Early History of Orissa

SR No.: 006922
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Amarchand Mittal
Publisher: Jain Cultural Research Society
Publication Year: 1957
Total Pages: 506
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 9 MB

Page 160

THE NANDA RULE IN KALINGA
135
excavated, according to him, in B. C. 355, say at least 33 years before the accession of Chandragupta Maurya. Here the learned Professor appears to have taken the figure 103 to express not the interval between Nandarāja and Khāravela, but a date during the reign of Nanda, which may have reckoned from some pre-existing era. But use of any such era in any particular part of the country or epoch is not proved. Khāravela himself, like Asoka, uses only regnal years and not any era.
Dr. Raychaudhari,1 on the other hand, suggests that the interpretation of “ti-vasa-sata' accords substantially with the puranic tradition as regards the interval between the Nandas and the dynasty to which Śātakarņi, the contemporary of Khāravela in his second regnal year, belonged--viz. 294 years (137 years for the Mauryas, 112 year for the Šungas and 45 years for the Kāṇavas). If the expression is taken to mean 103 years, Khāravela's accession must be placed (103--5=) 98 years after Nandarāja. His elevation to the position of Yuvarāja took place nine years before that (viz. 98 - 9 -89 years after Nandarāja, or not later than 32+ - 89=235 B. C.). Khāravela’s senior partner in the royal office was on the throne at that time and he may have had his predecessor or predecessors. But we learn from the Asokan inscriptions that Kalinga was actually governed at the time by a Maurya Kumāra under the suzerainty of Asoka and not by a Kalinga-adhipati or a Chakravarti. Therefore óti-vasu-sata' may be understood to mean 300 and not 103 years.
The second reference to the Nanda king is to be found in the twelfth line of the Hathigumphā Inscription, which says
1. PHAI, 1950, pp. 2:9f. 2. Original: Nandarāja nītam cha Kalinga Jina sannivesa."
Sannivesa is explained in Monier William's Dictionary as an assemblage, station, seat, open space near a town etc. Commentator
(Carried over)