The Dynasties of the Kanarese Districts of the Bombay Presidency from the Earliest Historical Times to the Musalman Conquest c7.s4.2

c7.s4.2

THE earliest certain mention of the country now called the Konkan is in the geography of Ptolemy about A.D. 150, and in the Greek work called "The Periplus of the Erythræan Sea," the authorship of which is uncertain, and the date variously calculated from A.D. 66 to A.D. 240. Ptolemy makes of this part of the coast two provinces, Larika (Sk. Lâtaka or Lâtadesh¹) which is identified with Gujarát and part of the North Konkan, and Ariaka which includes the rest of the Konkan.² The author of the Periplus does not mention Larika, but applies the name of Barugaza or Broach to this province as well as to the port of Broach, and states that Ariaka included "the land of the pirates."³ This is the first mention of the pirates, who down to the present century were the terror of the coast between Bombay and Goa. With reference to them Rennell about 1780 wrote: "Few countries with so straight a general outline are so much broken into bays and harbours. The multitude of shallow ports, an uninterrupted view along the shore, and an elevated coast favourable to distant vision, have always fitted this tract of country for piracy. The land and sea breezes blow alternately and divide the day, so that vessels sailing along the coast are obliged to keep within sight of land."⁴ The pirates of Suvarnadurg are also mentioned by Strabo.⁵ Vincent in collating the various descriptions of the coast assigns to Ariaka the limits from Goa to the Tápti, and of course includes in this the land of the pirates, and he considers that as the province can thus be identified with tolerable certainty, it is of little use to try to ascertain the exact position of the different ports named, most of which were places of only local trade.⁶ The two identifications, however, which he makes without any doubt are Kalyán (Kalliéna) and the Vengurla rocks, the first a port which was already decayed in the time of the Periplus, as Sandanes the king admitted no Egyptian vessels, and if any entered the harbour by accident or stress of weather he compelled them to go to Broach. The Vengurla rocks are mentioned as islands off the southern extremity of Ariaka and called Sesekrienai.⁷ The ports given both by Ptolemy and in the Periplus between Broach and these islands are Oopára or Sopára near Bassein where interesting Buddhist remains of about A.D. 50 were discovered in 1882,⁸ Semulla, Mandagora, Palaipotamai (Balapatna in Ptolemy), Melizigara, and Toparon