Kalinga Ancient Trade Routes

Iron

Strongly Supported Scholars say

Iron was smelted in small clay furnaces in the western hills. Boats brought it down the Mahanadi, and it was also taxed when it left Cuttack.

Sambalpur still had 160 village furnaces turning out about 1,120 hundredweight of iron every year.

In the western hills, workers smelted iron in small clay furnaces. A gazetteer counted 160 such furnaces still working in Sambalpur. Together they made about 1,120 hundredweight of iron each year [Imperial Gazetteer of India (Orissa entries), n.d., p.12].

Boats carried that iron down the Mahanadi river toward the coast. They traded it alongside cotton, wheat and rice [Hunter, 1872, p.74].

But the iron also moved the other way. An 1825 tax list names iron among the goods leaving Cuttack for other places [Stirling, 1825, p.194].

For scholars

The two records do not fully agree. Stirling shows iron leaving Cuttack in the 1820s. Hunter shows boatmen bringing iron down into Odisha from Sambalpur instead. That is why this good is marked as moving “both” ways [Stirling, 1825, p.194; Hunter, 1872, p.74]. Digs at Jaugada show people used iron tools much earlier. But that shows use, not trade. So no earlier period is claimed here.

Facts

Category
Metal
Direction
Traded both ways

Carried on these routes

  • Cuttack to Sambalpur along the Mahanadi

    Boats went far up the Mahanadi river from the coast to Sambalpur. They carried salt, spices and pots inland, and came back loaded with diamonds, iron, silk and grain.

    [Stirling, 1825, pp. 194, 218]; [Hunter, 1872, vol. ii, Appendix III, p. 74]; [Imperial Gazetteer of India (Orissa entries), n.d., vol. XXII, pp. 12-13 (Sambalpur District)]
    1. Andrew Stirling. *An Account, Geographical, Statistical, and Historical, of Orissa Proper or Cuttack*. in Asiatic Researches 15. 1825. public domain , pp. 194, 218 ('Formerly salt was an important article of export by way of the great road leading along the Mahanadi to Sembelpur and Berar ... more than three lacs of maunds being exported annually.')
    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, Appendix III, p. 74 (Mahanadi river towns 'carry salt, spices, cocoa-nuts, and brass utensils up to Sambalpur ... bringing thence, in exchange, cotton, wheat, oil-seeds, clarified butter, oil, molasses, iron, turmeric, tasar cloth, rice.')
    3. *Imperial Gazetteer of India (Orissa entries)*. n.d. public domain , vol. XXII, pp. 12-13 (Sambalpur District) (Diamonds worked at Hirakud 'when Sambalpur was under native rule'; salt 'now brought by rail instead of river as formerly' - implying the river itself carried it before the railway.)

Documented at these ports

  • Sambalpur

    Sambalpur is a town far up the Mahanadi river, deep inland. Boats carried salt, spices and pots up to Sambalpur and came back loaded with diamonds, iron, silk and grain.

    [Stirling, 1825, pp. 194, 218]; [Hunter, 1872, vol. ii, Appendix III, p. 74]; [Imperial Gazetteer of India (Orissa entries), n.d., vol. XXII, pp. 12-13 (Sambalpur District)]
    1. Andrew Stirling. *An Account, Geographical, Statistical, and Historical, of Orissa Proper or Cuttack*. in Asiatic Researches 15. 1825. public domain , pp. 194, 218 ('Formerly salt was an important article of export by way of the great road leading along the Mahanadi to Sembelpur and Berar ... more than three lacs of maunds being exported annually.' p. 218: the salt monopoly's revenue exceeded all the land rents.)
    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, Appendix III, p. 74 (Mahanadi river towns 'carry salt, spices, cocoa-nuts, and brass utensils up to Sambalpur ... bringing thence, in exchange, cotton, wheat, oil-seeds, clarified butter, oil, molasses, iron, turmeric, tasar cloth, rice.')
    3. *Imperial Gazetteer of India (Orissa entries)*. n.d. public domain , vol. XXII, pp. 12-13 (Sambalpur District) (Diamonds worked at Hirakud 'when Sambalpur was under native rule'; '160 native furnaces' making iron; sal forest of 238 sq. miles; tasar silk-weaving 'an important industry'; salt now 'brought by rail instead of river as formerly.')
Scholar notes

The records point opposite ways: Stirling lists iron among Cuttack's dutiable exports in the 1820s, while Hunter's Mahanadi boatmen bring iron down into Odisha from Sambalpur. Hence direction 'both'. Excavation at Jaugada shows a fully iron-using culture in the early historic period, but that is evidence of use, not of trade, so no early period is tagged.

  1. Andrew Stirling. *An Account, Geographical, Statistical, and Historical, of Orissa Proper or Cuttack*. in Asiatic Researches 15. 1825. public domain , p. 194 ('The exports liable to duty are as follows: Piece goods, bees wax, iron, kut'h..., oil, lac, stone plates, sal timber, congni wood...')
  2. *Imperial Gazetteer of India (Orissa entries)*. n.d. public domain , vol. XXII, p. 12 (Sambalpur District) ('Iron ores occur in most of the hilly country on the borders of the District... There are 160 native furnaces, which produce about 1,120 cwt. of iron annually.')
  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 Appendix III, p. 74 (Mahanadi river towns 'carry salt, spices, cocoa-nuts, and brass utensils up to Sambalpur... bringing thence, in exchange, cotton, wheat, oil-seeds, clarified butter, oil, molasses, iron, turmeric, tasar cloth, rice'.)