Early History of Orissa

SR No.: 006922
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Amarchand Mittal
Publisher: Jain Cultural Research Society
Publication Year: 1957
Total Pages: 506
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 9 MB

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AN EARLY HISTORY OF ORISSA
The Sārabhanga Jātaka' refers to a time when Kāśi was just an independent kingdom and existed, side by side, with the kingdom of king Daņdakī. The city of Kumbhāvati was his capital. He was a powerful monarch, so that his supermacy was freely acknowledged by Kalinga—the king of the land of the Kalingas (Kalinga-rājā). King Kalinga is described as one of the lords of subordinate kingdoms (Antara-rattha-adhipatino). Name of the capital city of king Kalinga at that time is not mentioned. But the Jātaka contains a pathetic story of the dire calamity that befell the Daņďaka kingdom and brought utter destruction upon it. It indicates a turning point in the political history of ancient India, because in subsequent chapters of the same Jātaka, the annals of the rise and influence of the Kāśī empire can be traced. The Budhha's birth-story, given in the Mahāgovinda Suttānta, may hence be taken to be an annal of the full flowering of the Kāść empire with Kalinga, Aśvaka, Avanti, Sauvīra, Videha and Anga as the six subordinate kingdoms under it.
Kalinga is, however, not included in the list of sixteen Mahā-Janapadas enumerated in the Anguttara Nikāya," but is found mentioned in the extended list of the Niddeśa. The Digha Nikāya, one of the earliest Buddhist works, mentions Dantapura as the capital of the Kalingas and the same is reproduced in the Mahāvastu in a very incorrect form. It proves that, at the time when the four Nikāyas were put into their present form, it was believed that before the Buddha the distribution of power in northern and eastern India had been different from what it afterwards became.
1. Fausbell's No. 622. 2. I, 2, 13. 3. II, 37. 4. Qtd, Rapson-CHI, Vol. I, pp. 172-3.