The Dynasties of the Kanarese Districts of the Bombay Presidency from the Earliest Historical Times to the Musalman Conquest c8.s18.72

c8.s18.72

Of the *Mahāmaṇḍalēśvara* Arikēsarin or Kēsidēva, we have a copper-plate charter from Thāṇa,⁵ which evidently describes him, as some of the later records describe his descendants, as ruling the whole Koṅkaṇ, embracing various districts, and including a fourteen-hundred province of which Purī was the capital, and furnishes for him a date in the month Kārttika (Oct.-Nov.), falling in A.D. 1017, of the Piṅgala *saṃvatsara*, *Śaka-Saṃvat* 939 (expired). The expression used in describing the extent of his rule, seems to mark the fourteen-hundred province as the head-quarters division, and Purī as the principal capital, of this branch of the Śilāhāra family. The command conveyed in the charter is addressed to, among others, all the inhabitants of Sthānaka, *i.e.* Thāṇa, and also of a town named Hamyamana or Hañjamana, which is mentioned in the same way in the Bhaṇḍūp grant of A. D. 1026. The Khārēpāṭaṇ grant of A. D. 1095 agrees with this record in giving his name as Arikēsarin; but the Bhaṇḍūp grant names him Kēsidēva.⁶