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 Palibothra (Patliputra) after which some call the people itself Polibothri.! Here, the reference is probably, to conditions prevailing in the time of the Mauryas and not that of the Nandas. But the greatness that the Prasii people (viz., the Magadhans and other Eastern People) attained in the Maurya Age, would have been hardly possible without the achievements of their predecessors, of which we have a record in the writings of the historians of Alexander.
In the Purāņas, as already stated, Mahāpadma Nanda, has been called Sarvakshatrāňtaka or the destroyer of all the Kashtriyas, and Ekarāț or the sole monarch of the earth which was under his undisputed sway. This might imply that he subjugated all the Kshatriya-houses which ruled contemporaneously with the Saiśunāgas, namely, the Aikshvākus, the Panchālas, the Kaśīs, the Haihayas, the Kalingas, the Aśmakas, the Kurus, the Maithilas, the Śürasenas, the Vitihotras etc. Conquests of some of the territories, occupied by the tribes and clans mentioned above, does not necessarily mean the total extinction of the old ruling houses, but merely a deprivation of their yaśaḥ or glory and an extention of the suzerainty of the conqueror.
The Jainas too allude to wide dominions of the Nandas.' The existence, on the Godavari river, of a city called Nau-Nanda Dehra (Nander); also suggests that the Nanda dominions had once embraced a considerable portion of the Deccan and, therefore, of the Kalinga country also.
1. Megasthenes & Arrian, p. 141. 2. "Samudravasanekhebhya āsamudramapisriyah Upāya hastairakrishya tataḥ sokrita nardasāt"
(Pariśashta parvan, vii, 81). 3. Macaulifeo, Sikh Religion, Vol, V, p. 230.
4. The ascription of this city to the later Nandas or Nandodbhava line known to epigraphy, may also not be improbable,