Hathigumpha Inscription: King Kharavela of Kalinga

The Hathigumpha inscription is a seventeen-line royal record carved above a natural cave on Udayagiri hill, near Bhubaneswar in the Indian state of Odisha. Written in Prakrit in the Brahmi script, probably in the 2nd or 1st century BC, it narrates the reign of Kharavela, king of Kalinga, year by year. It is the chief source for the history of Kalinga after the Maurya conquest and one of the earliest inscriptions in India to celebrate a Jain ruler.

Kalinga after Ashoka

Kalinga, the coastal land between the Mahanadi and Godavari rivers, had been conquered by the Maurya emperor Ashoka in the bloody Kalinga War of about 261 BC. After the Maurya Empire broke up in the 2nd century BC, the region regained its independence under a dynasty that called itself Mahameghavahana or Chedi.

Kharavela was the third ruler of this line. Nothing about him survives in literature or in the records of neighbouring states, so almost everything known about him comes from this single inscription. Its title for him combines the dynastic name with the epithet Aira, often read as a claim of descent from an ancient royal lineage.

The inscription and the caves

Hathigumpha means “Elephant Cave”. The text is cut into the sloping brow of rock that forms the roof of a large natural cavern among the rock-cut shelters of Udayagiri and the neighbouring hill of Khandagiri. These caves were excavated as dwellings for Jain monks, and several still carry short donor inscriptions.

The record begins with the Jain invocation to the arhats (perfected teachers) and siddhas (liberated souls). It then follows a strict structure: Kharavela’s childhood and education, his consecration as king at the age of twenty-four, and a summary of what he did in each of the first thirteen years of his reign. Parts of the surface have flaked away, so many words are missing or uncertain.

What the inscription records

According to the text, Kharavela spent his first regnal year repairing the gates and walls of his capital, Kalinganagari, which had been damaged by a storm, and restoring its reservoirs and gardens. In the second year he sent an army westward in defiance of Satakarni, a ruler usually identified with the Satavahana dynasty of the Deccan. Other years were devoted to festivals, music and dance for the people of the capital.

In his fifth year he extended into the capital an aqueduct or canal said to have been opened by a Nanda king long before; the phrase for the interval is ambiguous and may mean 103 or 300 years. In the sixth year he granted tax remissions. In the eighth year he attacked Gorathagiri, a fortified hill in Magadha usually identified with the Barabar Hills, and pressed on Rajagriha. A damaged passage says that a Yavana (Greek) king withdrew to Mathura on hearing of the campaign.

The later years describe still larger claims. Kharavela is said to have broken a confederacy of Tamil states that had lasted 113 years, received treasure from the Pandya king in the far south, and frightened the kings of the north. In his twelfth year he is said to have humbled Bahasatimita, king of Magadha, and brought back to Kalinga an image of a Jina that a Nanda king had once carried off. In the thirteenth year he built shelters for monks on the Kumari hill, the ancient name for Udayagiri.

Key people

• Kharavela: king of Kalinga and author of the record, presented as warrior, builder, musician and protector of the Jain community.
• Satakarni: a western neighbour, probably a Satavahana king, whom Kharavela claims to have defied.
• Bahasatimita: a king of Magadha; some historians link him with Brihaspatimitra, known from coins and other inscriptions, but his identity is not settled.

Date and interpretation

The inscription’s date is one of the oldest puzzles in Indian epigraphy. Early scholars thought line 16 contained a date in a “Maurya era”, which would have placed Kharavela in the 2nd century BC with precision, but closer study showed the passage does not say this. Most historians now date the text to between the late 2nd and the 1st century BC, on the basis of its script and language and its references to Satakarni and to a Greek king in north India.

Its claims also need careful reading. Like most royal praise inscriptions, it reports victories without independent confirmation, and some campaigns may describe raids rather than lasting conquests. Even so, details such as repairs after a storm and remission of taxes give an unusually concrete picture of an early Indian kingdom.

Rediscovery and study

British officials noticed the inscription in the 1820s, and Andrew Stirling published an early account of the Udayagiri caves. James Prinsep, who deciphered the Brahmi script, attempted a reading in 1837. The Indian scholar Bhagwan Lal Indraji published an improved text in 1885, and K. P. Jayaswal and R. D. Banerji produced the standard edition in the early 20th century, published in Epigraphia Indica. Scholars continue to debate individual readings.

The caves are protected monuments managed by the Archaeological Survey of India. A shelter now covers the inscribed rock face to slow further weathering.

Timeline

• c. 261 BC: Ashoka conquers Kalinga in the Kalinga War.
• c. 2nd–1st century BC: Reign of Kharavela; the Hathigumpha inscription is carved after his thirteenth regnal year.
• 1820s: British observers record the Udayagiri caves and the inscription.
• 1837: James Prinsep publishes a first attempted reading.
• 1885: Bhagwan Lal Indraji publishes an improved text and translation.
• Early 20th century: K. P. Jayaswal and R. D. Banerji publish the standard edition in Epigraphia Indica.

Why it matters

The Hathigumpha inscription rescued an entire reign from oblivion. It shows that Kalinga rose again as a strong regional power after the Mauryas, and it is an early example of a ruler openly supporting Jainism, the religion taught by Mahavira. Its account of Satavahanas, Greeks, Magadha and the Tamil south also makes it a rare connecting thread across the political map of India in the last centuries BC.