Kalinga Ancient Trade Routes

Udayagiri and Khandagiri caves

Strongly Supported Archaeology

Two rocky hills near Bhubaneswar are honeycombed with caves cut for Jain monks. One cave carries King Kharavela's long inscription about his wars and his building works.

Two rocky hills near Bhubaneswar are full of caves. A colonial report corrects an old mistake. The caves were cut for Jain monks, not Buddhist ones, as people often thought [Imperial Gazetteer of India (Orissa entries), n.d., p.239].

One cave carries a long inscription. It tells the story of King Kharavela’s wars and building work. In it, he boasts of destroying a place called Pithumda, which the inscription’s own editors read only as “market-town (?)”. He also brought pearls home from a king far to the south [Jayaswal, 1930, p.88].

Carvings inside the caves show patterns like honeysuckle and acanthus leaves. These styles first grew popular far to the west. Scholars say this shows ideas travelled the same routes as goods [Patra, n.d., p.115].

For scholars

The date of King Kharavela’s inscription is disputed. Some scholars place him near 200 BCE. Others place him near 1 BCE. Several lines of the inscription have more than one accepted reading, including the line about Pithumda. Linking Pithumda to a town named by the Greek writer Ptolemy is a scholarly guess. It is not a settled fact [Jayaswal, 1930, p.88; Imperial Gazetteer of India (Orissa entries), n.d., p.239].

Facts

Site type
Jain rock-cut cave complex
Coordinates
20.27°, 85.78°
[Imperial Gazetteer of India (Orissa entries), n.d.]
  1. *Imperial Gazetteer of India (Orissa entries)*. n.d. public domain
Modern name
Udayagiri and Khandagiri, Bhubaneswar, Khordha district, Odisha

Key finds

  • Hathigumpha inscription of Kharavela

    A long royal record cut over a cave mouth. It names a coastal market-town, Pithumda, that Kharavela destroyed, and pearls brought from the Pandya king in the far south.

    [Jayaswal, 1930, Epigraphia Indica XX (1929-30), No. 7, lines 11 and 13; translation pp. 88-89]; [Imperial Gazetteer of India (Orissa entries), n.d., Imperial Gazetteer of India, vol. XV, p. 240]
    1. *Hathigumpha Inscription of Kharavela, Udayagiri*. ed. K. P. Jayaswal, R. D. Banerji. 1930. public domain , Epigraphia Indica XX (1929-30), No. 7, lines 11 and 13; translation pp. 88-89
    2. *Imperial Gazetteer of India (Orissa entries)*. n.d. public domain , Imperial Gazetteer of India, vol. XV, p. 240

  • West Asian and Hellenistic decorative motifs

    Honeysuckle, acanthus, stepped melons and winged animals carved in the caves - ornament borrowed from far to the west, showing ideas travelled as well as goods.

    [Patra, n.d., p. 115]
    1. Sushanta Kumar Patra, Benudhar Patra. *Archaeology and the Maritime History of Ancient Orissa*. in Orissa Historical Research Journal XLVII. n.d. , p. 115

  • Navamuni cave inscription of Uddyota Kesari

    A medieval Jain record dated in the eighteenth year of a Somavamshi king, showing monks used the caves for more than a thousand years.

    [Imperial Gazetteer of India (Orissa entries), n.d., Imperial Gazetteer of India, vol. XV, p. 240]
    1. *Imperial Gazetteer of India (Orissa entries)*. n.d. public domain , Imperial Gazetteer of India, vol. XV, p. 240
Scholar notes

The date of the Hathigumpha inscription is disputed. The Imperial Gazetteer follows the reading 'year 165 of the Maurya era = 155 BCE'; Jayaswal and Banerji place Kharavela in the first half of the 2nd century BCE (EI XX pp. 74, 77) while other editors argue for the late 1st century BCE, and several lines including the Pithumda passage have rival readings. The Imperial Gazetteer's correction is worth keeping: the caves are Jain, not Buddhist.

  1. *Imperial Gazetteer of India (Orissa entries)*. n.d. public domain , Imperial Gazetteer of India, vol. XV, pp. 239-240, 'Khandgiri' ('Hill ... situated in 20 deg 16' N. and 85 deg 47' E., about 4 miles west of Bhubaneswar ... two separate peaks, the northern one of which is called Udayagiri and the southern Khandgiri ... The caves ... were occupied by monks of the Jain sect, and not, as is usually stated, by Buddhists.')
  2. *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 (The standard edition of the inscription over the Hathi Gumpha cave. Line 11 (translation p. 88) records Kharavela ploughing down 'the market-town (?) Pithumda founded by the Ava King'; line 13 records pearls brought from the Pandya king. Read from the archive.org scan of EI XX.)
  3. Sushanta Kumar Patra, Benudhar Patra. *Archaeology and the Maritime History of Ancient Orissa*. in Orissa Historical Research Journal XLVII. n.d. , p. 115 ('A close study of the art of the Khandagiri-Udayagiri caves reveals the use of west Asian decorative elements such as honey suckle, acanthus, stepped melons and winged animals'; pilasters in the Anantagumpha have ghata bases ornamented in a Hellenistic fashion.)