Ancient Odisha was an Overseas Colonizer Besides Being a Seafaring Trading Giant in South Asia.

Words like Bali Jatra, Boita Bandana and Karthika Punei are irreversibly marked as the day to memorize the ancient glorious past of Odisha. Apparently, it is a marker for the glorious ancient maritime trade activities of Odisha, but today I have a question to all the scholars and historians of the state of Odisha, Was the ancient Kalinga only maritime trading nation or it was also a overseas colonizer and a naval military hub ? There is no doubt that ancient Kalinga was a pioneer of overseas trade in the eastern coast of India for thousands of years but the question is without a established naval might how can an ancient kingdom indulge in huge trade with other beyond the high seas and far away kingdoms. There was no international laws safeguarding the cause of traders crossing the seas into foreign lands and no modern era trade agreements signed between governing authorities of the trading kingdoms. Then how was it possible that the ancient Kalingans traded without military support in the pirate infested and hostile environments of the seas? The answer is Kalinga was also a naval superpower in the region with regular military activities in the Mahodadhi (or Bay of Bengal).

I will note down a few proofs one by one on this claim that quite definitely dictates that ancient Kalinga was a naval superpower with the adjoining Kalinga Sagar or Mahodadhi being a hive of military activities from it. Though much research has not been done in this regard to highlight the claim, I have tried to study various documents that provide clear cut indicators to ancient Odisha being a Naval super power in South Asia.

Ancient Odisha’s Knowledge of Ship Building and the forces in the High Seas.

The 4^th Century Chinese traveler Fahien notes Kalinga possessed many ships with some of them having high sails and masts capable of carrying 200 people over the seas. A small trailing boat was attached to the main boat which could be used as a life boat in case there was any accident on the main boat. Also, the 11^th Century documentation of King Bhoja of Dhara called Yukti Kalpataru describes that the Kalingans divided there seas going vessels  in the two kinds; Visesha (Special class) and Samanya (Ordinary). This emphasizes that ancient Odisha possessed a large number of ships. The ship types were noted as Tarikah. Plavah, Bariratha, Tarandhuh, Bhelaka, Nuah, Bahana,etc. Historian R.D. Banarjee states that Kalinga possessed a naval force to protect and escort the trading vessels on the seas that traveled to other provinces with many goods which also included huge animals like Elephants. Zhu fan zhi of China’s Song Dynasty mention of the extensive secure trading networks of the Kia-ling ships or Kalinga ships in early 13^th Century notes called “Records of the Foreign People”. A chapter in the 16^th Century Document called Paika Kheda mentions the various types of vessels used for naval activities on the Odishan Coast. These ships were named as Chaturi, Lanjua, Rajpura, Nandia, etc. 

The Kalingan seamen had a sound knowledge of navigation on the seas with the help special instruments along with astronomical locations of the stars and the Sun in the sky. Ships carried tamed birds called Disa Kaka on-board to indicate the direction on land. The wind over the Mahodadhi (Bay of Bengal) is a phenomenal force that was a deciding factor that facilitated the journey as well as possessed a threat to turbulent waters in the middle of the seas if not studied properly. The seasonally reversing winds are almost consistent during the monsoon period. However, weather disturbances occur during the pre-monsoon, monsoon and post-monsoon time. During such disturbances, sailors avoided venturing into the sea.

The Chinese traveler and monk Yijing (AD 635 -713) noted down that it was 30 days sail from Tamarlipti (an ancient port of Kalinga now Tamluk in West Bengal) to Andaman Nicobar islands and it took another 20 days only to travel the rest of majority distance to China. He also states that it took three months to sail from Sri Lanka to Java Island including the stoppages for repairs to the ships on the way at Sri Vijaya. This gives an instance about how difficult and back breaking task it was to sail across the Mahodadhi compared to rest of the seas around it. He also mentioned that Odishan Ships passed through the Andaman Nicobar Islands which probably was used as midway supply stoppage for the sailors.

