Jaugada

The rock inscription Jaugada is an important urban center of ancient Odisha. It is situated near village Pandia on the northern bank of the Rushikulya River. It is at a distance of about 30 km from Berhampur and 5 km from Purushottampur, the nearby town. The place is of great historical importance as one of the famous rock edicts of Ashoka, the great Maurya is located here. Jaugada stands as the symbol of all the historical heritage connected with the Rushikulya Valley Civilization. Jaugada, the composition of two words i.e. Jau for lac and gada implies fort or fort town. Hence, Jaugada denotes Lac fort.

Images From Jaugada

Death and devastation ( horrifying casualties ) of the Kalinga war filled the heart of Ashoka with remorse and regret so much so that he became a pacifist and ultimately converted to Buddhism. Henceforth, he replaced himself as Chandashoko to Dharmasoko. Tosali near Bhubaneswar and Samapa in the Ganjam district respectively became the provincial capital and subsidiary headquarters of Kalinga province under Ashoka. At Jaugada like Dhauli we find a Major Rock Edict of emperor Ashoka. It seems that Ashoka perhaps has deliberately done this in order not to further hurt the grief-striken sentiment of the people of Kalinga.

The Jaugada inscription is engraved on three different tablets on three vertical face of a picturesque granite rock of the Khapingala hills. It is inscribed in Prakrit language and Brahmi script. The two special Rock Edicts were inscribed in the form of instructions to the Mahamatras to be impartial and conciliatory to the people, and promulgated the principles on which Ashoka sought to base the administration of Kalinga and its bordering tribes. The separate Kalinga Edicts, infact, are meant for the people of Kalinga and are not found elsewhere. In the separate Kalinga Edicts6 Ashoka also enunciated his famous doctrine of administration i.e. “All men are my children. As I desire for my children that they all should enjoy bliss and happiness in this world and next, the same I desire also for all my men”. The separate Rock Edicts added to the Jaugada inscription are specifically addressed to the Mahamatras of Samapa. Samapa and Jaugada are not two different places but two names of the same place. It is plausible that Samapa was the city and the fort of Jaugada.

To sum up we can say that Jaugada was an important flourishing fort town of ancient Orissa. It stands as a mute witness to the life and culture of the people connected with the Rushikulya Valley civilization. Due to its strategic location and importance Ashoka might have constructed this for better administration of the southern part of Kalinga.

Myths

Jaugada or the lac fort was constructed by Duryodhana, the eldest of the Kaurava brothers of the Mahabharata with an ill intention to kill the Pandava brothers. It is pertinent to mention that the five stone images worshipped as five Pandava brothers in the Gupteswara temple near Jaugada suggest to the fact that the lac fort was built for pancha Pandavas. But in the lack of historical evidence, and without any authentic corroboration it is very difficult, rather injudicious to assign the antiquity of Jaugada to the time of the Mahabharata. J.D. Beglar,3 the famous archaeologist who visited Jaugada in 1874 AD has said that the original name of the place was ‘Jagata’ from which it was known as Jaugada or the lac fort.