Kalinga Ancient Trade Routes

Pipli

Strongly Supported Scholars say

An old government report called Pipli 'the most important port on the Orissa coast,' near the mouth of the Subarnarekha river. Sand slowly blocked the river, and today nothing of the town is left.

Pipli once stood near the mouth of the Subarnarekha river, in north Odisha. Long ago, it had one of the finest harbours on the coast. [Hunter, 1872, p.37]

Portuguese traders settled here and built a busy port. Old records call it a great slave mart, a place where enslaved people were bought and sold. Dutch traders came here too, after the Portuguese. [District Gazetteers (Cuttack, Puri, Ganjam, Balasore), British-era editions, n.d., p.204; Hunter, 1872, p.37]

Slowly, sand built up and blocked the river mouth. By the early 1700s, ships could no longer reach Pipli. The busy port was left empty. [Hunter, 1872, p.40; District Gazetteers (Cuttack, Puri, Ganjam, Balasore), British-era editions, n.d., p.9]

Today, nothing of the old town is left. A British report from 1907 called Pipli “the most important port on the Orissa coast.” But its exact spot has vanished under shifting sand. [District Gazetteers (Cuttack, Puri, Ganjam, Balasore), British-era editions, n.d., pp.9, 204]

For scholars

Sources do not agree when the Portuguese first came, or if the English ever built a post here. Hunter says yes. Another old British record quotes a historian’s doubt: the English “never had any factory at Pipli except in the imagination of the historians.” [Hunter, 1872, p.37; District Gazetteers (Cuttack, Puri, Ganjam, Balasore), British-era editions, n.d., p.204]

Facts

Coordinates
21.60°, 87.42°
[District Gazetteers (Cuttack, Puri, Ganjam, Balasore), British-era editions, n.d.]
  1. *District Gazetteers (Cuttack, Puri, Ganjam, Balasore), British-era editions*. n.d. public domain
Modern name
Site lost; near the mouth of the Subarnarekha, Balasore district, Odisha
Also known as
Pippli, Philip-patam
Region
kalinga

Routes through Pipli

  • Pipli to Balasore

    Pipli was once the busiest port on the Orissa coast. When sand blocked its river, traders and English merchants moved their business down the coast to Balasore instead.

    [Hunter, 1872, vol. ii, pp. 37-40]; [District Gazetteers (Cuttack, Puri, Ganjam, Balasore), British-era editions, n.d., O'Malley, Bengal District Gazetteers: Balasore (1907), pp. 9, 204]
    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, pp. 37-40 (p. 37: about 1514 the Portuguese founded a colony at 'Pippli, now a ruined and silt-locked village ... but then a fine harbour.' p. 40: silting of the Subarnarekha moved the Pippli factory to Balasore.)
    2. *District Gazetteers (Cuttack, Puri, Ganjam, Balasore), British-era editions*. n.d. public domain , O'Malley, Bengal District Gazetteers: Balasore (1907), pp. 9, 204 (p. 204: 'Pipli was once the most important port on the Orissa coast ... By the beginning of the 18th century the silting up of its mouth had ruined Pipli.' p. 9 ties this decline to Balasore's later rise as 'the only port of which Orissa could boast.')

Goods documented here

  • Salt

    Boats carried salt upriver to Sambalpur and came back loaded with cotton, wheat, oil-seeds and rice.

    [Stirling, 1825, pp. 194, 218]; [Hunter, 1872, vol. I, p. 41; vol. II, pp. 159-162; vol. II Appendix III, p. 74]; [Imperial Gazetteer of India (Orissa entries), n.d., vol. XXII, p. 13 (Sambalpur District)]; [Patnaik, 2014a, p. 104]
    1. Andrew Stirling. *An Account, Geographical, Statistical, and Historical, of Orissa Proper or Cuttack*. in Asiatic Researches 15. 1825. public domain , pp. 194, 218 (p. 194: '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 exceeds 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. I, p. 41; vol. II, pp. 159-162; vol. II Appendix III, p. 74 (vol. I p. 41: 'The only manufacture of Parikud is salt', solar and boiled processes. vol. II: the Tributary States and Central Provinces send rice, grain, oil-seeds and cotton to the coast 'in exchange for salt' (page not isolable: between the running heads for pp. 159 and 162).)
    3. *Imperial Gazetteer of India (Orissa entries)*. n.d. public domain , vol. XXII, p. 13 (Sambalpur District) ('Salt comes principally from Ganjam, and is now brought by rail instead of river as formerly.')
    4. Sunil Kumar Patnaik. *Puri: A Study of Early Trade and Pilgrim Routes*. in Odisha Review. 2014a , p. 104 (Abul Fazl described Manikapatna as a sea port where taxes were collected; reported here as a salt-tax centre.)
Scholar notes

Do not confuse this Pipli, at the Subarnarekha mouth in Balasore district, with the modern applique town of Pipili on the Cuttack-Puri road. Sources disagree twice over: Hunter dates the Portuguese arrival to about 1514, the Balasore gazetteer to 1599; and Hunter says the English founded a factory here in 1635, while the gazetteer (p. 34 n., p. 204) reports Wilson's Early Annals that 'the English never had any factory at Pipli except in the imagination of the historians'. Nothing of the site survives, so the coordinates are read off a modern map at the Subarnarekha mouth and are approximate.

  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, pp. 37-40, 196 (p. 37: about 1514 the Portuguese were pushed north to the Subarnarekha mouth and founded a colony at 'Pippli, now a ruined and silt-locked village ... but then a fine harbour'. p. 196: the 1634 firman restricted English vessels to 'no other port than Pippli, near Balasor'.)
  2. *District Gazetteers (Cuttack, Puri, Ganjam, Balasore), British-era editions*. n.d. public domain , O'Malley, Bengal District Gazetteers: Balasore (1907), pp. 9, 34 n., 36-37, 204 (p. 204: 'Pipli was once the most important port on the Orissa coast and contained settlements of the Portuguese and Dutch. The Portuguese settled there in 1599 ... a great slave mart.' p. 9: 'By the beginning of the 18th century the silting up of its mouth had ruined Pipli.')
  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. 23 (Lists Pipli among the Odisha seaports in active contact with British, Danish, Dutch, French and Portuguese traders in the 16th-18th centuries. Journal pagination not verified.)