The Dynasties of the Kanarese Districts of the Bombay Presidency from the Earliest Historical Times to the Musalman Conquest c8.s11.256

c8.s11.256

There is an early epigraphic reference to Lâṭa in the Mandasôr inscription of A. D. 473, where it is described as a country which was pleasing with choice trees bowed down by the weight of their flowers, and with temples and assembly-halls of the gods and vihâras or Buddhist shrines, and the mountains of which were covered over with vegetation.³ And there is also a mention of it in the Brihat-Saṁhitâ of Varâhamihira.⁴ But we know nothing as yet about its ancient history; except that the use of the Kalachuri or Chêdi era, in the Western Chalukya records from Lâṭa, shews that the province was at one time a part of the dominions of the Kalachuri kings. Maṅgalêśa must have acquired the sovereignty of it, when he overthrew the Kalachuri kings Saṁkaragaṇa and Buddha, and deprived them of their possessions on the western coast. But, as it joined in the general revolt against Pulikêśin II., he must have left it in the administrative charge of some of its native rulers. It was one of the provinces resubjugated by Pulikêśin II., before he established his supremacy over the three Mahârâshṭra countries. And he then placed the government of it in the hands of feudatory members of his own family. It is evidently one of the four provinces which in A.D. 610 or 611 were in the hands of Satyâśraya-Dhruvarâja-Indravarman. Vijayavarmarâja held it in A.D. 643. A Sêndraka prince, Pṛithivîvallabha-Nikuṁbhallaśakti, was in charge of it in A.D. 654, — apparently because of the failure of that branch of the Western Chalukya family to which Vijayavarmarâja belonged. But from A.D. 670 onwards it was again in the hands of feudatory members of the Western Chalukya stock. The original boundaries of the province must have been preserved up to A.D. 736, when there was still a Gurjara prince in possession of the next territorial division on the north. Shortly after that, however, Avanijanâśraya-Pulikêśin overthrew the invading Tâjikas, who, in the course of their invasion, had destroyed the Gurjaras. And, as we have no later records of the Gurjaras, he doubtless then annexed their territory, and practically extended the province of Lâṭa, on the north, up to the Narmadâ, or even to the Mahî. Information about the subsequent history of the province will be found under the account of the Râshṭrakûṭas of Mâlkhêḍ, in chapter III. below.