Kalinga Ancient Trade Routes

Sal timber

Strongly Supported Scholars say

Tall sal trees grew in the hill forests behind the coast. Their timber was carted and floated down to the ports, and taxed all the way.

Tolls on timber in Ganjam were so steep that a shilling's worth cost one shilling and fourpence to move 42 miles.

Tall sal trees grew thick in the hill forests behind the coast. Workers carted and floated their wood down to the ports. It was taxed the whole way. An 1825 list of taxed goods names sal timber among them [Stirling, 1825, p.194].

The tax could be steep. In Ganjam district, one report says moving timber worth one shilling just 42 miles added tolls of a shilling and fourpence more [Hunter, 1872, p.235].

The scale was large too. A gazetteer says Sambalpur’s sal forest covered 238 square miles. It earned the government ten thousand rupees a year from timber sales alone [Imperial Gazetteer of India (Orissa entries), n.d., p.12].

For scholars

All three sources here come from the colonial period. Timber must have moved down these rivers much earlier. But no dated source before 1800 has been found for that. Stirling’s list also records tax paid at Cuttack. That is not quite the same as proof the wood left by sea [Stirling, 1825, p.194; Hunter, 1872, p.235].

Facts

Category
Timber
Direction
Exported from Kalinga

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

  • Gopalpur

    Gopalpur was the main port of the Ganjam coast in south Odisha. Ships had to anchor out in the open sea because there is no shelter from the waves.

    [The Imperial Gazetteer of India, new edition (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1907-09), 1908, vol. XII, pp. 152, 329-330]; [Patra, 2014, p. 121]; [Dayalan, 2019, offprint p. 21, section 'Palur']
    1. *The Imperial Gazetteer of India, new edition (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1907-09)*. 1908. public domain , vol. XII, pp. 152, 329-330 (p. 329: 'Gopalpur - Chief port of Ganjam District, Madras, situated in 19 deg 16' N. and 84 deg 53' E.' A call for British India Steam Navigation coasting steamers; in 1903-4, 7,400 passengers went to and 8,300 returned from Burma. p. 330: 'an open roadstead with no shelter whatever'.)
    2. Benudhar Patra. *Ports in Ancient Odisha: Historical Perspective*. in Odisha Review. 2014 , p. 121 (Gerini identified Ptolemy's apheterion, where ships bound for Khryse left the coast, with modern Gopalpur below the Rushikulya mouth; Patra argues instead for Mansurkota near Gopalpur, citing Maltby, The Ganjam District Manual, p. 31.)
    3. 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. 21, section 'Palur' (Repeats Gerini's identification of Ptolemy's apheterion with modern Gopalpur. Journal pagination not verified.)

  • 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

All three sources are colonial. Timber must have moved down these rivers much earlier, but I found no dated pre-1800 source for it, so only the British period is tagged. Stirling's list is of goods on which export duty was paid at Cuttack, which is not the same as seaborne export.

  1. Andrew Stirling. *An Account, Geographical, Statistical, and Historical, of Orissa Proper or Cuttack*. in Asiatic Researches 15. 1825. public domain , p. 194 (Exports liable to duty include 'sal timber, congni wood, karbeli, shirbeli'.)
  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. 235; vol. II Appendix III, p. 75 (p. 235: 'the transit dues on timber mounting up 133 per cent. on a journey of 42 miles' in Ganjam District. Appendix III p. 75: 'The chief marketable timber of the Tributary States is Sal.')
  3. *Imperial Gazetteer of India (Orissa entries)*. n.d. public domain , vol. XXII, p. 12 (Sambalpur District) (Sal forest covers about 238 square miles; 1903-4 forest revenue Rs. 34,000, of which Rs. 10,000 came from timber and Rs. 12,000 from bamboos.)