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286 AN EARLY HISTORY OF ORISSA Sisupalgarh Excavations
The excavations at Sisupalgarh' do not help us much in fixing the date of Khāravela, yet its evidence may not be of mean importance.
The possibility of the ruins of Sisupalgarh (Lit: śiśupāla fort), representing the site of Kalinga-Nagar, has been put forward by B. B. Lal. Though the Hāthigumphā inscription does not say anything about the distance or even direction of the city of Kalinga from the UdayagiriKhaņdagiri hills, yet it may be surmised that it could be situated somewhere in the neighbourhood and in that the claim of Sisupalgarh may be considered. According to the Inscription, Kalinga-nagar was provided with fortifications, and Khāravela, in the first year of his reign, repaired the gateway and fortification wall, which had been damaged by a storm. Now, no fortified town of comparable date, except Sisupalgarh, is known to exist nearabout the Khaņdagiri-Udayagiri hills. Secondly, the excavations did reveal a collapse and subsequent repair of the southern gateway.flank of the fortification."
The excavations revelated that the defences (fortification wall) did not come into being with the first occupation dated between 300-200 B. C. But what particular circumstances led to this construction, cannot be determined in the present state of our knowledge, though the moment must have been a remarkable one in the history of the site.
1. Sisupalgarh represents the remains of a fortress near Bhuva. neswar in Orissa.
2. Ancient India, Vol. V, Jan 49, pp. 66 f,
3. Line 3: "Abhisitamato cha padhame vase vata-vihata-gopurapakāra nivesanam patisaiikhārayati kalinganagari khibiram."
4. Ancient India, Vol. V, pp.*66 f. 5. Ibid., p. 74.
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