the *Sabhāparvan* of the *Mahābhārata* as presents made to Yudhiṣṭhira by the Vaṅgas, Kaliṅgas, Tāmaliptas and Puṇḍras of Eastern India.² But a people called Gāṅga or Gāṅgeya inhabiting Lower Bengal and having their capital at a city called Gaṅgā (Greek *Gange* or *Ganges*) is not known from ancient Indian literature. This powerful people, known to foreign writers from the fourth century B.C. to the second century A. D., were apparently known to the Indians by a different name. Curiously enough Kālidāsa, who flourished in the fourth and fifth centuries A.D., locates the Vaṅga people, well-known in ancient Indian literature, exactly in the same region where the Gangaridae or Gangetic people are placed by the early European writers. Canto IV (verses 36-37) of his *Raghuvamśa* describes how Raghu defeated the Vaṅgas in a naval battle and raised pillars of victory in what is called *Gaṅgā-sroto-ntara* no doubt in the land of the defeated people. The expression *Gaṅgā-sroto-ntareshu* has been explained by the celebrated commentator Mallinātha as *Gaṅgāyāḥ srotasām pravāhānām=antareṣu dvīpeṣu*.³ Thus the country of the Vaṅgas is located by Kālidāsa in the deltaic region of Southern Bengal, which is intersected by the mouths of the river Ganges. This further proves that the Vaṅga people were identical with the Gangaridae who, according to the Greco-Roman writers, lived in the region about the mouths of the Ganges and had their chief city about the confluence of the Ganges and the Bay of Bengal. The modern representative of this ancient city seems to be the holy place at the junction of the Gaṅgā and the Sāgara, called Sāgara or Gaṅgā-sāgara. The name Gaṅgā, suggested by the early Greco-Roman writers, may be regarded as an eka-deśa of the name Gaṅgā-sāgara.¹ The name Vaṅga, originally applied to the wide areas of Southern Bengal, came in the medieval age to be confined to the eastern parts of that region together with the adjoining areas. But later the name came to be used to indicate the whole of Bengal.

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¹ Geog., VII, I. 18 and 81.

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² See Motichandra, Geog. Ec. Stud. Mahābh., pp. 112-13.

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³ See above, p. 124, note 6; below, Ch. XI (p. 172 ff.).

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¹ See Proc. I.H.C., Bombay, 1947, pp. 91 ff., and below, Ch. XI, (p. 172 ff.).

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The above discussion will show that in the early centuries of the Christian era, the Vaṅgas lived in the deltaic region of Southern Bengal watered by the mouths of the Ganges and had their capital at the city of Gaṅgā near the junction of the Bhāgīrathi and the Bay of Bengal and that Gaṅgā-sāgara is the modern representative of the ancient capital of the Vaṅgas. After the name of the capital, the country was also often called Gaṅgā. Early European writers mention the Vaṅgas as the Gangaridae, i.e. the Gāṅga or Gāṅgeya people. The Greek name of the Vaṅgas seems to be the result of a confusion the foreigners made between the sounds of the two names Vaṅgaḥ and Gaṅgā. The identification of the Vaṅgas and the Gangaridae and the location of their habitat are clearly indicated by the evidence supplied by Kālidāsa's Raghuvamśa, the Geography of Ptolemy and the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea. Ptolemy and Kālidāsa place the Cambyson or Kapiśā river, identified with the present Kaśāi running through the Midnapur District (West Bengal), about the western border of the country of the Gangaridae or Vaṅga people. This is supported by the Jain Prajñāpanā, according to which Tāmralipti in the present Tamluk region of Midnapur once formed a part of the Vaṅga country.²

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² Raychaudhuri, Stud. Ind. Ant., p. 186.

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It appears therefore that the Cambyson or Kapiśā, *i.e.*, the modern Kaśāi, roughly formed the boundary between the land of the Vaṅgas and that of the Utkalas. Thus it may be said that the Utkala country lay between the Kaśāi and the Vaitaraṇī rivers. Roughly speaking therefore, Utkala comprised the present Balasore District of Orissa together with parts of the Cuttack District of that State and of the Midnapur District of West Bengal. The Puri, Ganjam and Cuttack Districts of Orissa then formed parts of the north-eastern area of the Kaliṅga country.

