Kalinga Ancient Trade Routes

Pipli to Balasore

Strongly Supported Scholars say

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.

When sand blocked the river at Pipli, traders picked up and moved their business down the coast to Balasore.

Pipli was once the busiest port on the Orissa coast. Around 1514, Portuguese traders built a colony there, at what old records call “a fine harbour.” [Hunter, 1872, vol. ii, pp. 37-40]

Sand then blocked the mouth of the river at Pipli. By the early 1700s, the silting had ruined the port. Traders moved their business down the coast to Balasore instead, which then became “the only port of which Orissa could boast.” [District Gazetteers (Cuttack, Puri, Ganjam, Balasore), British-era editions, n.d., O’Malley, Bengal District Gazetteers: Balasore (1907), pp. 9, 204]

For scholars

Both sources describe a shift of trade from Pipli to Balasore, as a river called the Subarnarekha silted up. Neither describes ships sailing this exact short hop, so the line drawn is schematic. The two sources give different dates for when the Portuguese arrived at Pipli. One source says about 1514; the other says 1599. They also disagree on whether the English ever ran a trading post there at all. [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]

Facts

Mode
Coastal
From
Pipli
To
Balasore

Ports on this route

  • Balasore

    Balasore was the first place in Bengal where English traders built a factory. Big ships waited far out at sea while small boats carried goods up the winding river.

    [The Imperial Gazetteer of India, new edition (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1907-09), 1908, vol. VI, pp. 245-246, 'Balasore Town']; [Hunter, 1872, vol. ii, pp. 39-40, 196-197]; [District Gazetteers (Cuttack, Puri, Ganjam, Balasore), British-era editions, n.d., O'Malley, Bengal District Gazetteers: Balasore (1907), pp. 9, 34-37, 144, 186]; [Dayalan, 2019, offprint p. 23]
    1. *The Imperial Gazetteer of India, new edition (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1907-09)*. 1908. public domain , vol. VI, pp. 245-246, 'Balasore Town' ('situated in 21 deg 30' N. and 86 deg 56' E., on the right bank of the Burhabalang river'. 'Balasore was the first place occupied by the English in Bengal. It owed its importance ... to the safety of its roadstead.' Earliest mention in the English records is 1633.)
    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, pp. 39-40, 196-197 (p. 39: 'These two Orissa harbours - Pippli, founded in 1635, and Balasor, founded in 1642 - formed the basis of our future greatness in Bengal.' p. 40: silting of the Subarnarekha moved the Pippli factory to Balasore. p. 197: in 1688 Captain Heath attacks and plunders the town.)
    3. *District Gazetteers (Cuttack, Puri, Ganjam, Balasore), British-era editions*. n.d. public domain , O'Malley, Bengal District Gazetteers: Balasore (1907), pp. 9, 34-37, 144, 186 (p. 144: 'At the commencement of the 19th century Balasore was the only port of which Orissa could boast, and it was frequented chiefly by vessels from Madras, which put in for cargoes of rice, and by the Laccadive and Maldive islanders.' pp. 34-37: Cartwright, the Dutch, Danes and French.)
    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 Balasore among the Odisha seaports with active British, Danish, Dutch, French and Portuguese contacts in the 16th-18th centuries. Journal pagination not verified.)

  • Pipli

    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.

    [Hunter, 1872, vol. ii, pp. 37-40, 196]; [District Gazetteers (Cuttack, Puri, Ganjam, Balasore), British-era editions, n.d., O'Malley, Bengal District Gazetteers: Balasore (1907), pp. 9, 34 n., 36-37, 204]; [Dayalan, 2019, offprint p. 23]
    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.)
Scholar notes

Both sources describe a shift of trade from Pipli to Balasore as the Subarnarekha silted up, not a description of ships sailing this specific short hop, so the drawn line is schematic. The two sources give different dates for the Portuguese arrival at Pipli (Hunter: c. 1514; the Balasore gazetteer p. 204: 1599) and disagree on whether the English ever had a factory there at all (gazetteer p. 34 n., quoting Wilson's Early Annals) - see the caveats on the 'pipli' port entry itself.

  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.')