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THE NANDA RULE IN KALINGA
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called 'Ajitarājajetā' viz., conquerer of unconquered kings. The term avijita may, therefore, simply refer to the fact that Kalinga was not included within the limits of Asokan vijita empire (Rājavishaya viz., Royal dominions). Such claims, if taken too literarily, will appear to have very little of substance in them.
The suggestion of Prof. Rapson” that Nandarāja may have been a local ruler of Kalinga, is negatived by the internal and positive evidence in the Hāthigumphā inscription itself. The passage meaning that ‘Nandarāja came and took away the image of Kalinga-Jina' proves at the very face of it that he was an outsider and did not belong to the Kalinga country. Otherwise the question of his taking away the image of Jina could not arise at all. Secondly a post-Asokan neo-Nanda line of Magadha is also unknown to any historian.*
Mahāpadma Nanda
The personal name or epithet of the founder and the greatest of all the rulers of the Nanda dynasty was Mahāpadma or Mahāpadmapati meaning 'Sovereign of an infinite host or of immense wealth', according to the Purāņas, 6 and Ugrasena i.e. Possessor of a terrible army, according to the Mahābodhivainsa—the Buddhist work. The Purāņas
1. J. Allan,--Catalogue of the Gupta Coins, p. cx. In the later mediaeval period, Emperor Jahangir boasts that not even one of the Sultans of lofty dignity had obtained a victory over Kangra (Rogers, Tuzuk, II, 181 ; also ASIAR, 1905-6, p. 1l).
2. CHI, Vol. I, p. 538. 3. Original : Nandarüja nitain cha kalingajina sanivesa'.
4. A later Nanda or Nandodbhava line is, however, known to Epigraphy. But it ruled in Orissa itself, and hence the question of taking away the image of Kalinga.Jina to Magadha could not arise in this case (E. I., Vol. XXI, App. 2043).
5. Vishnu Purana (Trans. Wilson), Vol. IX, p. 184, fn, 6. p. 98. Cf. also Mababodhivamsa Tikā, pp. 177-79,
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