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A copper-plate inscription¹ was discovered at Sumandala near Khallikot in the Ganjam District. It records the grant of a piece of land in the Khallikot area by a chief named Dharmarāja in 569 A.D. The said chief acknowledged the suzerainty of a king named Pṛthivīvigraha who is stated to have been ruling the Kaliṅga rāṣṭra as a nominal feudatory of the Gupta emperors. This inscription shows beyond doubt that the south-western part of coastal Orissa enjoyed the ancient name of Kaliṅga as late as the second half of the sixth century A.D. Soon however the name of the kingdom of the Vigraha dynasty, to which Pṛthivīvigraha belonged, had to be changed.

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¹ *Ep. Ind.*, Vol. XXVIII, pp. 79-85.

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Another copper-plate inscription² of the Vigraha dynasty has been discovered in a locality in the Puri District. The inscription records the gift of a village situated in Dakṣiṇa-Tosali in 599 A.D. by an independent monarch named Lokavigraha who was apparently one of the successors of Pṛthivīvigraha of the Sumandala plates. By this time, all vestiges of Gupta suzerainty in Orissa were a thing of the past. But what is more important is that Lokavigraha’s kingdom has been mentioned in the epigraph as Tosali and not as Kaliṅga while he is represented as granting a village in South Tosali. This shows that Lokavigraha was not only holding sway over Dakṣiṇa-Tosali but that he also claimed the lordship of Uttara-Tosali, *i. e.* North Tosali. The inscriptions of the Bhauma-Karas of a later age make it clear that the ancient Utkala country in the Balasore region was roughly known as Uttara-Tosali while Dakṣiṇa-Tosali comprised the Ganjam-Puri-Cuttack area. We have to determine the reason leading to the introduction of these names about the second half of the sixth century. This however does not appear to be entirely unintelligible from what we know of the history of Orissa in the period in question.

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² *Ibid.*, pp. 328 ff.

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As already indicated above, shortly before 500 A.D. the Gaṅgas founded a kingdom about the present Srikakulam District of Andhra Pradesh. They assumed the title of Kaliṅgādhipati, ‘lord of Kaliṅga’, and had their capital at the city of Kaliṅganagara situated in the vicinity of modern Śrīkākulam. The Vigrahas were holding sway over the Ganjam-Puri-Cuttack area lying immediately to the north-east of the Gaṅga kingdom. Naturally they wanted a new name for their own kingdom to avoid confusion. The new name of their kingdom, viz., Tosali, seems to have been coined after the name of their capital city. That is to say, the Vigrahas probably had their capital at the ancient city of Tosali i. e. the modern Dhauli in the Puri District. The name Tosali was also extended to the ancient Utkala country probably due to the expansion of Vigraha power over that area. These facts appear to supply the reason underlying the renaming of the south-western part of coastal Orissa as Dakṣiṇa-Tosali and the application of the alternative name Uttara-Tosali to the country of the Utkalas. The names Uttara-Tosali and Dakṣiṇa-Tosali were popular in the age of the Bhauma-Karas who flourished between the ninth and eleventh centuries. Later however the name Tosali lost its popularity and the names Utkala and Uḍra, Oḍra or Auḍra gradually came to be applied to the whole of coastal Orissa and ultimately to the entire Oriya-speaking area.

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We have seen how the Utkalas lived in the present Balasore District and its neighbourhood. But the original habitat of the Uḍras cannot be determined. They are not mentioned in very early works. Some manuscripts of the Manusmṛti (about the third century A.D.; cf. X, 44) no doubt mention the Uḍras; but many manuscripts of the work read in its place the name of the Aṅgas or Cholas,¹ and either of these two may have been the original reading. The *Nāṭyaśāstra* ascribed to Bharata-muni mentions the people or land called Uḍra; but the work in its present form does not appear to be much earlier than the sixth century A.D.² Whatever the antiquity of the name Uḍra may be, it is sometimes used to indicate the whole of coastal Orissa from the sixth and seventh centuries A.D. Probably the Uḍras originally lived in the land lying to the north of the ancient Utkala country. The conquest of Utkala by a king of the Uḍra country may have led to the use of *Uḍra* as a synonym of *Utkala* and the extension of the power of a king of this Uḍra-Utkala region over the southwestern part of coastal Orissa at a later date may have been at the root of the use of both the names to indicate the whole of coastal Orissa. The known facts of early Orissan history appear to support this conjecture.

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¹ Jha, *Mansumṛiti—Notes*, Part I, p. 465.

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² Varāhamihira’s *Bṛihatsaṁhitā* (XIV), composed about the first quarter of the 6th century, mentions the Uḍra people.

