Jaleswar: There is a school of thought that the Bay of Bengal was known as Kalinga Sagar earlier, which is unknown to most of us. Some historians argue that the name Kalinga Sagar was tactically renamed as Bay of Bengal during the British rule.
Interestingly, nearly 480 km-long coastline of Bay of Bengal is in Odisha; whereas, about 374 km of its coastline belongs to West Bengal. In this connection, eminent scholar and historian late Himanshu Sekhar Nandi had conducted an in-depth research and shown that the actual ancient name of Bay of Bengal was Kalinga Sagar or Kalinga Udadhi or Kalingedro.
Similarly, renowned writer Chakradhar Mohapatra has given many hints in support of this in his literary work Swasita. There is also an elaborate description of Kalinga Sagar in ancient Buddhist literature written during the 7th-8th century AD.
Evidently, a map of the ancient India published in the first section of History of Bengal, a Trikalinga map in the book named History of Orissa written by R.D. Banerjee and also in a map of ancient Orissa which was published during the reign of Mughals after settlement in 1575 AD, there is a mention of Kalinga Mahodadhi.
Moreover, the famous historian Satyanarayan Rajguru has hinted that, a map of ancient Orissa showing the kingdom of great Kalinga ruler Kharavela has a mention of the Kalinga Sagar as Kalingodadhi.
Many renowned historians and eminent scholars have also argued that in the ancient maps of Dandabhakti, Uttara Toshali, Trikalinga, Kalinga and Utkala there is no mention of Bay of Bengal anywhere. Similarly, the intellectuals of contemporary times have also called for a detailed and further research in this regard.
Worthy to note, in the Middle Ages, during the rule of Narasingha Dev, foreign traders had come to Orissa for business purposes and with ulterior motives, prior to which they had already strengthened their position in the Bengal province.
However, during the British rule, it is said, the name Kalinga Sagar was changed to Bay of Bengal. After the Independence, we are still having border disputes with many of the neighbouring states. More precisely, the border dispute with West Bengal pertaining to Udayapur coastline of Bhogarai block in Balasore district is worsening.
PNN