Kalinga Ancient Trade Routes

Dhauli

Strongly Supported Archaeology

Dhauli is a low hill near Bhubaneswar where Ashoka had his orders carved into the rock. Just above the writing, the front half of an elephant is cut out of the stone.

Dhauli is a low hill near Bhubaneswar. Ashoka had his orders carved into its rock. That was almost 2,300 years ago. Just above the writing, an elephant’s front half rises from the stone [Imperial Gazetteer of India (Orissa entries), n.d., p.318].

Two of the edicts here are special. They are called the Kalinga edicts. In them, Ashoka set rules for the land he had just conquered by war [District Gazetteers (Cuttack, Puri, Ganjam, Balasore), British-era editions, n.d., p.28].

Historians count Dhauli among the towns that grew up around Ashoka’s time. The inscription did not stand alone in empty ground [Patra, n.d., p.109].

For scholars

Two colonial reports do not agree. They disagree on which edicts appear at Dhauli. A modern edition is still needed to settle this. Many scholars link Dhauli to Tosali. Tosali was a capital city named in Ashoka’s edicts. But this link is a long-standing guess. It is not a proven fact [Patra, n.d., p.109].

Facts

Site type
Ashokan rock-edict site on a hill above the Daya river
Coordinates
20.25°, 85.83°
[Imperial Gazetteer of India (Orissa entries), n.d.]
  1. *Imperial Gazetteer of India (Orissa entries)*. n.d. public domain
Modern name
Dhauli, Khordha district, Odisha

Key finds

  • Ashokan rock edicts and the two separate (Kalinga) edicts

    Ashoka's own words to the officers of newly conquered Kalinga - the oldest writing in Odisha, and the reason we know the conquest happened.

    [Imperial Gazetteer of India (Orissa entries), n.d., Imperial Gazetteer of India, vol. XI, p. 317]; [District Gazetteers (Cuttack, Puri, Ganjam, Balasore), British-era editions, n.d., O'Malley, Puri (1908), p. 28]
    1. *Imperial Gazetteer of India (Orissa entries)*. n.d. public domain , Imperial Gazetteer of India, vol. XI, p. 317
    2. *District Gazetteers (Cuttack, Puri, Ganjam, Balasore), British-era editions*. n.d. public domain , O'Malley, Puri (1908), p. 28

  • Rock-cut elephant forepart

    The front half of an elephant carved straight out of the hill above the inscription - one of the earliest pieces of sculpture in eastern India.

    [Imperial Gazetteer of India (Orissa entries), n.d., Imperial Gazetteer of India, vol. XI, p. 318]
    1. *Imperial Gazetteer of India (Orissa entries)*. n.d. public domain , Imperial Gazetteer of India, vol. XI, p. 318
Scholar notes

Two of the sources disagree about which edicts are present: the Imperial Gazetteer says edicts XII and XIII were omitted, the Puri gazetteer says XIII was inscribed and XI-XII omitted. A critical edition (Hultzsch, CII I, 1925) must settle this before publication, and ashoka-separate-edicts is therefore not cited here. The equation Dhauli = Tosali is a long-standing scholarly identification, not a proved one; the Nagarjunakonda inscription is the other anchor for the name.

  1. *Imperial Gazetteer of India (Orissa entries)*. n.d. public domain , Imperial Gazetteer of India, vol. XI, pp. 317-318, 'Dhauli' ('Hill in the Khurda subdivision of Puri District, Bengal, situated in 20 deg 15' N. and 85 deg 50' E., about 7 miles south of Bhubaneswar. On its northern side is a version of Asoka's rock edicts. Above the inscription the forepart of an elephant has been carved out of the rock.')
  2. *District Gazetteers (Cuttack, Puri, Ganjam, Balasore), British-era editions*. n.d. public domain , O'Malley, Bengal District Gazetteers: Puri (1908), pp. 28-29 ('In this district Asoka commemorated his rule by inscribing at Dhauli hill rock-edicts I-X and XIII', plus the two Kalinga edicts laying down principles for governing the newly conquered province and the tribes on its borders. Kalinga was incorporated in Ashoka's empire in 262 or 261 BCE.)
  3. Sushanta Kumar Patra, Benudhar Patra. *Archaeology and the Maritime History of Ancient Orissa*. in Orissa Historical Research Journal XLVII. n.d. , p. 109 ('the excavation conducted at Dhauli supplemented to the fact that during the period of Asoka there was the progress of urbanisation in Orissa'; Dhauli is treated as the urban settlement of Tosali, alongside Samapa (Jaugada).)