Kalinga Ancient Trade Routes

Cuttack to Chandbali by canal

Strongly Supported Scholars say

Steamers left Cuttack and went down a canal to the port of Chandbali. Boats had carried salt and grain along the Mahanadi here for far longer than that.

Three times a week a steamer left Cuttack for Chandbali along a canal, then carried on to Calcutta by sea.

Cuttack sits inland. It stands where the Mahanadi river splits into two arms. A canal carried steamers from Cuttack down to Chandbali, a river port near the coast. Steamers ran this route three times a week. Then they carried on to Calcutta by sea. [Imperial Gazetteer of India (Orissa entries), n.d., p.92; Stirling, 1825, p.194]

A colonial report called Chandbali the most important port in all of Orissa. It stood about 20 miles up the Baitarani river from the sea. Steamers on this canal carried salt and rice. [District Gazetteers (Cuttack, Puri, Ganjam, Balasore), British-era editions, n.d., p.10; Stirling, 1825, p.194]

Long before steamers came, boats had carried salt and grain along the Mahanadi. This trade went on for a very long time. In the 1820s, a British officer wrote about a huge yearly trade in salt. It moved along an old road, next to the river, toward Sambalpur. That was a different, older road, not this canal. But it shows how long the Mahanadi has carried goods. [Stirling, 1825, p.194]

For scholars

The line on the map for this canal is only a rough guess. No source read for this route maps the canal itself. Cuttack lies far from the open sea. Big ocean-going ships never sailed this far inland. [Imperial Gazetteer of India (Orissa entries), n.d., p.92; Stirling, 1825, p.194]

Facts

Mode
River
From
Cuttack
To
Chandbali

Ports on this route

  • Cuttack

    Cuttack stands on a tongue of land where the Mahanadi river splits in two. Boats carried its fine cloth and silver work down the river and out to sea.

    [Imperial Gazetteer of India (Orissa entries), n.d., Imperial Gazetteer of India, vol. XI, pp. 92, 98]; [Hunter, 1872, vol. ii, p. 40]; [Patra, n.d., p. 111]
    1. *Imperial Gazetteer of India (Orissa entries)*. n.d. public domain , Imperial Gazetteer of India, vol. XI, pp. 92, 98 (p. 98: 'Cuttack City (Kataka, the fort) ... situated in 20 deg 29' N. and 85 deg 52' E., on the peninsula formed by the bifurcation of the Mahanadi'; 'connected by canal with Chandbali and False Point'. p. 92: chief trade centres are Cuttack city, False Point and Chandbali; weekly steamers.)
    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. 40 ('the Orissa factors bought up at the lowest prices for ready money the fine muslins of Cattack' - Cuttack cloth reaching the sea through the English factories at Pippli and Balasore in the 17th century.)
    3. Sushanta Kumar Patra, Benudhar Patra. *Archaeology and the Maritime History of Ancient Orissa*. in Orissa Historical Research Journal XLVII. n.d. , p. 111 (Excavation at Barabati fort, on the right bank of the Mahanadi in Cuttack district, yielded 'a few sherds of Chinese ceramics'. The printed coordinate ('Lat 20 deg 29' N. and Long. 85 deg E') has a defective longitude.)

  • Chandbali

    Chandbali is a river port far up the Baitarani, safe from storms out at sea. A hundred years ago steamers left here for Calcutta three times a week.

