The Dynasties of the Kanarese Districts of the Bombay Presidency from the Earliest Historical Times to the Musalman Conquest c8.s18.56.4

c8.s18.56.4

(8) The next mention of Kôlhâpur, in an unpublished inscription of A.D. 1049 at Sirûr in the Bâgalkôt tâluka, Bîjâpur District, speaks of the place as the *Âdi-pîtha* or "original, i.e. primeval, throne" of the goddess Mahâlakshmi, of whom there is, in fact, a shrine of repute, and plainly a fairly ancient one, at Kôlhâpur; and the goddess Mahâlakshmi was the family-deity of the members of at any rate the Karâd branch of the Silâhâra family (see, *e.g.*, *Jour. Bo. Br. As. Soc.* Vol. XIII. p. 6). (9) There is a connection in meaning between the names of Tagara and Karavîra: the word *tagara* denotes the shrub *Tabernæmontana Coronaria*, which belongs to the same family with the oleander and grows freely in this part of the country, and the flowers of which are used in the worship of idols; and *karavîra* denotes the Nerium Odorum, the fragrant oleander, also growing freely in this part of the country, of which, similarly, the flowers are used in the worship of idols. (10) The legends about Karavîra and Kôlhâpur, embodied in the *Karavîra-Mâhâtmya* (see Graham's *Statistical Report on the Principality of Kolhapur*, p. 341) indicate more than one change of appellation. (11) There are local features (*id.*, p. 314 ff.) indicative of some convulsion of nature, which would explain why there are now no traces with the Purî of the Mauryas of the Koṅkaṇ that is mentioned in the Aihole inscription of A.D. 634-35.¹