The Dynasties of the Kanarese Districts of the Bombay Presidency from the Earliest Historical Times to the Musalman Conquest c8.s13.203

c8.s13.203

³ *Ind. Ant.* Vol. XII. p. 218; see also Vol. XIX. p. 378 f.—In connection with this verse, I have elsewhere (*id.* Vol. XX. p. 114) interpreted a short record at Aihole, in the Bijâpur District, as shewing that at some point in his long reign there was a definite break, which might be attributable to a defeat at the hands of the Eastern Chalukya king. On fuller consideration, however, I think that the expression, which is an ambiguous one (*nava-râjyam-geye*), is not to be taken in that way, viz. "reigning again." Dr. Hultzsch tells me that, as the Tamil Dictionary enumerates nine *khanḍas* or divisions of the known continent, *viz.* the eight principal points of the compass and the *madhyamd-khanḍa* or central division, and as Reeve and Sanderson's Kanarese Dictionary gives *nava-khanḍa-prithivî* as meaning 'the earth, as composed of nine parts,' he is inclined to take the expression as simply equivalent to the ordinary *prithivî-râjyam-geye*. And this may be correct. At the same time, the expression, in this meaning, would be an exceptional one. And I am more inclined to take it as referring to some nine kingdoms, which it was customary to group together. What the nine kingdoms were, I am not at present able to determine. But possibly some of them were Kuntala, Avanti, Kalinga, Kôsala, Trikûta, Lâta, and Andhra, according to the names that are extant in the Vâkâtaka inscription at Ajantâ (*Archæol. Surv. West. Ind.* Vol. V. p. 127). Or the whole list may perhaps be found in the inscription at the Daśâvatâra-cave at Ellôrâ, in which Pandit Bhagwanlal Indraji read the eight names of Sandhubhûpa or Sandhukûpa, Kâñchî, Kalinga, Kôsala, Triśaila, Mâlava, Lâta, and Tanka (*Cave-Temple Inscriptions*, p. 96), and in which I am inclined to find also a ninth name, that of the Sêshas, meaning possibly the Nâgas.—It may be noted that the Silâhâra chieftain Gûhala is described,—hyperbolically, in either sense,—as *nava-râjya-samuddharana*, "the support of the nine kingdoms, or of the earth" (*Cave-Temple Inscriptions*, p. 102, text, line 15-16.)