Kalinga (India) - Rise of Kharavela

Rise of Kharavela

Kharavela was the warrior emperor of Kalinga. He was responsible for the propagation of Jainism in the Indian Subcontinent but his importance is neglected in many accounts of Indian history. According to the Hathigumpha inscription near Bhubaneswar, Orissa, he attacked Rajagriha in Magadha, thus inducing the Indo-Greek king Demetrius to retreat to Mathura. But this inscription doesn't mean that he merged Magadha in Kalinga. But this shows his strong ties with the Shunga ruler Pushyamitra and Agnimitra who have just started their rule after uprooting the Mauryans.

The Kharavelan Jain empire had a formidable maritime empire with trading routes linking it to Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Borneo, Bali, Sumatra and Java. Colonists from Kalinga settled in Sri Lanka, Burma, as well as the Maldives and Malay Archipelago.

Read more about this topic:  Kalinga (India)

Famous quotes containing the word rise:

    Even to this day it is easier than it ought to be for me to get a rise out of an American by telling him something about himself which is equally true about every human being on the face of the globe. He at once resents this as a disparagement and an assertion on my part that people in other parts of the globe are not like that, and are loftily superior to such weaknesses.
    George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)