The Dynasties of the Kanarese Districts of the Bombay Presidency from the Earliest Historical Times to the Musalman Conquest c8.s11.20

c8.s11.20

Records from the eastern coast will probably enable us hereafter to piece together the history of Southern India for the next two centuries after the date of the Gupta record. For the present, such consecutive knowledge as we have, commences from about A. D. 550, and is derived primarily from the records of the first really great dynasty of Western India, that of the Western Chalukyas of Vâtâpi, which is the modern Bâdâmi, the chief town of the Bâdâmi tâluka in the Bijâpur District.³ And the first of their records to throw any further general light on the subject of the tribal and dynastic divisions of the country, is the pillar-inscription of king Mangalêsa, from Mahâkûta near Bâdâmi,⁴ which asserts that his elder brother Kirtivarman I., who reigned from A. D. 567-68 to 597-98, conquered the hostile kings of Vanga, Anga, Kalinga, Vattura, Magadha, Madraka, Kerala, Ganga, Mushaka, Pandya, Dramila, Choliya (i. e. Chola), Aluka and Vaijayanti. Most of these names denote countries, and are well known; and some of the territories will be recognised as lying far away to the north and east: thus, Vanga and Anga were eastern and western Bengal; Magadha was Behar; and Madraka appears to have been somewhere in the north-west of the Panjab. The other names, however, all seem to belong to Southern India. Kalinga was a country on the east coast, between the rivers Godavari and Mahanadi. The Kerala, Pandya, and Chola countries have already been defined. The Ganga country was probably the Gangavadi province, in Mysore, which will be dealt with further on. Dramila was the Dravida or Dravida country of the Pallavas, on the east coast, with Kanchi, i. e. Conjeeveram, as its capital, with which, again, we shall deal further on. And, as we have already seen, Vaijayanti was Banawasi in North Kanara.¹ The Mushaka country seems, if the name may be identified with the Mushika which occurs elsewhere, to be part of the Malabar Coast, between Quilon and Cape Comorin.² Aluka is a new name; but, as it occurs as an epithet of Sesha, the chief of the serpent race, it may possibly denote a branch of the Nagas, who in early times were powerful in the more western parts of the country that became included in the Chalukya dominions.³ Vattura, also, is a new name, and is plainly a Drâviḍian word: it has not yet been identified; but, like Vaijayantî, it denotes a town or city, not a country.