Author(s): Kamalakanta Behera
Abstract:
This article examines the maritime contact between Kalinga and China from the early centuries of the Common Era to the thirteenth-century Song trade notices, drawing on Chinese pilgrim travelogues, dynastic and commercial compendia, Indian epigraphic scholarship, and the excavated ceramic and numismatic record of the Kalingan coast. It traces the Chinese rendering of the name Kalinga as Ho-ling and Kia-ling, situates Tamralipti, Palur, and Manikapatna (Che-li-ta-lo) against Canton as the twin anchors of the exchange, and reconstructs the sea routes recorded in the Han Shu and travelled by Fa-Hien, Hiuen Tsang, and I-Tsing. Particular attention is given to the eighth-century Buddhist embassies of Subhakarasimha and Prajna, to the Chu-fan-chi's account of self-governing Kia-ling shipping at Canton, and to the corroborating archaeological evidence from Khalkatapatna, Manikapatna, and Lalitgiri. Building on this evidence, the article argues against the Indianisation or colonisation model of Kalinga's overseas contacts and advances instead a theory of reciprocity, in which Kalinga and China figure as two independent civilisational centres engaged in a sustained, mutually initiated, and mutually beneficial maritime relationship.
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