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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
www.kobatirth.org
Acharya Shri Kailassagarsuri Gyanmandir
198
OLD BRÄHMI INSCRIPTIONS
According to the unanimous testimony of the Jātakas, particularly of two versions of the Mabāgovinda-Suttanta which represents one of the earliest forms in which one finds the Jātakas in Buddhist litera Dantapura was the earlier capital of Kalióga, as early as when Kasi an empire with Kalinga as one of its provinces. The couplet in the Suttanta-Jātaka” mentioning Dantapura as the capital of Kalinga, 9 the land of the Kalingas, is found to be a quotation from an earlier chronicle
en Purohitas in the Anguttara-Nikāya,+ embodied in a prose-story, which has not, as yet, assumed the character of a Jätaka. Dantapura, which is no other than Dantakura in the Mahābhārata and Dantagula in Pliny's Natural History, has been definitely identified by Prof. Sylvain Lévi with Ptolemy's Paloura and modern Paloura near Chicacole in the Ganjam District. When exactly Dantapura-Palonra ceased to be the capital of Kalinga we cannot say. But it is certain that it had been the capital of Kalinga before Pilhuda-Pitundra became the royal city. It may be safely concluded from the foregoing discussion that the transfer of the capital from Dantapura to Prthudaka must have taken place before the advent of King Nanda in Kalinga and before the establishment of the rule of the royal dynasty of Kalinga to which Khāravela himself belonged.
The Sarabhanga-Jataka (Faus böll's No. 522) refers to a time when Kāší was just an independent kingdom, which existed side by side with the kingdom of King Dandaki. The city of Kumbhavati was the capital of Dandaki's kingdom, of Dandaka, measuring 60 yojanas long. Dandaki was a powerful emperor, whose supremacy was freely acknowledged by Kālinga, the king of the land of the Kalingas (Kalinga-rājā). King Kāliiga is described as one of the lords of the subordinate kingdoms (antararatthādhipatino). The prosperity of the Danılaka empire and the
1. One in the Digha-Nikāya, Vol. II, and the other in the Mahảvastu. 2. Mahāgovinda-Suttanta enlisted as a Suttanta-Jātaka in the Calla-Niddesa, p. 80.
Dantapura Kalinganam Assakānam ca Potanum | Māhissati Avantinam Sovīrūnarn ca Rorukan! Mithilā ca Videhānañ, Campå Angesu māpitä |
Bārānasi ca Kūsinam ete Govinda-mapitā # 4. Auguttara Nikaya, Part III, pp. 371-373. 5. That is, it has not the concluding identification,
6. See for references and quotations, Sylvain Lévi's Notes Sur la Geographie Ancienee de L'Inde, I. Paloura-Dantapura in JA, 1925, T. CCVI, pp. 46-57.
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