Calingae

"Women who bear children at age five" (Calingae[lower-alpha 1]).
—ca. 1308-1312, from Thomas de Kent's Alexander romance,held by Bibliothèque nationale de France.

The Calingae or Calingi, according to ancient accounts, were a race of extremely short-lived people in India. According to Pliny the Elder they had a lifespan of only eight years. This has been viewed as exaggeration, akin to Pliny's report that the Mandi people of India bear children at age seven.[1]

The Calingae were widely diffused over a large area according to Pliny,[lower-alpha 2][3][4] and consisted of the Calingae proper, the Gangarides-Calingae and the Macco-Calingae. This may have been a reference to the Tri-kalinga ("Three Kalingas") that appeared in the Puranas[lower-alpha 3][5] The area of diffusion is thought to roughly coincide with the Northern Circars (now spanning the states of Andhra Pradesh and Orissa).[4] Their chief cities were Dandagula (Dandaguda) and Parthalis (Protalis).[6][4]

Explanatory notes

  1. ↑ Text does not explicitly refer to them as the Calingae, but identified as "Calinge" by mandragore, manuscript image database of Bibliothèque nationale de France.
  2. ↑ Pliny borrowed (or quoted) his account of India in Book VI.21–23 from Megasthenes.[2]
  3. ↑ Alexander Cunningham had made this observation.

References

Citations
  1. ↑ Pliny, Hist. Nat. VI, 2 (Pliny, Bostock & Riley (tr.) 1855, p. 134 and note 98)
  2. ↑ McCrindle (1901), pp. 112–113.
  3. ↑ Pliny, Bostock & Riley (tr.) (1855), p. 44 note 50.
  4. 1 2 3
  5. ↑ Caldwell, Robert (1913), A Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian Or South-Indian Family of Languages, Asian Educational Services, p. 29
  6. ↑ Pliny, Hist. Nat. VI, 21–22 (Pliny, Bostock & Riley (tr.) 1855, pp. 42–43 and note 43, 44 and note 50)
Bibliography


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