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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
www.kobatirth.org
Acharya Shri Kailassagarsuri Gyanmandir
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near the mouths of the Krsnā).1 Maisolia extended in the north up to Paloura, or more accurately, up to the equator in the neigbbourhood of Paloura....... Ptolemy locates Pitundra in the interior of Maisolia, between the mouths of the two rivers) Maisolos and Manadas, to put it otherwise, between the delta of the Godavari and the Mahānadı, nearly at an equal distance from both. It would, therefore, be convenient to search for its location in the interior of Chikakol and Kalinga patam,...... towards the course of the river Nāgāvali which bears also the name of Lārguliya, the
River of the Plough.' The Imperial Gazetteer of India itself indicates this etymology: lāngala, Sanskrit ; nagula, Telugu. This denomination evokes, bringing nearer the souvenir of Pitundra, the text of the Hātbi-Gumphā inscription in which Khāravela flatters himself having ploughed with the plough the soil of Pithuda,"? or as we prefer to read and interpret it, “ having let out the grassy jungle of Pithudaga into Namgala, the river Lāngala (Länguliya).”3
Prof. Sylvain Lévi draws attention to the story of Samudrapāla in Lec. XXI of the Jaina Uttaradhyayana-Sūtra, in which there is mention of Pihumda as a sea-coast town reminding us at once of Khāravela's Pithuda. Pithudaga and Ptolemy's Pitundra.4 This story clearly shows that Pithuda was an emporium of trade which could be reached from Campā by the merchant vessels that had to follow a sea-route to complete their voyage. Campā, as we all know, was the capital of Arga, situated on the lower course of the Ganges, and the story in question relates that a Jain merchant named Pālita, who was a native of Campā, had a son born to him at sea (samudra) wben he was returning home with his wife from Pihumda, where he went for the purpose of trade and happened to win the hand of the daughter of a merchant of the place. The father chose Samudrapāla, " the Protége of the Sea," as the name of the boy then born at sea. There can be little doubt that Pihumda in Ardha-Māgadhi is the same geographical name as Pithuda-Pithudaga in Khāravela's inscription, Ptolemy's Pitundra, the capital of Maisoloi-Maisolia, and Pythurāştra in the Gandavyūha.
1. For the historic name and etymology of Masulipatam, see Yule-Burnell, sub voce. 2. Translated from the French in JA, 1925, T. COVI, pp. 60-61. 3. Named Längalini in the Märkandeya-Parāņa. 4. JA, 1925, T. CCVI, pp. 57-58. 6. Jacobi's Jaina Sūtras (B, E.), Part II, p. 108.
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