Kalinga Ancient Trade Routes

Pithunda

Hypothetical Scholars say

Pithunda was a busy market town by the sea that King Kharavela says he destroyed. Nobody has dug it up, so we do not know exactly where it stood.

An old inscription names a town called Pithunda, on the Kalinga coast, more than two thousand years ago. It calls Pithunda a market-town, though even the scholars who translated the inscription were unsure of that word. The inscription for King Kharavela says he destroyed Pithunda in war. It says an earlier king first founded the town. That king is called the Ava king, though where he ruled is not known. [Patra, 2014, p.123; Jayaswal, 1930, p.88]

No one has ever dug up Pithunda. So no one is sure exactly where it stood. One idea is that it lay near modern Srikakulam. That is close to the coast of north Andhra Pradesh. [Dayalan, 2019, p.21]

One idea links Pithunda to a city a Greek mapmaker named Ptolemy called Pityndra. It may also be the town Pihumda, named in an old Jain text. If that idea is right, one market town was known by three different names. [Patra, 2014, p.123]

For scholars

The dot on the map marks only the Srikakulam region. It is not a real dug-up site. Even the writer Dayalan gives two different guesses for Pithunda in one paper. [Dayalan, 2019, p.20]

Facts

Coordinates
18.30°, 83.90°
[Dayalan, 2019]
  1. Duraiswamy Dayalan. *Ancient Seaports on the Eastern Coast of India: The Hub of the Maritime Silk Route Network*. in Acta Via Serica 4. 2019
Modern name
Not identified; placed near Srikakulam, Andhra Pradesh
Also known as
Pithumda (Hathigumpha inscription), Pityndra (Ptolemy), Pihumda (Uttaradhyayana Sutra)
Region
kalinga

Routes through Pithunda

  • Udayagiri-Khandagiri to Pithunda

    King Kharavela's own carved message says he destroyed a market town called Pithunda. His army must have marched there from his capital, near the Udayagiri and Khandagiri caves.

    [Jayaswal, 1930, Jayaswal & Banerji, Epigraphia Indica XX (1929-30), line 11, translation p. 88]; [Patra, n.d., p. 113]; [Patra, 2014, p. 123]
    1. *Hathigumpha Inscription of Kharavela, Udayagiri*. ed. K. P. Jayaswal, R. D. Banerji. 1930. public domain , Jayaswal & Banerji, Epigraphia Indica XX (1929-30), line 11, translation p. 88 ('And the market-town (?) Pithumda founded by the Ava King he ploughs down with a plough of asses' - Kharavela's own record of destroying Pithunda in his eleventh regnal year.)
    2. Sushanta Kumar Patra, Benudhar Patra. *Archaeology and the Maritime History of Ancient Orissa*. in Orissa Historical Research Journal XLVII. n.d. , p. 113 ('The very location of the Asokan Edicts at Jaugarh, a place far away from the actual scene of the war i.e. Dhauli is an indication of its association with the port of Palur' - the authors read Kharavela's campaign as directed down this same southern coastal corridor towards Pithunda.)
    3. Benudhar Patra. *Ports in Ancient Odisha: Historical Perspective*. in Odisha Review. 2014 , p. 123 (Pithunda 'could be located somewhere near Chicacole region of modern Andhra Pradesh', south of Palur along the same coast.)
Scholar notes

Pithunda has never been located on the ground and no excavation is associated with it. The coordinates here are NOT a site position: they are the centre of the Chicacole (Srikakulam) region that Patra and Dayalan name as the likely area, read off a modern map. Treat the dot as a region marker. The equation of Kharavela's Pithumda with Ptolemy's Pityndra and the Jain Pihumda is Sylvain Levi's proposal (Indian Antiquary LV, 1926), and Dayalan offers two different placings in one paper.

  1. *Hathigumpha Inscription of Kharavela, Udayagiri*. ed. K. P. Jayaswal, R. D. Banerji. 1930. public domain , Jayaswal & Banerji, Epigraphia Indica XX (1929-30), No. 7, pp. 71-89: translation of line 11 on p. 88, editors' note 34 on p. 85 (p. 88, line 11: 'And the market-town (?) Pithumda founded by the Ava King he ploughs down with a plough of asses.' Note 34, p. 85: 'According to Ptolemy, a city in the upper part of the Coromandal coast; This city has perhaps to be taken as the capital of the Ava or Avarni.')
  2. Benudhar Patra. *Ports in Ancient Odisha: Historical Perspective*. in Odisha Review. 2014 , p. 123 (Pithunda in the Hathigumpha inscription (Kharavela's 11th regnal year), Ptolemy's Pityndra midway between the Godavari and Mahanadi mouths, and Pihumda of the Jain Uttaradhyayana Sutra, all equated by Sylvain Levi. 'could be located somewhere near Chicacole region of modern Andhra Pradesh'.)
  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 'Pithunda'; and p. 20, section 'Kalingapatnam' (Repeats Levi's equation and places Pithunda 'somewhere near the Chicacole region (Srikakulam region)'; on p. 20 suggests instead that it 'seems to have been located somewhat close to Kalingapatnam at the mouth of the river Vamsadhara'. Journal pagination not verified.)