The Dynasties of the Kanarese Districts of the Bombay Presidency from the Earliest Historical Times to the Musalman Conquest c8.s11.172

c8.s11.172

But we are concerned here with another dynasty,—doubtless a branch of the same original stock,—which, for the sake of convenience, may be called the dynasty of the Western Gangas or the Gangas of Gangavâdi, and the possessions of which, usually spoken of as the Gangavâdi ninety-six thousand,—meaning "the Gangavâdi country, consisting of ninety-six thousand cities, towns, and villages,"²—lay principally in what is now the territory of Mysore. In the Tamil inscriptions from the east coast, the name of this country appears as Gangapâdi.³ And the boundaries of it seem to be defined in a record of A. D. 1117 at Bêlûr, in Mysore,⁴ which says that the Hoysala prince Vishnuvardhana,—mentioned in the same record as having acquired Talakâd and the Ganga dominions, and elsewhere as ruling the Gangavâdi ninety-six-thousand,—was then ruling, at Vêlâpura, i. e. Bêlûr, all the territory included between the lower ghaut of Nangali on the east, Kongu, Chêra, and Anamale on the south, the Bârakanûr pass through the ghauts to the Konkan on the west, and Sâvimale on the north: of these places, Naṅgali is in the Mulbâgal tâluka of the Kôlâr District, Mysore; Anamale is evidently Anamalai in the Coimbatore District, Madras Presidency; and Bârakanûr is doubtless the mediæval Barkalûr, now ruined, in the South Kanara District of the same Presidency.¹ The capital of the Western Gangas appears to have always been Talekkâḍ or Taḷakâḍ, — called in Sanskrit Talavanapura, which still exists, under the name of Taḷakâḍ, on the left bank of the river Kâvêrî, about twenty-eight miles to the south-east of the city of Mysore.² Their crest was the madagajêndra-lâñchhana, or crest of a lordly elephant in rut; it stands at the top of two inscribed stones at Kiggatnâḍu in Coorg,³ and on the seals of the spurious copper-plate charters referred to further on. Their banner was the piñchha-dhvaja, or banner of a bunch of feathers.⁴ And they had the