Studies in the Geography of Ancient and Medieval India c11.44

c11.44

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