Pithunda was a port in the ancient kingdom of Kalinga on the eastern coast of India. Pithunda, or Prithuda was the capital of an old kingdom. The region was situated adjacent to another kingdom, which is located in Bandar taluk, now the modern

Krishna district Krishna district is district in the coastal Andhra Region in Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, with Machilipatnam as its administrative headquarters. It is the coastal district of Andhra Pradesh. Machilipatnam is the most populated city in the di ...

of Andhra Pradesh, not far from Masulipatam. Sylvain Levi considers that Pithunda was located to the south of Palur near Chicacola (

Srikakulam Srikakulam is a city and the headquarters of Srikakulam district in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. census,. it has a population of 165,735. There are many other places of Buddhist Tourism such as Salihundam, Kalinga Patnam, Dabbaka Vaa ...

in Andhra Pradesh) and Kalingapatanam. Pithunda is described in the Jain text ''Uttaradhyana Sutra'' as an important center at the time of

Mahavira Mahavira (Sanskrit: महावीर) also known as Vardhaman, was the 24th ''tirthankara'' (supreme preacher) of Jainism. He was the spiritual successor of the 23rd ''tirthankara'' Parshvanatha. Mahavira was born in the early part of the 6t ...

(599 – 527 BC), and was frequented by merchants from

Champa Champa (Cham: ꨌꩌꨛꨩ; km, ចាម្ប៉ា; vi, Chiêm Thành or ) were a collection of independent Cham polities that extended across the coast of what is contemporary central and southern Vietnam from approximately the 2nd cen ...

(now Vietnam). The Hathigumpha inscription says that Kharavela (c. 209 – 170 BC) conquered the city in his 11th regnal year. This occurred during a war between Kalinga and the

Tamil Tamil may refer to: * Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia ** Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia * Tamil language, nati ...

confederacy to the south. After defeating the city, Kharavela is said to have ploughed it using a plough yoked to asses. Pithunda was called Pithundra in the ''Peripus'' and the ''Geography'' of Ptolemy (c. 90 – 168 AD).

References

{{reflist, 1, refs= {{cite web , url=http://www.orissa.gov.in/e-magazine/Orissareview/2009/July/engpdf/62-64.pdf , title=Maritime Heritage of Orissa , author=Balabhadra Ghadai , work=Orissa Review , date=July 2009 , accessdate=2010-11-25 {{cite book , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OswUZtL1_CUC&pg=PA68 , page=68 , title=Vakataka - Gupta Age Circa 200-550 A.D. , author=Ramesh Chandra Majumdar, Anant Sadashiv Altekar , publisher=Motilal Banarsidass , year=1986 , isbn=81-208-0026-5 {{cite book , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1AA9W9_4Z9gC&pg=PA131 , page=131 , title=Economic history of Orissa , author=Nihar Ranjan Patnaik , publisher=Indus Publishing , year=1997 , isbn=81-7387-075-6 {{cite book , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-5irrXX0apQC&pg=PA212 , page=212 , title=Early India: From the Origins to AD 1300 , author=Romila Thapar , publisher=University of California Press , year=2004 , isbn=0-520-24225-4 Maritime history of India