In the 20th century, a number of scholars identified the Pushpagiri mentioned in Xuanzang's records with various sites in present-day Odisha. Ramaprasad Chanda (1930) of the Archaeological Survey of India believed that either Udayagiri or Lalitgiri could be the historical Pushpagiri. Based on archaeological finds, K. C. Panigrahi (1961) hypothesized that Udayagiri, Lalitgiri and Ratnagiri formed a common complex, which was called Pushpagiri. As the crow flies, Ratnagiri and Udaygiri are about apart, and both about from Lalitgiri. N. K. Sahu (1958) placed Pushpagiri somewhere in the Phulbani- Ghumsur region, based on geographical descriptions in Xuanzang's works.