Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency, Vol. I, Part I: History of Gujarat c19.s2.t1.76

c19.s2.t1.76

Al Masûdi correctly describes the position of Mâlkhet as eighty Sindh or eight-mile farsakhs that is six hundred and forty miles from the sea in a mountainous country. Again he notices that the language spoken in Mânkir was Kiriya,⁶ called from Karuh or Kanara the district where it was spoken. The current coin was the Tartariyeh dirham (each weighing a dirham and a half)⁷ on which was impressed the date of the ruler's reign. He describes the country of the Balhâras as stretching from the Kamkar (or Konkan) in the south or south-west north to the frontiers of the king of Juzr (Gujarât), "a monarch rich in men horses and camels." Al Istakhri (A.D. 951) describes Mânkir as the dwelling of the wide-ruling Balhâra. Ibni Haukal (A.D. 968-976) repeats almost to the letter the information given by Al Istakhri. The destruction of Mâlkhet (Mânya Kheta) by the western Châlukya king Tailappa in A.D. 972 explains why none of the writers after Ibni Haukal mentions Mânkir.