Studies in the Geography of Ancient and Medieval India c11.28

c11.28

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.