Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency, Vol. I, Part I: History of Gujarat c8.61

c8.61

It seems doubtful whether the Kanarese Raṭṭas the Belgaum Raṭṭa and the Telugu Raṭṭas could have been Mahārāṭhīs in the ninth century. The widespread Raṭṭa tribe from whom (1890) Sir’s Encyclopedia of India, III. 459 to Rajamandri about thirty miles from the mouth of the Godavari. A tradition of a northern origin prevails among some of the Raṭṭas. The Tont-arya Raṭṭas (Madras J. Lit. and Science, 1888, page 156 note 90) call themselves Āndra Raṭṭas and assert that Delhi is the native country of their tribe. The late Sir George Campbell (J. A. Soc. Ben. Part II. 320) has recorded the notable fact that the fine handsome Raṭṭas of the north of the Dakhan country are like the Jāts. With this personal resemblance may be compared the Raṭṭa custom of polyandry (Balfour’s Encyclopedia, III. 250) in accordance with which the wife of the eldest brother is common to the adult males of the family, a practice which receives further support from Mr. Elphinstone in Indian Ant. VII. 30 and Dr. Muir in Ditto VI. 318) both of whom trace the northern or Scythian conquerors of Upper India during the early centuries of the Christian era as a northern Raṭṭa element later than Asoka’s Rāshṭikas the following may also be noted. That the Kushāns or Kushāras seem to which the great northern conquerors Kanishka and his kin belonged should disappear from the Dakhan seems unlikely. Kanishka’s Mahābhārata (Ind. Ant. XV. 47, quoted in Wilson’s Works VI. 178) for Kanishka as the Kushān conqueror and Nahapāna’s conquest of the Dakhan and that the name of the holy place on the Krishna and Godavari to give it a resemblance to the name of the conqueror’s tribe. That, perhaps after their overthrow by Gautamiputra Sātakarṇi (A.D. 140), the Kushāras may have established a local ruling at Banavāsi at the meeting of the Krishṇa and the Panchgangā may be the explanation why A.D. 874, centuries after Mangalesha or Mākhet had become their capital, the Rāshṭrakūṭas inscribe should record for themselves as Karṇāṭakas, which, though this is doubtful, may the Kushāras. The parallel case of the Khazars or Khasas the Pallavas who passed across the north of India and by intermarriage have in the Pallas assumed the characteristics of a northern tribe gives some probability to the existence of a northern Kushāra or Raṭṭa element in the southern Rāshṭrakūṭas and Raṭṭas which the facts at present available would not otherwise justify.