History of India, c. 150 A.D. to 350 A.D.: Naga–Vakataka Imperial Period c15.s4.16

c15.s4.16

96. A great proof of an effective sway of the Vākāṭakas over Koṅkaṇa, wherein Trikūṭa was situated, is an inscription published in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. IV, p. 282, where a fortress named after the political home of the Vākāṭakas, the Kilakilā, is mentioned as ‘Kilagilā’ which was the capital of Koṅkaṇa at the date of the inscription (1058 A.D.). Trikūṭa was at the western end of the Vākāṭaka Province of Berar and Khandesh. Harisheṇa made obedient to himself Kuṇtala and Lāṭa with Avanti, which were at each end of Aparānta. Kaliṅga, Kosala and Andhra brought the Vākāṭaka Empire from Trikūṭa and the western sea to the eastern seaboard. All these had been parts of the Vākāṭaka Empire before. Lāṭa was next-door to the Vākāṭaka kingdom and was the old seat of the Ābhīras. Avanti had been under the Pushyamitra group. In the time of Narendrasena it is included in the term Mālava. In the time of Pravarasena II or Prabhāvatī Guptā, this was probably transferred back to the Vākāṭakas by the Guptas. The subjugation of Lāṭa by Harisheṇa means the final extinction of the Ābhīras and the Pushyamitras, if they had not already disappeared under Skanda Gupta who had established a governorship of Surāshṭra immediately after the Pushyamitra War. The addition of Lāṭa to the Vākāṭaka Empire was a result of the fall of the Gupta Empire.