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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
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196
OLD BRAHMI INSCRIPTIONS
Tanasuli conjoined with the suffix ya, it must be rendered: "the Little Siva temple (road)," sul being one of the epithets of Siva. Anyhow, it is certain that the opposite of Tanasuliya or Tanasule is Mahasuliya or Mahasuli. If so, it may be shown that Pithudaga or Pithuda, the site of the former capital of Kalinga, was just in the neighbourhood of the city of Kalinga.
Acharya Shri Kailassagarsuri Gyanmandir
Pithudaga is the same name as Prṛthudaka in Sanskrit, and Pithuda is but a shortening from Pithudaga, a word which is the same in meaning as bahudaka, "abounding in many waters," "the watery." The same significance of the name may be gathered, I think, from a legend in the Visņu-Purana regarding the origin of the name of Pṛthudaka or Peboa, "Prthu's pool," an old town near Thaneswar. 1 The Gandavyuha which is a Buddhist work in Sanskrit and counted among the maha-vaipulyasutras by the Buddhists of Nepal, contains an interesting account of the wanderings of a Buddhist seeker of truth in the Deccan (Dakṣinapathe). In it, the Buddhist learner concerned has been represented as travelling from Mulaka (on the bank of the Godavari, near Patiṭṭhāna or Paithan2) to Naladhvaja, from Naladhvaja to Suprabha, from Suprabha to Sarvagrama of Tosala in Amitatosala, and from thence to Prthurastra. This Prthurastra is apparently not different from what Ptolemy in his work on geography (VII. 1. 93), calls Pitundra-metropolis, Pitundra, the capital, Pitundra which was a Greek spelling, as shown by Prof. Sylvain Lévi, of Pihumda. The following note on Pitundra from the pen of Prof. Sylvain Lévi is worth quoting in this connection :
3
"Ptolemy," says Prof. Sylvain Lévi, "describing the towns situated in the interior of the country of Maisoloi (VII. 1. 93), designates its capital Pitundra-metropolis. The country of Maisoloi or Maisolia (VII. 1. 15) lent its name to the river Maisolos which represents the group of the mouths of the Godavari and the Krsna. The Periplus writes Masalia instead of Maisolia. Since a long time the scholars have equated Maisoloi or Maisolia with Masuli, the denomination in the first word contained in the well known name of Masulipatam (patam=pattana, the town)
1. Cunningham's Ancient Geography of India, edited by S. N. Majumdar, p. 335. 2. Sutta-Nipata, Parayana-Vagga, Vatthugatha, verse 977. Assakassa visaye Alakassa (Mulakassa) samäsane, Godhävari-kule. For the discussion of the information contained in the Sutta-Nipäta-Commentary, see passim.
3. JA, 1925, T. CCVI, p. 61.
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