Overseas Contacts, Colonization and Invasions

The 5^th Century poet Kalidasa described the king of Kalinga as Mahodadhipati which means the lord of Mahodadhi (eastern seas) in his epic Raghuvansam. This term defines the totalitarian control of the trade routes and other seafaring activities of Kalinga over the seas.  The 6th century Manjusrimulakalpa mentions the Bay of Bengal as Kalingodra (Kalinga Sea) which defines the complete maritime dominance of the eastern seas by ancient Odisha.    In fact it is assumed that the Kalingan ports were a major reason that prompted the Mauryan Ashoka to invade it. Moreover, the Kalingan Emperor Kharavela had defeated the Draviain Tamil confederacy of Cholas, Pandyas, Satyaputras, Keralaputra, and Tamraparni (Sri Lanka) in his sway of conquests particularly in the period when these states where at the height of their maritime activities. It is hard to believe that this could have been only made possible with inland warfare. This definitely points to the existence of a naval force with ancient Kalinga. In the Tang Dynasty records it is mentioned that the a Bhaumakara prince by the name Subhakara Simha identified as Subhakara Deva carried with him many Buddhist Mahayana Tantric scrolls and texts in 790 A.D to the Tang Dynasty court of China via  the seas as gesture of friendship. It is of no doubt that Royalties sailed from Odisha to far away nations like China and it would be foolish to assume that there were no military escorts in foreign waters for them in such a long voyage.

In Sri Lanka or Sinhala

According to a legend in Sri Lanka, Sinhabahu or Sīhabāhu ("Lion-arms"), was the son of a princess of the Kalinga Kingdom and a lion. He killed his father and became king of Singhapur of Kalinga (near Jajpur of Odisha). His son, Prince Vijaya, would emigrate from Kalinga to Lanka and become the progenitor of the Sinhala people from 543 BC – 505 BC. This suggests that the race of Sinhala people started from the ancient Kalingans. A Kingdom called Tambapanni or Tamraparni was founded by Prince Vijaya and his 700 followers after landing on the island. It is recorded the Vijaya landed on Sri lanka on the day of Buddha's death. Vijaya claimed Tambapanni his capital and soon the whole island came under this name.  In the 3^rd century B.C it is prominently noted by the king Ashoka that he sent his daughter Sangamitra along with eight noble families from Kalinga and a branch of the Bodhi tree to Sri Lanka for preaching Buddhism.

In another instance, the Dathavamsa scriptures of Sri Lanka and other Buddhist scriptures like Mahaparinibbana Sutta of Digha Nikaya state that in the early 4rth Century A.D. the king Guhasiva of Kalinga who was a devout worshipper of this tooth-relic instructed his daughter Hemamali, the princess of Kalinga and his son in law prince Dantha of Ujjain to escort the priceless relic to safety as the the land of Kalinga was facing an invasion at that time from the neighboring king Khiradhara. They landed in the island in Lankapattana during the reign of Sirimeghavanna of Anuradhapura (301-328 A.D) and handed over the tooth relic which the princess was carrying hidden in her hair. This tooth Relic is still worshipped in the city of Kandy. This indicates that the relations between these two kingdoms were a regular affair in those days. 

The later phase of 12^th Century A.D saw the rise of a Kalingan ruling family in Sri Lanka by a prince of Kalinga’s Ishvaku clan based at the capital Sinhapura in ancient Odisha. His name was Nissanka Malla and he was popularly known as Kirti Nissanka and Kalinga Lokeswara in Srilanka. He had ascended the throne by murdering the earlier king in 1187 A.D and claimed descent to the ancient Kalingan prince Viajaya. He invaded the Pandyan and Chola territories and renamed the captured Rameswaram temple as Nissankeswara. He was succeeded by his son, brothers, nephew and wife for the span of another three decades of strong rule on the island.

It was not until a Tamil Pandyan king named Parakrama Pandya took over the Kalingan descendents of Nissanka Malla for three years on the island that a major event in Sri Lankan history was again influenced by a prince from Kalinga called Kalinga Magha in 1215 A.D. Kalinga Magha with the help of his friend Gajabahu assembled an army of 24,000 men and invaded the island from Indian mainland. The prince ruled the island for 21 years until he was actually overthrown and abdicated from the land by a local resistance leader called Vijayabahu. The Sri Lankan texts mention him as Kalinga Magharaja. All these events simply dictate the military and expansionist campaigns launched from the soil of ancient Kalinga on the island of Sri Lanka surpassing the Tamil Cholas and Pandyans. All the rulers of Jaffna kingdom in northern Sri Lanka claimed their descent from Kalingai Chakrabarty who was later identified as the Odia prince Kalinga Magha. The details regarding these events prove that the ancient Odisha was capable of amphibious naval warfare that required carrying troops across the seas and landing them in enemy territory.

One can even compare the scripts on Sinhalese and Odia language to a great extent. Remarkably, the similarities of these scripts are compelling enough to indicate the cultural ties with this island nation of Odisha. In an extensive view point we do not find this much available similarities of the Sinhalese script with the nearest neighbor to them i.e. Tamil script.