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According to a copper-plate inscription³ discovered at Soro in the Balasore District, in 579 A.D. Uttara-Tosali, *i.e.* ancient Utkala, was under the rule of a *Mahārāja* named Śambhuyaśas, who belonged to the Mudgala or Maudgalya *gotra*. Another inscription⁴ of the same monarch, viz. *Paramabhaṭṭāraka* Śambhuyaśas, which was found at Patiakella in the Cuttack District, says that in 602 A.D. his feudatory, *Mahārāja* Śivarāja, was ruling in Dakṣiṇa-Tosali. This record suggests further that the king Śambhuyaśas, ruler of both Uttara and Dakṣiṇa-Tosali, *i.e.* the entire coastal region of Orissa, was born in the Māna family. The name of the present Mānbhūm or Mānabhūmi seems to have been derived from the rulers of this Māna family, also known from a few other records. The Bhauma-Kara monarch Śāntikara II (middle of the tenth century) is known to have married Hirāmahādevī who was the daughter of king Siṁhamāna probably belonging to the same family as Śambhuyaśas. The Mānas appear to have been ruling over the present Mānbhūm-Singbhūm region together with the adjacent areas of Orissa.¹

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³ *Ep.Ind.*, Vol. XXIII, pp. 201 f.

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⁴ *Ibid.*, Vol. IX, pp. 287 f.

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¹ It is not impossible that they had their capital at the city of Khijjinga, modern Khiching in the northern part of the Mayurbhanj District of Orissa (cf. *Indo-Asian Culture*, Vol. VIII, 1958, pp. 429-30). R.P. Chanda was inclined to assign the earliest antiquities discovered at Khiching to the age of the Ādi-Bhañjas who began to rule from about the beginning of the eleventh century A. D. J. N. Banerjea assigns some of these sculptures to the tenth century and others vaguely to the early medieval period. There is little doubt that some Khiching sculptures are earlier than the eleventh century and this fact shows that Khiching was the seat of some pre-Ādi-Bhañja rulers, since the excellent art of Khiching could have scarcely flourished without royal patronage. We have now inscriptions of the pre-Ādi-Bhañja rulers, Dhruvarāja and Kumāravarman, who ruled in the area in the tenth century A. D. Cf. *Ep. Ind.*, Vol. XXXIII, pp. 82 ff.

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We have seen how in 569 A.D. Pṛthivīvigraha was ruling over Kaliṅga, *i. e.* the north-eastern areas of Kaliṅga roughly identical with the later Dakṣiṇa-Tosalī, and how in 599 A.D. Lokavigraha, another monarch of the same family, not only ruled over South Tosalī but also claimed lordship over North Tosalī. It has also been shown how *Paramabhaṭṭāraka* Śambhuyaśas belonging to the Mudgala *gotra* and the Māna family ruled over Uttara-Tosalī in 579 A. D. and over Dakṣiṇa-Tosalī in 602 A.D. It is clear from these facts that in the latter half of the sixth century there was a struggle between the Vigrahas and the Mānas for the sovereignty of coastal Orissa and that the Vigrahas, who were at first ruling over the whole of Tosalī, both Uttara and Dakṣiṇa, were gradually ousted by the Mānas, first from Uttara-Tosalī and then from Dakṣiṇa-Tosalī. In this way, the whole of coastal Orissa came under the suzerainty of the Mānas about the beginning of the seventh century. If these Mānas may be regarded as belonging to the Uḍra clan, we can explain the popularity of the name Uḍra in the sense of the whole of coastal Orissa from the sixth or seventh century. The fact that they conquered Utkala or Uttara-Tosalī sometime before the expansion of their power over Dakṣiṇa-Tosalī may be the reason underlying the use of Uḍra as a synonym of Utkala first in the sense of the Balasore region and then to indicate the Cuttack-Puri-Ganjam area. If the Māna family belonged to the Uḍra clan, it may be supposed that the Uḍras originally lived in the Mānbhūm-Siṅghbhūm region and the adjoining parts of Orissa.

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In the first quarter of the seventh century, the greatest monarch in Eastern India was Śaśāṅka, king of Gauḍa, who had his capital at Karṇasuvarṇa, near modern Murshidabad in West Bengal. He ousted Māna rule from Orissa and extended his suzerainty as far as Koṅgoda about the borders between the Districts of Puri and Ganjam. In the second quarter of the seventh century, the king of Gauḍa, probably a successor of Śaśāṅka, was disastrously defeated by Harṣavardhana of Kanauj and his ally, Bhāskaravarman of Kāmarūpa. As a result of this humiliation of the Gauḍa king, his Śailodbhava feudatories in Koṅgoda declared their independence while his Datta feudatories in the Balasore-Cuttack region began to rule semi-independently. Some inscriptions of Somadatta and Bhānudatta of this Datta dynasty have been discovered. It seems that the dominions of these Dattas have been described as Uḍra by the Chinese pilgrim Hiuen-tsang who visited Orissa about 638 A.D. His accounts appear to suggest that the pilgrim applied the name Uḍra to the Balasore-Cuttack-Puri region. King Harṣavardhana, who now probably regarded the Gauḍa king as his subordinate ally, invaded Koṅgoda in 643 A. D. in order to punish the Śailodbhavas on behalf of the Gauḍa monarch.

