The Dynasties of the Kanarese Districts of the Bombay Presidency from the Earliest Historical Times to the Musalman Conquest c8.s11.17

c8.s11.17

The first record, however, which gives us any broad insight into the condition of Southern India, is the Gupta inscription on the Allahâbâd pillar, which asserts that, about the middle of the fourth century A. D., the Early Gupta king Samudragupta captured, and then released again all the kings of the dakshinâpatha or region of the south, i.e. of the Dekkan, including Mahêndra of Kôsala, Vyâghrarâja of Mahâkântâra, Mantarâja of Kêrala, Mahêndra of Pishtapura, Svâmidatta of Kottûra on the hill, Damana of Eraudapalla, Vishnugôpa of Kânchî, Nîlarâja of Avâmukta or Âvamukta, Hastivarman of Vêngî, Ugrasêna of Palakka or Pâlakka, Kubêra of Dêvarâshtra, and Dhananjaya of Kusthalapura.¹ The statement that Samudragupta conquered the above-mentioned kings need not be accepted literally; especially, as it seems almost certain that the Gupta dominions were bounded on the south by the Narmadâ. Nor need we even take it as a fact that he invaded their dominions. But the list has its value, in shewing the principal and best known political divisions and reigning kings of Southern India at the time to which it belongs. Some of the above-mentioned territories and places have not yet been identified. But Kôsala was the country lying round Râypur and Sambalpur in the Central Provinces and Cuttack in Orissa. Mahâkântâra, the name of which means literally "the great forest," was perhaps the wooded hilly territory lying along the south of the Narmadâ. Kêrala was the country now known as the Malabâr District of the Madras Presidency, on the west coast. Pishtapura was the modern Pittâpuram, the chief town of a zamîndârî or estate of the same name, twelve miles north by east of Coconâda in the Gôdâvarî District, Madras Presidency. Kânchî was the modern Conjeeveram, in the Chingleput District, Madras. And Vêngî² was a country on the east coast, of which the original boundaries appear to have been, towards the west, the Eastern Ghauts, and, on the north and south, the rivers Gôdâvarî and Krishna; an indication of the position of its original capital is probably preserved in the name of Vêngi or Pedda-Vêngi, a village in the Ellore tâluka of the Gôdâvarî District.