In Burma or Suvarnabhumi

Another colonial settlement of ancient Odisha was the land of Burma or Myanmar. Around the 7th Century A.D this land was known as Kalingarat or Kalinga Rashtra and the people where known Kalinga due to the settlers and colonists from Kalinga. Similarly, the north-western part of Burma, the region extending from Rangoon to Tante (Pegu) was known as Ukkala or Utkalapa; a variant of  the term Utkala (Odisha). According to historian R.C.Majumdar the name Utkala originally applied to a region in the delta in lower Burma by the colonists from the Odisha coast. Hindu religion was established by Kalingans in Burma and according to scholar B.C Majumdar, the ancient Odishan Empire was established in Myanmar hundreds of years before the birth of Buddhism.

When it comes to planting the seeds of Buddhism, Buddhist texts mention that the first two disciples of Buddha, Tapasu and Bahalika (two tradesmen from Kalinga) carried 8 hair strands from him and went to Burma known as Suvarnabhumi at the time. The lower part of Burma was also known as Tri Kalinga imitating the Tri Kalinga kingdom of Odisha. The people of Burma’s Mon region are still known as Tailangs which is derived from the same. The Buddhagat sacred scripture of Burma, describes trade with the Buddhist merchants of Kalinga, leading to missionaries coming to propagate the faith, and then to political domination of parts of coastal Burma by Kalinga during the 4th to 7th centuries AD. Coins with Hindu symbols found in Pegu confirm this contact. Greek historian, Ptolemy has referred to a direct route from Paloura (Palur) to Sada which was frequently used by the Kalingans in course of their journey to Burma. Sada was the first port touched at in Ptolemy’s time by ships proceeding from India to the eastern coast of the Kalinga Sagar. The most interesting part is that the ancient name attributed to old city Prome is Srikshetra, so often mentioned in the Mon records as Sikset or Srikset, and by the Chinese pilgrims as Sili-cha-ta-lo. Srikshetra is the holy land of Puri on the ancient Kalinga coast. Another name to a city in north of Srikset is called as Beikthano or Baikuntha.

Shailodbhavas of Odisha re-emerged in Indonesia’s Sumatra Island as Shailendra Dynasty

The Scholar R.C.Majumdar states that  Shailendra dynasty originated from east Indian kingdom of Kalinga were the Shailodbhava dynasty used rule before the rise of Bhaumakara Dynasty in the 6^th and 7^th century. Later they moved to Java Island facing threats from invading forces. They migrated from the port of Palur in the Kalingan coast. The Shailodbhavas were primarily centered in the Kangoda mandal region of Kalinga particularly in the adjoining areas of river Salima which is now known as Sali. The Shailendras later built great Buddhist monuments in the Indonesian archipelago and the later towards the end of 8^th century the rulers of Java, Sumatra, Borneo, Bali, parts of Cambodia and Malaya aligned with them. This claim is strengthened by the documents from history of China’s Tang Dynasty concerning the Ho-ling or Kalinga kingdom of Java when it was being ruled by the Sailendra Queen Shimha or noted as His-mo in Chinese.

The great grandson of queen Shima called Sanjaya later founded the Sunda, Galuh and Medang kingdoms in the same island. A legend of Java states that 20,000 Kalingan families were sent from Odisha coast by a Kalingan prince who later prospered, populated the island and established this Kalinga kingdom in central Java after the rise of a ruler called Kano. The Brahmin founder of the Khmer empire reputed for its largest temple complex at Angkor Wat, Jayavarman II was a courtier in this Shailendra dynasty of Java and imported Indian terms like Devaraja and Chakravartin for himself. The basic architectural similarities between the temples of Odisha and of Khmer Empire are astonishingly similar. Other glorious Hindu kingdoms like Kediri, Singhasari, Majapahit and Blambangan flourished in this island on the foundation stone laid by the Shailendras.

