Mediaeval Temples of the Dakhan c14.7

c14.7

Places that have been mentioned as possible sites of the old capital are Thāṇa, Kalyāṇ, Supāra, Chaul, Maṅgalapurī or Māgāthān in Sālsette island, Rājapurī in the Janjira State down the coast, Purī near Bassein and Ghārāpurī on Elephanta island. As Thāṇa, Supāra and Chaul occur as separately named places in the same inscriptions with Purī they may be at once dismissed. Kalyāṇ is too far inland for a sea-girt capital.⁴ Rājapurī and Purī have no remains to indicate an ancient capital. Moreover, there would have been no occasion for Daṇḍadaṇḍa to have had recourse to his navy to attack Purī had it occupied either of these places, as they would have been more conveniently reached by land. And Ghārāpurī, upon Elephanta, in the Bombay harbour, will not do, for an exhaustive examination of the island has shewn that there could never have been any town or city of any size or importance upon it. The central portion of the island is occupied with high hills which spread themselves out towards the three corners of the island, the greatest length of which, measured from one extreme corner to the other, being less than one mile and a quarter. In the middle of the north-west and south-west sides, and along the north-eastern, the hills recede somewhat from the shore leaving three, more or less, level areas which are now occupied by rice fields and the hamlets of Shetbandar, Ghārāpurī and Moreh, respectively. But these areas, when lumped together, hardly exceed half a square mile—scarcely sufficient to accommodate a city and such forces as would require a hundred ships to attack them. From the remains upon the island, it would appear to have been always a religious settlement, first of the Buddhists, and afterwards of the Brahmanical communities. Another very serious objection, is that during the greater part of the monsoon the island is cut off to a great extent by rough seas.¹