Jainism in Kalingadesa

Author(s): Bool Chand
Publisher: Jain Cultural Research Society

Page 16

( 14 ) Later History of Kalinga
Thus in the 2nd century B.C., Kalinga was the centre of a powerful cmpire Tuled over by Kharavela, who was one of the grcatcst royal patrons of the Jain faith. It is possible that the statements in the Hathigumpha may be somewhat prejudiced, in which successes may have been craggerated and reverses entirely passed over and in the absence of any other kind of evidence about Kharavcla, in literature or in contemporary records, the testing of these statements has not been possible. Nevertheless Kharavcla's cxistence is now universally accepted, and it seems quite safe to conclude that Kharavcla was a powerful monarch and that Kalinga under his rulc achieved certain cminence and enjoyed great prosperity. There is another inscription in the verandah of the lower storey of Svargapuri Cave, which records its cxcavation by a king of Kalinga named Kudcpasiri, who also styled himself in a similar manner. to Kharavcla as 'Aila' "Mahameghavahana' and the overlord of Kalinga?". Clearly, this Kudepasiri was from the dynasty of Kharavela, although it cannot be stated exactly how long and when he ruled. But after Kudepasiri "the fall of dense darkness again descends upon the history of Kalinga.”
Prof. Krishnaswami Iyengara2 has found reference in Tamil literature to a fratricidal war between the cousin rulers of two kingdoms of Kalinga--with theit respective capitals, Kapilapura and Simhapura, and he bclicvcs that this fratricidal war took place soon after the death of Kharavela and that it marked the disruption of the country's territorial integrity. In Kharavcla's time Kalinga was a well-formed kingdom, set over against the rising kingdom of the Satavahanas of the Deccan. It is possible that the ultimate fall of Kalinga came about at the hands of Satavahanas. The subjugation of Kalinga by the Satavahanas must have taken place before the Satavahana conquest of Magadha
10 See Epigraphica Indica XIII, p. 160. 11 See J. A, H. R. S. II, 4, 5.