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During the eighth century A.D., the Śailodbhavas continued their independent rule in Koṅgoda in the Puri-Ganjam region. But the political condition of the Balasore-Cuttack area in this age is not quite clear. According to Chinese evidence, a Buddhist king having a name like Śubhaṅkarasiṃha ruled over the Uḍra country in 795 A.D. He seems to have been a contemporary of the Later Śailodbhavas of the Ganjam-Puri area and ruled over the Cuttack-Balasore region. In 831 A. D., the Bhauma-Karas established their capital at the ancient city of Virajā which is the modern Jājpur (Yāyapura or Yājapura). They founded a new city called Guheśvarapāṭaka or Guhadevapāṭaka in the suburbs of Jājpur and this remained the Bhauma-Kara capital till the end of Bhauma-Kara rule in the eleventh century. It was apparently the Bhauma-Karas who overthrew Śailodbhava rule from Koṅgoda which now formed a part of Dakṣiṇa-Tosalī.

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The Somavamśīs established their power in the Patna-Sonpur region in the upper Mahānadī valley in the tenth century. The Somavamśī king Mahābhavagupta I Janamejaya (circa 935-70 A.D.) issued most of his charters from Suvarṇapura (Sonpur). His son and successor, Mahāśivagupta Yayāti I (circa 970-1000 A.D.) transferred his capital to the new city of Yayātinagara (modern Binka) built by and named after himself. In the second quarter of the eleventh century, the Somavamśī king Mahāśivagupta Yayāti III Caṇḍīhara (circa 1025-60 A.D.) extended his power over the coastal regions of Orissa. The story of the transference of the lordship of that region from the Bhauma-Karas to the Somavamśīs is not clearly known.¹ But there is little doubt that Yayāti III built a city, named Yayātinagara after himself, in the erstwhile Bhauma-Kara kingdom. This city is mentioned in the Mādalā Pāñji as Abhinava-Yayātinagara (i.e. the new Yayātinagara) in its description of the Gaṅga kings who conquered coastal Orissa from the Somavamśīs but had originally little to do with the upper valley of the Mahānadī. The Gaṅga king Anaṅgabhīma III seems to be described in this work² as Abhi-nava-Yayātinagara-Viṣṇu. The Muslim authors of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries mentioned the Gaṅga kingdom as Jājnagar (no doubt a corruption of the name Yayātinagara) apparently after the Abhinava-Yayātinagara of the Mādalā Pāñji, which seems to have continued to remain the capital of coastal Orissa under the Gaṅgas for some time.

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¹ See *The Struggle for Empire*, pp. 209-10.

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² Ed. Mahanti, p. 28.

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About the beginning of the twelfth century A.D., the Gaṅga king Anantavarman Coḍagaṅga (1078-1147 A.D.) of Kaliṅganagara conquered the Puri-Cuttack-Balasore region from the Somavamśīs. There is evidence to show that his descendants later transferred the Gaṅga capital to Cuttack. According to the Nagari plates³ of Anaṅgabhīma III (circa 1211-38 A.D.), great-grandson of Anantavarman Coḍagaṅga, that king had his headquarters at Abhinava-Vārāṇasī-kaṭaka, i.e. the present Barabati area of Cuttack. The Mādalā Pāñji seems to suggest that Anaṅgabhīma III at first had been residing at Chaudvāra-kaṭaka and later transferred his capital to Vārāṇasī-kaṭaka built by himself on the site of the village of Barabati on the opposite bank of the Mahānadī. As the Mādalā Pāñji uses the name Abhinava-Yayātinagara in the description of this king, it may be supposed that it was the earlier name of Cuttack, which was therefore the source of the name Jājnagar used by the Muslim writers of the early medieval period to indicate the Gaṅga kingdom covering coastal Orissa. But it seems to us that Abhinava-Yayātinagara or Jājnagar should better be identified with modern Jājpur. This is because Jājpur seems to be a corruption of the name Yayātipura which is again practically the same as Yayātinagara, both meaning ‘the city of Yayāti’. That Jājpur was once the headquarters of the Imperial Gaṅgas seems to be supported by the following tradition in the description of Anaṅgabhīma in some manuscripts of the Mādalā Pāñji : rājā Yājapuranagara chaudvāre Kaṭake vije kari thānti.¹ In the description of the occupation of the Kesari (i.e. Somavaṁśī) kingdom by Anantavarman Coḍagaṅga also we have the passage : Yājapura Kaṭake praveśa hoilā.²

