Indian Antiquary Vol 62

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, S Krishnaswami Aiyangar, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarka
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 175

SEPTEMBER, 1933]
THE EXTENT AND CAPITAL OF DAKŞIŅA KOSALA
163
We shall now proceed to locate the capital of the Kosala country. In the earliest times, when Nala, king of the Nişadha country, was ousted from his kingdom, he started towards the south, and leaving his wife Damayanti in the forest to take care of herself, he moved on and arrived in the territory of the Karkotaka Någa, who was evidently the ruler of the Nagpur country. He afterwards reached the capital of Kosala, and took service as a charioteer of Rituparna, the then king of that country. The only ancient town which could have lain on the line of Nala's march having traditions of visits from the heroes of Mahabharata times is Bhåndak (old Bhadravati), 16 miles north of Chånda town, the present head-quarters of the district of the same name. That this alone could be the residence of Rituparna is proved by the fact that Nala once drove the latter to his friend the king of Vidarbha, whose capital was at Kaundinyapura, in approximately 11 hours,' in a chariot with only four horses. Now the distance between Bhandak and Kaundinyapura is about 80 miles as the crow flies. Allowing 20 miles for the inevitably circuitous route taken by a horse-drawn vehicle, the speed of nine miles an hour is a plausible and even creditable performance for the horses under a good driver. The other known capitals of Dakşina Kosala are Sirpur (old Sripura) in the Raipur district and Tummâna and Ratanpur in the Bilaspur district. The first of these is the nearest to Kaundinyapura, but it lies as many as 250 miles away in a straight line on the map. This would give a run of 23 miles an hour for the chariot, and if the windings of the road are taken into account in the same proportion as in the case of Bhandak, the pace would amount to 29 miles an hour for a continuous run of 11 hours without any change, which is impossible. In fact this rate would exceed the motor car speed attainable in these days, if not beat a railway train. But what we are concerned with is whether Bhậndak continued to be the capital until the advent of Yuan Chwang in 639 A.D.Cunningham, without having the foregoing data before him, tried to locate the capital from the bearings and distances noted by the Chinese pilgrim. The latter came to Kosala from the capital of Kalinga pursuing a north-westerly course of about 1,800 li, or 300 miles. For reasons best known to himself, Cunningham fixed the capital of Kalinga at Rajamahendri, from where he drew a straight line exactly to the north-west and found Chanda, an important town with a fort and a circumvallation wall at a distance of 290 miles. Chåndå was once a Gond capital, but long after Yuan Chwang's visit. It had, however, gathered some indefinite traditions which fitted his object, and he decided that it was the place visited by the Chinese pilgrim. Later on, Fergusson 10 proposed Wairagarh in the same district as the more likely place, but what is missing in both these places is any trace of remains of the Buddhistic monasteries and temples which Yuan Chwang so prominently mentioned. The latter states clearly that "there were 100 sanghárúmas there and 10,000 priests. There was a great number of here. tics, who intermixed with the population and also Deva temples." At Bhandak one may see even today a rock-cut Buddhist cave in a fair state of preservation. There are also nume. rous remains of Hindu Deva temples as well as Jain temples. An inscription found in the Bhandak cave shows that a line of Buddhistic kings belonging to the Panduvamsi line ruled in that place down to the ninth century A.D. (JRAS., 1905, p. 621). This discovery is of great importance inasmuch as Yuan Chwang mentions specifically that the king was of the Kşatriya caste and deeply reverenced the law of the Buddha. Traditionally Bhandak was a very big city which once extended up to Bhatála, 11 some 20 miles distant. The ruins lying between these places seem to indicate some connection between them.
In these circumstances when I happened to refer to Nagarjuna, to whom a cave is dedi. dated on a hillock at Ramtek, I proposed Bhåndak as a still more likely place for Yuan
. Pradhan's Chronology of Ancient India, p. 147. 10 JRAS., 1875, p. 260. 11 Nelson's Chanda District Gazetteer, p. 571.