Studies in the Geography of Ancient and Medieval India c11.39

c11.39

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.