The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c35.s1.24

c35.s1.24

² References for the beryl trade are : Πουννάτα ἐν ᾗ βήρυλλος, Ptolemy, *Geogr.*, Bk. vii, ch. i. 86, transl. in *Ind. Ant.*, xiii, 367 ; Pliny, *Hist. Nat.*, Bk. xxxvii, ch. v ; Walhouse, 'Aquamarina Gems, Ancient and Modern', *Ind. Ant.*, v, 237, with a full account of the Padiyūr mine. The mine at Vāniyambādi rests on the authority of Sewell (*J. R. A. S.*, 1904, p. 595). The correct identification of Πουννάτα, which in the second edition I wrongly identified with Padiyūr, following Sewell, is due to Lewis Rice. Ptolemy's name, *Pounnata*, is an accurate transcription of Punnāṭa (al. Punāḍu or Punnāḍu), an ancient principality mentioned in an early inscription, perhaps of the fifth or sixth century, and also in the *Brihatkathākośa* of Harisheṇa, dated A. D. 931. Kittūr, a village on the Kabbini (Kapini) river, a tributary of the Kāviri (Cauvery), in the south-west of Mysore, represents Kitthipura or Kīrtipura, the ancient capital of the Punnāṭa State (Rice, *Mysore and Coorg from the Inscriptions* (1909), pp. 4, 10; *Ind. Ant.*, xii, 13; xviii, 366). The Mamballi copper-plates from Yelandūr taluk, Mysore, of Rāshtravarma, Rāja of Pumrā-shtra [=Punnāṭa], mention the Kāvēri and Kapini rivers, and show that the capital Kittūr (Kīrtipura) was on the Kapini in Heggaḍadēvankōt taluk. The plates, written in the Hale-Kannaḍa script, are clearly genuine and date from about A. D. 550 (*Mysore, A. S. Rep.* for 1917, pars. 87–9). Full details about the mines of corundum in Balfour *Cyclop.*, s.v.