The Dynasties of the Kanarese Districts of the Bombay Presidency from the Earliest Historical Times to the Musalman Conquest c8.s11.36

Language: English

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Koṅkaṇas.—The term Koṅkaṇ, though used in the Bombay Presidency in a more restricted sense, denotes properly the whole strip of land lying between the Western Ghauts and the Arabian Sea. The Western Ghauts commence at the valley of the Tapti in Gujarât. From one point of view, they end at Pâlghât, at the south of the Malabâr District, Madras Presidency. But, from another point of view, they include also another range which commences on the south side of the Pâlghât valley; and so they would run on to Cape Comorin, at the southern point of the peninsula. In ancient times, there were seven divisions of the Koṅkaṇ, called the Seven Koṅkaṇs; (see, for instance, Ind. Ant. Vol. VIII. p. 18; and P. S. and O.-C. Inscrs. No. 123, lines 25, 26, and No. 180, line 23 (Mysore Inscriptions, pp. 32, 93). They were explained to Prof. H. H. Wilson (see Asiatic Researches, Vol. XV. p. 47, note) as being Kêraḷa, Tuḷuva, Gôvarâshṭra (which he identified with the modern Goa), the Koṅkaṇ proper (meaning, I suppose, Ratnâgiri and Thâṇa), ‘Kerâṭaha,’ ‘Varalatta,’ and ‘Berbêra.’ And a verse in Dr. Gundert’s Malâyâḷam Dictionary, s. v. Koṅkaṇam, for which I am indebted to Dr. Hultzsch, enumerates them thus; Kâraḷam cha Virâṭam cha Mârdlam Koṅkaṇam tathâ Havyaṃ Taulavaṃ cha=aiva Kêraḷam ch=êti saptakam. The list given to Prof. Wilson, and the verse, may probably be accepted, as shewing that Kêraḷa and Tuḷu, i.e.

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the Malabâr and South Kanara Districts in the Madras Presidency, really were reckoned among the Seven Koṅkaṇs. And the verse appears to preserve a reminiscence of another of them, in the name Havyaga. But, otherwise, these two enumerations seem very imaginative. Epigraphic records shew that the Payve, Hayve, or Haive five-hundred, corresponding probably to the North Kanara District, in Bombay, was one of the seven divisions; thus, a record of A. D. 1112 at Baḷagâmve in Mysore, giving the myth about the formation of the Koṅkaṇ (which seems to embody the reminiscence of an actual upheaval that occurred within the memory of the present race of mankind), and aiming at also giving the etymology of the word, tells us that Paraśurâma, the son of Jamadagni and Rêṇukâ, having twenty-one times slain all the kings of the earth, i.e. the Kshatriyas, gave the whole earth to the Brâhmaṇs, up to the shores of the ocean; that then, considering that he himself should not dwell in the possessions of the Brâhmaṇs, he pushed back the ocean with the tip of his bow, and, when the western ocean would not give him even such a trifle as a drop (kaṇa) of water for his support, he took it by force, and, at the place where he took it, acquired, by a boon of the god Śiva (Phanipa-kaṅkaṇa-varade; the reference is to Śiva as wearing a hooded serpent as a bracelet), the Seven Koṅkaṇs as his place of abode;

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and that Haive was, it were, the bracelet (kaṅkaṇa) of the lady, the Koṅkaṇ, which was thus considered to be "the creation of Paraśurâma" (P. S. and O.-C. Inscrs. No. 172, lines 15, 17; Mysore Inscriptions, p. 83). Next to the Haive country, we may place the Koṅkaṇ, nine-hundred, which was a portion of the possessions of the Kâdamba princes of Goa (chapter VIII. below), and seems to have corresponded pretty closely with the present territory of Goa; this may, perhaps, be identified with the Rêvatîdvîpa of the Aihoḷe inscription of A.D. 634-35 (Ind. Ant. Vol. VIII. p. 243). Next to the north must have come the Iridige country, mentioned in records of A.D. 700 and 705-706 (Ind. Ant. Vol. IX. pp. 129, 132), which is plainly marked as one of the Seven Koṅkaṇs; by being called a mahâsaptama or ‘great seventh;’ this must have included the Sâwantwâḍi State and the Ratnâgiri District. Next there must be placed the Koṅkaṇ fourteen-hundred of the northern Śilâhâra princes of the Koṅkaṇ (chapter VIII. below), which began somewhere about Chaul or Cheinwal, in the Kolâba District, thirty miles south of Bombay, and appears to have extended over the whole of Kolâba, and Thâṇa; this was also known as the Kâpardidvîpa or Kavadidvîpa lâkh-and-a-quarter country (chapter VIII. below). And on the north of this there was the Lâṭa country, (see page 310 below) probably coincided exactly with the modern Surat District, including such portions of the Baroda territory as are mixed up in it.

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We should thus have exactly seven acceptable divisions of the Koṅkaṇ. But the subject is capable of further elucidation; especially if the Koṅkaṇ is held to extend beyond the Malabâr District, and so to include the Cochin and Travancore States; in the latter case, the seven divisions would probably correspond pretty closely with (1) Travancore and Cochin; (2) Malabâr; (3) South Kanara; (4) North Kanara; (5) Goa; (6) Ratnâgiri; and (7) Kolâba, Thâṇa, and Surat.