The Dynasties of the Kanarese Districts of the Bombay Presidency from the Earliest Historical Times to the Musalman Conquest c8.s11.25

c8.s11.25

³ In the part of the country with which we are dealing, there are many place-names which, in my opinion, give reminiscences,—especially when the first component of the name, is not naga, but nagara,—of the Naga race. Among them, is particularly noteworthy the Nagarakhanda or (territorial) section of the Nagas, which was a division of the Banawasi province (Ind. Ant. Vol. XIX. p. 144), and in inscriptions of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries A. D. is mentioned as a kampana, or small district, containing seventy villages: it was situated just to the south of Adur in the Hangal taluka, Dharwar District, on the other side of the river Warda, and included Tilawalli in the Hangal taluka, and Yanniganur in the Kol taluka (Carn.-Desa Insors. Vol. I. p. 818; and P. S. and O.-C. Insers. No. 112); and in the Balagamve inscription of Vinayaditya (A. D. 680 to 696) it is mentioned by the Prakrit name of Nayarkhanda, and as forming part of the government of the Sendraka chieftain Pogilli. The Nagarakhanda is spoken of by Bilhana (Vikramankadevacharita, i. 68); and, telling us that, when they left Ayodhya, the conquests of the Chalukyas "in the southern region, where the betel-tree grows," extended as far as Nagarakhanda, he seems to wish to connect the name with the word naga in the sense of 'the betel-plant.' Also, an indication in the same direction is given in a Harihar inscription (P. S. and O.-C. Insers., No. 120), which says that the Nagarakhanda "was ever bright with groves of punnaga-trees, of naga- and champaka-trees, and of naga-creepers." But the first component of the name, nagara, being the Kanarese genitive plural masculine, points distinctly to its denoting the territory of the Naga people.—The Nagas evidently had, as their crest or token, the naga or cobra capella, which, it may be mentioned, is called in Kanarese, not naga-havu, 'the cobra-snake,' but nagara-havu, 'the snake of the Nagas.' With the exception of the present instance, they do not seem to appear in the local inscriptions, under the name of Nagas, till we come to the time of the Sindas of Yelburga (chapter VIII. below), some of whose records allot them to the Naga race. But the Sendrakas and the Alupas may possibly have been Nagas.—The Nagas figure prominently in the early history of Kashtmir, as given in the Rajatarangini, in the Early Gupta period, we have the Mahardja Mahesvaranaga, son of Nagabhatta, who is presumably to be allotted to a Naga family or tribe (Gupta Inscriptions, p. 283); other chiefs of the race are probably found in the Ganapatinaga, Nagadatta, and Nagasena, who were conquered by Samudragupta (id. pp. 12, 13); and an allusion to a defeat of the Nagas by Skandagupta is possibly given in the Junagadh inscription (id. p. 62). Also,