Kalinga Ancient Trade Routes

Ghee (clarified butter)

Probable Scholars say

Boats carried clarified butter, called ghee, down the Mahanadi river from Sambalpur to the coast. An 1872 book also names ghee as part of the everyday trade of the inland Tributary States.

Pots of ghee travelled down the Mahanadi by boat, on their way to the coast.

Ghee is clarified butter. Boats carried pots of ghee down the Mahanadi river. They went from Sambalpur to the coast. [Hunter, 1872, vol. II Appendix III, p. 74]

An 1872 book also names ghee as part of everyday trade. Inland areas called the Tributary States sold it. Historians think ghee was a normal trade good there. [Hunter, 1872, vol. II, p. 102]

For scholars

Both references come from the same book, by Hunter. So only one source supports this entry. That keeps the tier at Probable. Neither passage says the ghee reached the sea. Neither says it left India. [Hunter, 1872, vol. II Appendix III, p. 74; Hunter, 1872, vol. II, p. 102]

Facts

Category
Foodstuff
Direction
Exported from Kalinga
Scholar notes

Both references are from the same book (Hunter 1872), so only one distinct source supports this entry and the tier stops at Probable. Neither passage says the ghee reached the sea or left India.

  1. 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 Appendix III, p. 74 (Mahanadi river towns carry goods up to Sambalpur, 'bringing thence, in exchange, cotton, wheat, oil-seeds, clarified butter, oil, molasses, iron, turmeric, tasar cloth, rice'.)
  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, p. 102 ('The trade of the Tributary States consists of rice, sugar-cane, oil seeds, clarified butter, cotton, coarse cereals, timber, lac, turmeric, beeswax, and other jungle products.')