Kalinga Ancient Trade Routes

Cowrie shells

Strongly Supported Scholars say

Small shiny sea shells were used as everyday money in Odisha for hundreds of years. Ships from the Maldive Islands brought them to Balasore and Dhamra.

In 1804 a silver rupee was officially worth 5,120 cowrie shells. By Hunter's day it bought only 3,584.

Small, shiny sea shells called cowries worked as everyday money in Odisha. A Chinese monk visited the Kongoda coast in the 600s CE. He wrote that people there paid with cowrie shells and pearls [Xuanzang, 7th century CE, p.207].

Cowries were still coming in by sea in the 1800s. An 1825 report says Maldive ships brought “couris” to Balasore and Dhamra. They also brought coconuts, coral and dried fish [Stirling, 1825, p.194].

One number tells the story well. In 1804, one silver rupee bought 5,120 cowries. By the 1870s, the same rupee bought only 3,584. Each shell had become worth more [Hunter, 1872, p.167].

For scholars

The Chinese monk does not say where his cowries came from. So the import claim rests on the 1825 report alone. Nothing found so far bridges the gap between the 600s and 1825. So those centuries are left untagged here [Xuanzang, 7th century CE, p.207; Stirling, 1825, p.194].

Facts

Category
Animal product
Direction
Imported into Kalinga

Documented at these ports

  • Balasore

    Balasore was the first place in Bengal where English traders built a factory. Big ships waited far out at sea while small boats carried goods up the winding river.

    [The Imperial Gazetteer of India, new edition (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1907-09), 1908, vol. VI, pp. 245-246, 'Balasore Town']; [Hunter, 1872, vol. ii, pp. 39-40, 196-197]; [District Gazetteers (Cuttack, Puri, Ganjam, Balasore), British-era editions, n.d., O'Malley, Bengal District Gazetteers: Balasore (1907), pp. 9, 34-37, 144, 186]; [Dayalan, 2019, offprint p. 23]
    1. *The Imperial Gazetteer of India, new edition (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1907-09)*. 1908. public domain , vol. VI, pp. 245-246, 'Balasore Town' ('situated in 21 deg 30' N. and 86 deg 56' E., on the right bank of the Burhabalang river'. 'Balasore was the first place occupied by the English in Bengal. It owed its importance ... to the safety of its roadstead.' Earliest mention in the English records is 1633.)
    2. William Wilson Hunter. *Orissa: Or the Vicissitudes of an Indian Province under Native and British Rule*. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1872. public domain , vol. ii, pp. 39-40, 196-197 (p. 39: 'These two Orissa harbours - Pippli, founded in 1635, and Balasor, founded in 1642 - formed the basis of our future greatness in Bengal.' p. 40: silting of the Subarnarekha moved the Pippli factory to Balasore. p. 197: in 1688 Captain Heath attacks and plunders the town.)
    3. *District Gazetteers (Cuttack, Puri, Ganjam, Balasore), British-era editions*. n.d. public domain , O'Malley, Bengal District Gazetteers: Balasore (1907), pp. 9, 34-37, 144, 186 (p. 144: 'At the commencement of the 19th century Balasore was the only port of which Orissa could boast, and it was frequented chiefly by vessels from Madras, which put in for cargoes of rice, and by the Laccadive and Maldive islanders.' pp. 34-37: Cartwright, the Dutch, Danes and French.)
    4. Duraiswamy Dayalan. *Ancient Seaports on the Eastern Coast of India: The Hub of the Maritime Silk Route Network*. in Acta Via Serica 4. 2019 , offprint p. 23 (Lists Balasore among the Odisha seaports with active British, Danish, Dutch, French and Portuguese contacts in the 16th-18th centuries. Journal pagination not verified.)
Scholar notes

Xuanzang reports cowrie currency for Kongoda, which Cunningham identified with Ganjam; he does not say where the shells came from, so the 'import' direction rests on Stirling alone. Nothing I read bridges the gap between the 7th century and 1825, so the periods in between are deliberately untagged.

  1. Xuanzang. *Record of the Western Regions (Da Tang Xiyu Ji)*. 7th century CE. public domain , vol. II, p. 207 (Beal 1884, on Kongoda: 'They use cowrie shells and pearls in commercial transactions.')
  2. Andrew Stirling. *An Account, Geographical, Statistical, and Historical, of Orissa Proper or Cuttack*. in Asiatic Researches 15. 1825. public domain , p. 194 ('a small supply of couris, cocoanuts, coral, and dried fish is obtained from the few Maldive vessels, which resort annually to Balasore and Dhamra'.)
  3. William Wilson Hunter. *Orissa: Or the Vicissitudes of an Indian Province under Native and British Rule*. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1872. public domain , vol. II, p. 167 ('From time immemorial Orissa... has used a local currency of cowries'; the 1804 official rate of 5,120 cowries to the rupee and the 1872 rate of 3,584.)