Kalinga Ancient Trade Routes

Tamralipti

Strongly Supported Archaeology

A historian called Tamralipti 'the first and foremost' of ancient Odisha's ports, at the top of the Bay of Bengal. Monks and traders sailed from here to Sri Lanka, Burma and China.

One historian calls Tamralipti “the first and foremost” port at the top of the Bay of Bengal. It stood where the Rupnarayan river meets the sea. Today the spot is called Tamluk, in West Bengal. [Patra, 2014, pp.118-119]

Buddhist monks and traders sailed from here to Sri Lanka, Burma and China. Three famous Chinese monks left from Tamralipti on their way home. Their names were Fa-Hien, Xuanzang and Yijing. [Patra, 2014, p.119]

Diggers found huge amounts of rouletted ware there. That is a fine pottery stamped with tiny rolled lines. The same kind turns up at Kalinga’s own ports. An old inscription also names merchants from Ayodhya who visited the port. [Dayalan, 2019, p.24; Patra, n.d., p.110]

Historians agree Tamralipti linked Kalinga’s coast to the wider world. A coin of the Eastern Ganga kings turned up at Tamralipti too. Those same kings ruled Kalinga. This hints the two coasts traded closely together. [Patra, n.d., p.110; Patra, 2014, p.119]

For scholars

Some Odisha writers say Tamralipti was once part of a Kalinga kingdom. That claim is disputed, so it is not repeated here. Tamralipti is included only as a trading partner just outside Kalinga. [Patra, 2014, p.119; Dayalan, 2019, p.24]

Facts

Coordinates
22.28°, 87.95°
[Patra, 2014]
  1. Benudhar Patra. *Ports in Ancient Odisha: Historical Perspective*. in Odisha Review. 2014
Modern name
Tamluk, Purba Medinipur district, West Bengal
Also known as
Tamluk, Tamalities (Ptolemy)
Region
bengal

Routes through Tamralipti

  • Manikapatna to Tamralipti

    A historian called Tamralipti, at the top of the bay, 'the first and foremost' of ancient Odisha's ports. The same patterned pottery lies at both ends of this coast, so boats seem to have worked between them.

    [Patra, 2014, pp. 118-119]; [Patra, n.d., p. 110]; [Patnaik, 2014a, p. 103]
    1. Benudhar Patra. *Ports in Ancient Odisha: Historical Perspective*. in Odisha Review. 2014 , pp. 118-119 (p. 118: 'people from different parts used to come by land and river route to the nearest port, then made a coastal voyage to different big ports, and thence made voyage to different foreign countries'. Tamralipti is 'the first and foremost' of the ports treated.)
    2. Sushanta Kumar Patra, Benudhar Patra. *Archaeology and the Maritime History of Ancient Orissa*. in Orissa Historical Research Journal XLVII. n.d. , p. 110 (Rouletted ware from Sisupalagarh, Manikpatna and Radhanagara in Orissa is listed together with the same ware from Chandraketugarh and Tamluk in West Bengal, which the authors read as one Roman-period trade network.)
    3. Sunil Kumar Patnaik. *Puri: A Study of Early Trade and Pilgrim Routes*. in Odisha Review. 2014a , p. 103 ('the land routes extended from Taxila to Kaveripattinam in the south and Tamluk in the east up to Broach in the west'; Tosali, Kalingapatnam, Tamralipti and Pithunda are named as the Kalinga centres 'which were all in the trade circuit'.)

  • Tamralipti to Mahatittha

    A 5th-century Buddhist book says ships often sailed between Tamralipti and Mahatittha, a great port in Sri Lanka. Both were busy stops for monks and merchants crossing the Bay of Bengal.

    [Dayalan, 2019, offprint p. 24]
    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 , offprint p. 24 (The 5th-century Samantapasadika, Buddhaghosa's commentary, 'refers to ships often travelling between Tamralipti and Mahatittha.')

  • Kedah to Tamralipti

    From Kedah, Yijing's ship sailed past the Nicobar Islands and on to Tamralipti, the great port at the top of the Bay of Bengal. He later sailed the same route home again.

    [Dayalan, 2019, offprint p. 27]
    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 , offprint p. 27 ('Then, he proceeded east and reached the Nicobar Islands ... Proceeding northwest from these islands, Yi-Jing reached Tamralipti.' Returning to China 'he took the same route, landing again at Kie-tcha and Fo-che.' Dayalan cites Chavannes's 1894 translation of Yijing's account.)
Scholar notes

Tamralipti is in Bengal, at modern Tamluk, and is included here as a trading destination, not as a Kalinga port. OHRJ p. 110 asserts that 'Tamluk in ancient times known as Tamralipti was in Orissa' and Patra 2014 that it 'formed a part of Odishan kingdom till the seventeenth century CE'; both are contested political claims and are not adopted. Only summaries of the Tamluk excavations were read, not the reports themselves.

  1. Benudhar Patra. *Ports in Ancient Odisha: Historical Perspective*. in Odisha Review. 2014 , pp. 118-119 ('Of all the ports of ancient Odisha ... the first and foremost was the port of Tamralipti.' Identified with Tamluk, at the Rupnarayana confluence, 'Lat. 22 deg 17' N and Long. 87 deg 57' E'. Ptolemy's Tamalities; Fa-Hien, Xuanzang and Yijing embarked here for China.)
  2. 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 pp. 24-25, section 'Tamralipti' (Independently gives Tamluk at 22 deg 17' N; 87 deg 57' E; the Dudhapani rock inscription of Udayamana (c. 8th century CE) recording Ayodhya merchants frequenting the port; Chinese, Sri Lankan and Southeast Asian potsherds from Tamluk and its neighbouring villages. Journal pagination not verified.)
  3. Sushanta Kumar Patra, Benudhar Patra. *Archaeology and the Maritime History of Ancient Orissa*. in Orissa Historical Research Journal XLVII. n.d. , p. 110 (Large quantities of rouletted ware from the ancient port site of Tamralipti; a Ganga fanam found at Tamralipti, taken to show the port lay under Eastern Ganga suzerainty; Roman gold coins from Bamanghati in Mayurbhanj argued to have arrived through Tamluk.)