    [District Gazetteers (Cuttack, Puri, Ganjam, Balasore), British-era editions, n.d., O'Malley, Bengal District Gazetteers: Balasore (1907), pp. 10, 144-145, 197-198]; [Imperial Gazetteer of India (Orissa entries), n.d., Imperial Gazetteer of India, vol. XI, p. 92]; [Hunter, 1872, vol. ii, Appendix IV, pp. 107-108]; [Dayalan, 2019, offprint p. 23]
    1. *District Gazetteers (Cuttack, Puri, Ganjam, Balasore), British-era editions*. n.d. public domain , O'Malley, Bengal District Gazetteers: Balasore (1907), pp. 10, 144-145, 197-198 (p. 197: 'Chandbali - Port in the Bhadrakh subdivision, situated on the left bank of the Baitarani river ... 20 miles from its mouth, in 20 deg 47' N. and 86 deg 45' E.' p. 144: it and Balasore are the only ports of importance, trading with Calcutta, Bombay to Arakan, the Maldives and Ceylon.)
    2. *Imperial Gazetteer of India (Orissa entries)*. n.d. public domain , Imperial Gazetteer of India, vol. XI, p. 92 ('The chief trade centres are Cuttack city, False Point port, and Chandbali, which is situated just outside the District.' 'Steamers carrying passengers and goods ply three times a week from Cuttack city to Chandbali port by canal, and from Chandbali to Calcutta by sea.')
    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 IV, pp. 107-108 (The Dhamra estuary, the channel that serves Chandbali, 'was declared a port by Government Notification, No. 877, of the 18th May 1858 ... As a port for native shippers, it ranks next to that of Balasor among the Orissa harbours.' Hunter, writing in 1872, does not yet name Chandbali itself.)
    4. 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 Chandabali among the Odisha seaports in active European trade contact in the late medieval period. Journal pagination not verified.)

Goods carried on this route

  • 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.)

  • Rice

    Ships from the Maldive Islands sailed all the way to Balasore just to fill up with rice and clay pots.

    [Stirling, 1825, p. 194]; [Hunter, 1872, vol. II Appendix I, p. 13; vol. II, pp. 159-162]; [Imperial Gazetteer of India (Orissa entries), n.d., vol. XXII, p. 13 (Sambalpur District)]
    1. Andrew Stirling. *An Account, Geographical, Statistical, and Historical, of Orissa Proper or Cuttack*. in Asiatic Researches 15. 1825. public domain , p. 194 ('A considerable exportation of rice takes place from the several small ports along the coast to Calcutta'; Maldive vessels 'resort annually to Balasore and Dhamra, to take on board cargoes of rice and earthen pots'.)
    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 I, p. 13; vol. II, pp. 159-162 (Appendix I (Puri): at Machhagaon near the Devi river mouth 'a considerable export rice trade is done here'; Pipli and Bhubaneswar are 'seats of a considerable trade in rice and cloth'.)
    3. *Imperial Gazetteer of India (Orissa entries)*. n.d. public domain , vol. XXII, p. 13 (Sambalpur District) ('Rice is the staple export of Sambalpur, being sent principally to Calcutta, but also to Bombay and Berar.')
Scholar notes

The drawn line is a schematic, not a surveyed track: no source read here maps the canal, and the waypoints between the two ports were read off a modern map. Cuttack lies about 100 km from the open sea and ocean-going ships never reached it. Stirling and Hunter describe an older salt traffic that went inland by road and river boat to Sambalpur, not along this canal; they support the cargo only.

  1. *Imperial Gazetteer of India (Orissa entries)*. n.d. public domain , Imperial Gazetteer of India, vol. XI, pp. 92, 98 (p. 92: 'Steamers carrying passengers and goods ply three times a week from Cuttack city to Chandbali port by canal, and from Chandbali to Calcutta by sea.' p. 98: Cuttack is 'connected by canal with Chandbali and False Point'.)
  2. *District Gazetteers (Cuttack, Puri, Ganjam, Balasore), British-era editions*. n.d. public domain , O'Malley, Bengal District Gazetteers: Balasore (1907), pp. 10, 197 (p. 10: 'Chandbali, 20 miles from the mouth, is the most important port in Orissa.' p. 197: Chandbali stands on the left bank of the Baitarani, 20 miles from its mouth; land was leased to the India General Steam Navigation Company in 1877.)
  3. Andrew Stirling. *An Account, Geographical, Statistical, and Historical, of Orissa Proper or Cuttack*. in Asiatic Researches 15. 1825. public domain , p. 194 (Cited for the cargo, not for the canal: '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.')