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³ *Ep. Ind.*, Vol. XXVIII, pp. 235 ff.

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¹ Mahanti, op. cit., p. 34.

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² Ibid., p. 22.

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We have seen that the Bhauma-Kara emperors had their capital at Virajā, i.e. the modern Jājpur, in the suburbs of which they built their new capital named Guheśvarapāṭaka or Guhadevapāṭaka. In the rule of coastal Orissa, these Bhauma-Karas were succeeded by the Somavaṁśī king Mahāśivagupta Yayāti III Caṇḍīhara. It is possible to think that Yayāti III retained the headquarters of this newly acquired territory at its old capital and that it was he who renamed Guheśvarapāṭaka or Guhadevapāṭaka after himself as Yayātinagara or Yayātipura. The very name of modern Jājpur (Yayātipura > Yayāipura > Yāyaipura > Yāyīpura > Jājpur) appears to support this conjecture. It seems that the capital of coastal Orissa was retained at the same city for some time even after the overthrow of Somavaṁśī rule from that area by the Gaṅgas of Kaliṅganagara. If the Gaṅga conquerors of coastal Orissa ruled the country from Yayātinagara or Yayātipura, i.e. modern Jājpur, before the transference of its headquarters to the Cuttack region, we can easily explain why the Muslim writers of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries mentioned the kingdom of the Gaṅgas in Orissa as Jājnagar (Yayātinagara).

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About 1360 A.D., during the reign of the Gaṅga king Bhānu III (circa 1352-78 A.D.), Sulṭān Fīrūz Shāh of the Tughluk dynasty of Delhi led an expedition against the Gaṅga capital. An account of this expedition is found in the *Tārīkh-i-Fīrūz Shāhī* by Shams-i-Sirāj ‘Afif. In this work, the kingdom of the Gaṅga monarch has been called Jājnagar but his capital has been mentioned as Vārāṇasī, i.e. Vārāṇasī-kaṭaka which is the present Barabati area of Cuttack.¹ It seems that, if the earlier name of Cuttack was Yayātinagara and if that was the reason for the early Muslim writers applying the name Jājnagar to the Gaṅga kingdom, Shams-i-Sirāj would not have used two different names to indicate the capital and kingdom of the Gaṅga king without any comment. Indeed it becomes rather difficult in that case to understand why he uses the new name for the city but its old name to indicate the kingdom of which it was the capital. The description of the Gaṅga capital and kingdom in the *Tārīkh-i-Fīrūz Shāhī* seems to suggest that Jājnagar as the name of the Gaṅga kingdom had nothing to do with Vārāṇasī or Cuttack which was then its capital.

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¹ See *Ep. Ind.*, Vol. XXVIII, pp. 247-48.

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Muslim rule was established in the western and northern parts of Bengal about the beginning of the thirteenth century. From that time, the Muslim rulers of Bengal often led expeditions against the Gaṅga kingdom. This may have been the cause underlying the transference of the Gaṅga capital from Jājnagar or Jājpur, which was nearer the borders of the Muslim territories of Bengal, to Cuttack which lay further away. But the Muslim writers appear to have continued the use of the name Jājnagar to indicate the Gaṅga kingdom for some time even after the transference of the Gaṅga headquarters from the city of that name. The name Kaṭaka or Cuttack suggests that it was originally a camping ground of the Gaṅga king's forces. It is not impossible that the story of the Gaṅga king's attempt to check Muslim aggression from the east is hidden under this name of the new capital of his kingdom.¹

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¹ At p. 145 above, we have referred to a king of Wu-ch'a ( Uḍra ) whom the Chinese called 'the fortunate monarch who does what is pure, the lion' (Ep. Ind., Vol XV, p. 363). A king of Orissa named Śubhakarasimha, who became a Buddhist monk, is said to have left India in 715 A. D. and reached China the following year when he was eighty years of age (A. Getty, Gaṇeśa, pp. 73-74).

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