The Dynasties of the Kanarese Districts of the Bombay Presidency from the Earliest Historical Times to the Musalman Conquest c8.s6.86

c8.s6.86

Soma or Someśvara was completely defeated on land and his power broken, whereupon he appears to have betaken himself to his ships. There somehow he met with his death,¹ probably by being drowned, for it is said that "even the sea did not protect him" and that "he betook himself to the submarine fire," thinking the fire of Mahâdeva's prowess to be more unbearable.² Konkan was thereupon annexed to the territories of the Yâdavas. Hence it is that the country was governed by a viceroy appointed by the Devagiri king during the time of Mahâdeva's successor, as we find from the Thânâ plates published by Mr. Wathen.³ The Someśvara whom Mahâdeva subdued belonged to the Śilâhâra dynasty of Thânâ that had been ruling over that part of Konkan for a considerable period. He is the last prince of the dynasty whose inscriptions are found in the district, and his dates are Śaka 1171 and 1182.⁴ Mahâdeva like his predecessors reigned at Devagiri, which is represented as the capital of the dynasty to which he belonged and as situated in the country called Seuṇa on the borders of Daṇḍakâraṇya. "It was the abode of the essence of the beauty of the three worlds and its houses rivalled the peaks of the mountain tenanted by gods, and the Seuṇa country deserved all the sweet and ornamental epithets that might be applied to it."⁵ At Paṇḍharpur there is an inscription dated 1192 Śaka, Pramoda Saṃvatsara, in which Mahâdeva is represented to have been reigning at the time. He is there called Prauḍhapratâpa Chakravartin, or "Paramount sovereign possessing great valour." The inscription records the performance of an Aptoryâma sacrifice by a Brâhmaṇ chief of the name of Keśava belonging to the Kaśyapa Gotra.