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AN EARLY HISTORY OF ORISSA
to check the invader and save Prasenjit. Having known the presence of Pārśva in the city, however, the KalingaYavana decided not to fight and finally withdrew to his kingdom.”
The historicity of the above story and also the identification of the Kalinga-Yavana is not very easy in the present state of our knowledge, for, we find no corroborative evidence of such an incident in any other literary work.
The country is, again, referred to in the time of Lord Mahāvīra, the twenty-fourth and the last Tīrthankara. It is stated in the Āvaśyaka Niryukti that in the eleventh year of his monkship, Lord Mahāvīra left Savatthi (Śrāvasti)for Sanulațțhīyagāma and then proceeded towards Dadhabhūmi (probably, Dalbhum in Singbhum district in Orissa)? which was a land of the Mlechchhas. From here, the Venerable Teacher went to Pedhālagāma3 and stood in meditation in the garden of Pedhāla, near the shrine of Palāsa. He is said to have suffered extreme pains in this land.4 From here, the Teacher journeyed to Vāluyagāma, Subhoma (Suhuma), Suchchhettā,5 Malayagrāma and Hatthasīsa. At all these places, Mahāvīra had to suffer great tortures. Then he set out for Tosali? where he was taken to be a robber and hit hard. From here, the
1. Avaśyaka Niryukti, 495. 2. Ibid, 496. 3. Ibid, 497, 4. Ibid, 498.505. 5. Ibid, 506.
6. Ibid, 507. Hatthasisa was a centre of trade and a number of sea-going merchants of this town are mentioned to have started for Kalingadvipa for trade (Nayadhammakahā, Ed: N. V. Vaidya, Poona, 1940, 17, p. 201).
7. Ibid, 508.
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