The Dynasties of the Kanarese Districts of the Bombay Presidency from the Earliest Historical Times to the Musalman Conquest c7.s6.3

c7.s6.3

It was about the same time, namely A.D. 1294, that the first Musalmán army of the Dakhan arrived before Devgiri or Daulatabad, and they then found outside the walls a number of bags of salt which had just been brought from the Konkan,¹ and had probably come by the Nána Ghát. Salt is still the chief article carried from the Konkan to the Dakhan, the Nána Ghát being, it is said, the most ancient road from Devgiri to the coast, and having at the top the oldest inscription yet found on this side of India. The first direct mention of the extension of the Muhammadan power to this coast is in 1312, when Malik Káfur, who commanded the fourth great expedition into the Dakhan, laid waste the countries of Maháráshtra and Kánara from Dábhol and Cheul to Raichor and Modkal.² In 1318, after the reduction of Devgiri and the death of Harpáldev, son-in-law of the Rája, the Emperor Mubárik I. ordered his garrisons to be extended³ as far as the sea, and occupied Máhim and Sálsette.⁴ It was soon after this that the Friar Odoricus wrote of this part: "Over all this land the Saracens rule, but the people of the country are idolators, worshipping fire, serpents, and trees."⁵ Until the Musalmán occupation the Devgir kingdom is said to have included the Konkan north of the Sávitri and Bijnagar the part south of it,⁶ the northern division being divided into the *pránts* or districts of Vasai (Bassein), Kalyán, Karnála, Chaul, and Rájápur, and the southern division into those of Dábhol, Rájápur, and Kudál.⁷ When in 1347 the first Báhmani king established his independence