Thread by @KalingaArya

Thread on maritime history of Kalinga.
People know about Chola naval supremacy in 10-11 th century. But before that Kalinga were flag bearer of hindu maritime supremacy (both military and trade) in south East Asian region and beyond. Here are some of the interesting points.

Probably first ever mainland Indians who tried to cross the sea in eastern coast were the Kalingans. They figured out the flow of wind from north to south east direction in the month of November and used their ships to travel from Odisha coast to Indonesian islands of Java 2/n

Sumatra and Bali along with countries like present day Singapore ,Malaysia, Vietnam Philippines, Sri Lanka and even China.Their influence on SEA is huge and can be felt even today as well. J Crawfurd mentions that Hindu influence in Java was entirely from Kalinga. 3/n

Similarly The Bombay gazatteer says the hindu influece in island of Sumatra was also from Kalinga as well. Various sources claim aroud 75 AD people of Kalinga started crossing the sea and reach in present day indonesian islands of Java. They also moved to Bali, Sumatra etc. 4/n

All these were called as Suvarnadvipa by them. These Kalingans were basically traders who used to sell their products there.
It is believed that during rule of Bhamukara kings around 20000 Kalingans sailed across Bay of bengal and landed in Java and settled there.5/n

According to Manjushrimulakapa the present day bay of Bengal was known as Kalinga Sagara or Kalingodra. This is because the Kalingan people were dominating the bay of Bengal trade and Kalingan Ships were huge in no. This has been validated by scholars like SN Rajguru,HS Nandi6/n

Famous Sailendra dynasty of SEA is considered to be from Sailodbhaba dynasty of Odisha by many prominent historians like RC Majumdar and others. The kings of these dynasties in their inscriptiom used to call themselves as Kalinga Aryas. My twitter handle is named on that. 7/n

There is no direct inscription of these kings mentioning themselves to be direct descendants of Sailodbhabas. However, various circumstancial evidences gives us enough reasons to belive so. Below are some points on this. 8/n

1. Sailendras brought nagari(pre) script first time in SEA.
2. They called themselves “Kalinga Aryas”
3. Java island started being called as Ho ling or keling in Chinese records during this period only.
4. They followed budhist architecturql style of odisha while building 9/n

Temples and statues of Buddha. The Buddha images of Borobudur has striking similarity with Budha image of Ratnagiri in Odisha.
5. Many Odia words do have a similarity with Indonesian languages. For ex mother is called Boo (bu) in Indonesia like Bou in Odia and father as Bopo 10/n

in Javanese) or Bapa (in Balinese as in Odia). In no indian language these terms are used.
6. Green leaf called sajana(drum-stick) is also a popular food item in Java.The sweet rice cakes of Odisha known as pitha are also prepared in the island of Java.
11/n

7. Odia script and old Javanese script are also similar.
8. Similarly name of many places in Odisha and indonesia are surprisingly similar.
9. New canal named Chandrabhaga were built by Sailendras . Mind you Chandrabhaga is a holy river in odisha near Konark temple. 12/n

As per budhist chronicles of Srilanka their earliest king was certain Vijaya who came there from Kalinga. The first King of d Maldives Sri Soorudasaruna arrived in the Maldives after the Kalinga King(his father Brahmadatta) got angry with him, and sent him off with his wife 13/n

in two boats; they had 700 soldiers. And he started ruling Maldives after that.
Similarly another Kalinga warrior named Kalinga Magha attacked and captured Lanka and ruled for some years. He was the founder of Jaffna kingdom. He was related to Eastern Ganaga dynasty. 14/n