History of Sambalpur

Sambalpur (ସମ୍ବଲପୁର) is a district of Odisha. Sambalpur city is the headquarter of Sambalpur district. Sambalpur is the cultural capital of Western Odisha.

Sambalpur derives its name from that of the Goddess Samalei who is regarded as the reigning deity of the region. In history, it has also been known as 'Sambalaka'.

The region in which Sambalpur city is located was also known as Hirakhanda from ancient times. Ptolemy has described the place as "Sambalak". According to Tavernir, the French traveller, and Edward Gibbon, the English historian, diamonds were exported to Rome from Sambalpur.

The history of Sambalpur, as depicted by eminent historians, is full of events including Indian freedom struggle representing the different sections of society. Since Sambalpur is one of the ancient district of India, which survived even in the prehistoric age, much of the historical records about the origin and the existence of Sambalpur in the political scenario of Odisha are still in obscurity.

Sambalpur is mentioned in the book of Ptolemy (Claudius Ptolemaeus) as Sambalaka on the left bank of river "Manada", now known as Mahanadi, other evidence are available from the records of Xuanzang, and in the writings of the celebrated King Indrabhuti of Sambalaka of Odra Desha or Oddiyan (oldest known king of Sambalpur), the founder of Vajrayana Buddhism and Lamaism. He has written the book Jñānasiddhi. Simhadeba (1987: p. 317) affirms that the first record of Jagannatha in literature is by the Mahasiddha Indrabhuti, the Vajrayanaadept of Buddhadharma, in his famed work, the Jnana Siddhi (Sanskrit: ज्ञानसिद्धिर्नामसाधनम्; IAST: jñānasiddhirnāmasādhanam; Tibetan: ཡེ་ཤེས་གྲུབ་པ་ཞེས་བྱ་བའི་སྒྲུབ་པའི་ཐབས, Wylie: ye shes grub pa zhes bya ba'i sgrub pa'i thabs which is T2219 of the Tibetan Tengyur):

...
Wikipedia