Another interesting field of study in ancient Kalinga’s maritime glory is the island of Bali which has successfully preserved its Hindu culture in a now completely converted to Islam, Indonesia. One would be surprised to see the similarities in the cultures shared by both Odisha and Bali. The Brahmin priests in Odisha are known as Panda whereas in Bali they are called as Padanda. Words like Guah (beetle nut), Muah (face), Sanja (evening), Bali (Sand or the name of an ancestral king) and Ruti (bread) are the same as spoken in both the places. Remarkably, the river Mahanadi and Mahendra Tanya including the holy mountain Mahendragiri of South Odisha are mentioned with high esteem in the holy chanting during the Puja Stuti of the Island. The dance forms of Bali like Kecak and Barong are similar to Paika and tribal dance forms of Odisha. Besides the other trends of cultural similarity, there is a tradition called Ngaben cremation ceremony which is similar to Karthik Purnima’s Boita Bandana tradition of Odisha. The people float small boats to wish the soul of the deceased a happy journey to the afterlife in the original homeland of Kalinga. In ancient Odisha people did it to mark the prayers for the safe return of their kin from overseas trade. Today we do it to celebrate and pray as a part of our glorious seafaring past. No wonder the Bali Jatra (Bali Fair) begins in Odisha in the same time which must have been initiated to trade and showcase the items from Bali Island by the Sadhavas of ancient Odisha.

The Case of Kawi or Old Javanese Script

Kawi literally means poet in India. It is the language based on theater and literature of old Javanese language. Indian Sanskrit and old Javanese established a connection via the trader of ancient Odisha or Kalinga. The Kakawin form of this language is a middle standard between old Javanese and Kawi. The Kakawin depicts narratives of Hindu Mythology in context of the social life in Indonesian archipelago. The poets of Kakawin composed and performed in the court of Javanese Kalinga and Kediri in east Java in the 9^th Century. Some Odia words comparable to Kakawin language that was inherited in Bali are like Aswalalita, Basanta, Mredu Komala, Swan Devi, Wikridita, etc.

The story of Bima Kumara (or Bhima Kumara) in the Kakawin Virataparwa Hindu epic mentions that a 6^th century Kalingan king from Odisha called Sridharmavansha Teggu Anantavikrama Tuggadeva that ruled the Kediri kingdom of Java sponsored the Kakawin translation of Hindu epics like Mahasang Katha Ramayana Charita and Mangjawaken Bysamata from Sanskrit to old Javanese. Moreover, if today we compare the scripts of Odia and Kawi the results will astonish us. But to the heights of disgust, Tamil scholars have propagated that Kawi script was derived from the Tamil Pallava script and sadly no one puts a question mark on this from Odisha.

Coastal Defense, Sea Battles and Naval Hub in Odisha

There is a place called Nausena (navy) near the Chilika Lake in Odisha. This provides us the pointer to the existence of naval force stationed in the region in the past. Considering the ship building knowledge and involvement in the regular highly prosperous trade activities of ancient Odisha, the subsequent rulers could not have ensured this high level of economic activities without the existence of a naval force. The kings of the feudal states of ancient Odisha in the river delta regions of the coast were given the annotations and rank like Muhana Kimbhira or Muhana Chaukia. There responsibility was to protect the main heartland of ancient Kalinga from attacks by foreign forces and pirates in the sea. In order to assist the prime ruler of Kalinga in naval conflicts, these feudal rulers used to provide them with Paikas (fighting militia) and boats. It is said that there were fifty such feudal rulers of ancient Kalinga when the Mughals and Marathas took over the Odisha in the 16^th Century. The rulers of Kanika, Kujanga, Ali, Harishpur, Marichpur and Golra had received these titles as Muhana Kimbhira.

Hero stones from 7^th to 9^th Century remembering the brave hearts of the sea battle was located in Kanas near Chilika along with stone anchors of ancient ships. But without much research data and evidence collected so far the unspoken story of these heroes is still a mystery. Wide range of research is actually required to trace the truth of the naval activities in the coast of ancient Odisha.

Conclusion 

I hope my research leads me to further in depth findings of the glorious past of maritime seafaring Odisha. It is of no wonder that Indians are known to the Indonesians and Malaysians as Orang Keling or the people from Kalinga. Kalinga (ancient Odisha) was the ideal land of their dreams from which theirs and our ancestors left out to colonize the South East Asia and dictate totalitarian socio-cultural influence over the lands beyond the high seas. Ancient Odisha was the cradle of the modern South East Asian nations. Far before the Cholas, other Dravidians or the Bengalis, Mahodadhi (Bay of Bengal) was the playground of our intellectual, fearless and prosperous ancestors. It is hard to imagine the existence of the modern South East Asian and South Asian nations in their current forms if the seafaring Odias would not have decided to cross the seas and venture into the unknown with their cultural and traditional background.  

Research Document Submitted by Manjit Keshari Nayak
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