Heritage

The Mahabharata preserves Odra primarily as the name of a recognised people, the Odras or Audras, rather than giving us a long description of a clearly bounded kingdom. One of the most revealing references appears in connection with Yudhishthira’s Rajasuya sacrifice at Indraprastha. When the splendour of that imperial gathering is remembered, rulers and peoples from across Bharata are described as having assembled there, including the Vangas, Angas, Paundras and Odras.

The Bhishma Parva contains one of the great geographical catalogues of the Mahabharata. As the regions and peoples of Bharatavarsha are enumerated, the text names the Dasharnas, Mekalas and Utkalas in succession. Elsewhere in the same catalogue appear Kalinga, Anga, Vanga, Andhra, Pundra, Tamralipta and numerous other eastern and southern peoples. Utkala therefore belonged firmly within the epic’s mental map of India.

The Mahabharata does not treat Kalinga as an obscure territory at the edge of the known world. It repeatedly names the Kalingas among the established peoples and kingdoms of Bharata, places Kalinga within important eastern political networks, describes its rulers participating in great royal gatherings and, eventually, portrays its army fighting with formidable strength on the field of Kurukshetra. Kalinga was therefore part of the epic’s political geography as a recognisable and important eastern realm.

Other geographical traditions identified the Mahishakas with southern Mysore, broadly corresponding to the upper Kaveri country of modern Karnataka. The Mahabharata’s own placement of the Mahishakas among explicitly southern peoples provides strong support for treating a southern Mahishaka as a distinct geographical possibility.

. Archaeological and epigraphic evidence therefore demonstrates the antiquity of Banavasi as a major settlement, although the later historical city and kingdom should not automatically be projected unchanged into the epic age. Modern Karnataka Tourism describes Banavasi as one of Karnataka’s oldest towns and the historic capital of the Kadambas.

The Mahabharata explicitly remembers the Kuntalas among the peoples of Bharatavarsha. In one of the geographical descriptions of the Bhishma Parva, the Kuntalas occur among the peoples and provinces of ancient India, while another passage places them specifically among the kingdoms of the south alongside the Dravidas, Keralas, Vanavashikas, Karanatakas and other southern peoples. This provides an important textual basis for associating the principal Kuntala country with the Deccan.

Ashmaka is particularly valuable it preserves a royal origin tradition for Ashmaka, associates the ruler with the foundation of Paudanya, includes the Ashmakas within the geographical catalogue of Bharat, and records Ashmaka warriors on the Pandava side during the Kurukshetra War.

The Maharashtra State Gazetteer identifies ancient Vidarbha with the old Berar region together with the eastern districts around Wardha, Nagpur, Chandrapur and Bhandara. It also describes Vidarbha as one of the oldest recorded geographical names associated with Maharashtra.