oDDiyAna

[N. Ganesan]

  S. Hodge wrote:
  >Orissa itself was a very important Buddhist region until the
  >9th cenrury -- possibly the true location of "Oddiyana".

oDDiyAna: A new interpretation, p. 491-514,
L. Sternbach felicitation volume, 1979.
The author, Lokesh Chandra is the well known scholar of Buddhism.

p. 491
" oDDiyAna played a pivotol role in the development, redaction and
dissemination of the Tantras. It was the center whence the Tantras
originated. According to Bu-ston it was at oDDiyAna that VajrapaNi
collected "endless revelations of VajrayAna" and gave them to
IndrabhUti. GuhyasamAja, the culmination of Tantric thought,
was also revealed to IndhrabhUti in ODDiyAna. [...] The GuhyasamAja
was commented upon by CandrakIrti who was a  follower of the Tantric
Nagarjuna who was born at Kanci and whom the texts call Kancannara
(sic, Tucci 1949: 1.214). The explicit reference to Kanci holds
the key to the identification of ODDiyAna. It is significant that
IndrabhUti was an incarnation of VajrapANi, who was the presiding
deity of MaGgakoSTha situated in ODDiyAna, or modern
EkAmrezvara at Kanci.

  It was from oDDiyAna that Padmasambhava went to Tibet and firmly
laid the foundation of VajrayAna in the Land of Snows.

  Hence the present multidimensional approach to a fresh consideration
of the geographic location of oDDiyAna, the heart land of
VajrayAna."


p. 492
"  1.3 When ODDiyAna was identified with UdyAna, South India had
not come to oocupy a place of relevance in the evolution of Buddhism,
and as such how could it strike any investigator that ODDiyAna
could have a South Indian derivation? It was beyond speculation that
it could be a Tamil word. As it will be clear in sequence, oDDiyAna
in Tamil means 'girdle' like its Sanskrit counterpart kAJci.
In fact, ODDiyAna is KAnci. Kanci was one of the seven great cultural
metropolis of India and the glorious capital of the Pallavas, who
played a major role in the diffusion of VajrayAna to lands beyond
the seas. The South Indian places of Sriparvata, DhAnyakaTaka,
Potalaka and ODDiyAna were some of the foremost creative centers
of MantrayAna, especially, of systems centring around Vairocana namely
the (i) Avatamsaka sUtras (ii) caryA tantras and (iii) yoga tantras
- in all the three the Cosmic Buddha was Vairocana with varying
iconographic attributes. It is not surprising that the land par
excellence of VajrayAna in the Tibetan tradition, should be
ODDiyAna = Kanci."

p. 495
"  2.5 Burrow and Emeneau give the following morphological variations
of the lexeme in different South Indian languages: "810 Ta.
oTTiyANam gold or silver girdle or belt worn by women. Ma. uTaJJAN
gold chain round the loins. Ka. oDyANa, oDDyANa,oDDana, oDDavAna,
oDDivANa, oDvANa belt of gold or silver chiefly worn by women.
Tu. oDyaNe, oDyANa belt or girdle made of gold and generally worn
by a devil-dancer. Te. oDDANamu belt of gold or silver worn by women.

   2.6 All the morphological variations noted above from Indian
and Tibetan sources, can be traced back to South Indian languages,
thus proving that oDDiyAna is the Tamil equivalent of KAnci, both
meaning a 'girdle'.

[...]

   3.1 The presence of DraviDa expressions in the dhAraNIs is explicitly
pointed out by several Buddhist texts, [5] .... "

[5] F. Bernhard, 1967, ZDMG, 117, p. 148-168

p. 511
" 7. CONCLUSION
  The evidence of different Buddhist traditions points to the origin
of PAramitAyAna and MantrayAna in the South and its spread thence to
other regions of India. The linguistic evidence of the word
ODDiyAna itself, the presence of South Indian vocables in dhAraNIs,
the unanimous traditions about the origination of tantras in various
places of Southern India, and the fact that Kanci was a cradle of
Buddhism as well as a centre for the dissemination of VajrayAna
to East Asia: all converge to the conclusion that ODDiyAna is
Kanci."




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