Many times, we get to read or hear that Kalinga, at the time of Ashok's attack on it, was a republic state. I too have come across such claims many times, but never was it accompanied with a source to that information. So how can we determine if it was indeed a republic or was a usual kingdom?
The first place one can think of, to find evidence about the ruler of a region for a particular period, is coinage. A major group of historic coins had figure or face of their ruler minted on their coins. If we could find Kalingan coinage from that period, it would help us immensely in determining the answer to this question. But such coins for the period in consideration and in the Kalinga region are very rare. And the ones that are available don't have clear markings on them. They are definitely not features of a king but could be symbols of the dynasty ruling at the time. I personally could not find much material related to this. I request the readers to update us if you can find any such information.
Ashokan Edicts does not mention any king or dynasty in his edicts while talking about the Kaling war, the massacre it led to and the transformation it brought about in him. Some scholars consider this as proof that there was no king at the time. But one can hardly be sure about it.
One name appears regarding such king that is Ananta Padmanabha. Even the Wikipedia page has this name written in information about the war, but it does not provide any source to where the name came from (almost always Wikipedia provides such source). Again, if you guys know any authentic source for this, do let us know.
So ultimately it comes down to speculations about the administration of the region at the time.
What we surely know about the region is that the region was under kingship during Nanda rule and after the war with Ashok. And we have concrete evidence for that. From Ashokan edicts, we know that the region came under him post the war - which is approximately 261 BCE (Ashok states that it happened in the 8th year of his rule, and the beginning of his rule is speculated to be 269 BCE, based in Buddhist texts). We also know from Hathigumpha inscription that it was under Nandas some years before it was inscribed (inscription are date around 1st century BCE). Nandas were defeated in ~322 BCE when Chandragupt took over, and it could be the instability in the Magadh Empire that this overthrow could have followed, that the Kalingans took advantage of, and gained independence. Megasthenes in Indica describes Kalinga as a separate region (not under Mauryan) and that their 'king' had a large force - "The royal city of the Calingae is called Parthalis. Over their king 60,000 foot-soldiers, 1,000 horsemen, 700 elephants keep watch and ward in 'procinct of war'".
So we can definitely say that Kaling was an independent state for maybe about a century. We also know that Kaling has historically been a huge region. Even in Indica, Megasthenes describes the extent of the region. Megasthenes mentioning 'king' of Kaling does tilt the balance towards saying that Kaling was not a republic, but it's not concrete. Megasthenes' some statements also render his accounts as not 100% reliable (though they still are invaluably important). Thus we should take our investigation further in this direction
In next part of this article, we will see how were the typical characteristics of a republic of that time and see if Kalinga exhibits any of those.
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