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,[b][3] 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.[c][4] The area of diffusion is thought to roughly coincide with the
Northern Circars (now spanning the states of
Andhra Pradesh and
Odisha). Their chief cities were Dandagula (Dandaguda) and Parthalis (Protalis).[5] According to political scientist Sudama Misra, the Kalinga
janapada originally comprised the area covered by the
Puri and
Ganjam districts.[6]
^Text does not explicitly refer to them as the Calingae, but identified as "Calinge" by
Mandragore, manuscript image database of Bibliothèque nationale de France.
^Pliny borrowed (or quoted) his account of India in Book VI.21–23 from
Megasthenes.[2]