Studies in the Geography of Ancient and Medieval India c11.48

c11.48

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).