History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v3.c34.s6.56

v3.c34.s6.56

Of the kingdoms of Southern India we will speak about the kingdom of the Śilāhāras of Thana first which in this sub-period of Hindu Indian history (1000-1200 A. D.) rose to greater importance and enjoyed practical independence. Theirs was an ancient country known as "Aparānta" in Mahābhārata days and Sopārā (Śurpāraka) its capital was a well-known place to which Buddha had sent his disciple Pūrṇa to preach his religion of peace and where in pre-Christian days Arab and Greek ships came to export and import goods and ideas. The kingly line of the Śilāhāras was also very old, the stone records of which begin with a king Kapardin who was a feudatory of Amoghavarsha Rāshṭrakūṭa and who made donations to Buddhist monks and recorded them (Śaka 765 or 843 A. D.) in the famous Kanheri (Kṛishṇagiri) caves of the Thana District, wherein Buddhist records are to be found from the days of the Śātavāhanas and Buddhist monks lived from about 100 B. C. down to about 1500 A. D., the days of the Portugese. This Śilāhāra line ruled for about five hundred years from roughly 800 to 1300 A. D., first as feudatories of the Rāshṭrakūṭas and then as independent kings from the time of Aparājita whose inscription dated 997 A. D. has been found and published (Bhadan charter E. I. III p. 257). In this document Aparājita still calls himself Mahāmaṇḍaleśvara and gives the whole of the Rāshṭrakūṭa kingly line, his overlords, and states that the last king Kakkala was destroyed by Chālukya Tailapa. We quoted in Vol. II from an unpublished grant of the same king dated four years before (993 A. D.), a passage wherein the Rāshṭrakūṭa line is given with the same fullness and with an expression of sorrow over the fall of the Rāshṭrakūṭa kings Probably Aparājita assumed independence hereafter though he used the title Mahāmaṇḍaleśvara from habit and from respect for the past, much as the Vaziers of Oudh or the Nizams of Hyderabad or the Peshwas of Poona continued their old titles indicative of subordination even after they became independent. Aparājita is given other titles in later records of the family such as Mṛgāṅka and Birudankarāma and he is said to have sumptuously received king Goma (?), fought with Aiyapadeva (?) and assisted Bhillama (of Sèundesa). It thus appears that he ruled like an independent king. The country was called Koṅkaṇa with fourteen hundred (villages), capital Purī. The old extent and the old capital are here mentioned though a larger country including both the present Thana and Kolaba districts and even a part of the Ratnagiri district including Chiplun and the hilly territory above the ghats called Mawal appears to be under his sway from the yet unpublished grant referred to above. This territory at present contains certainly more villages than 1400 and we believe that the number 1400 was an old traditional number attached to the name Purī which was the former capital of Konkan and the extent of territory under the later Śilāhāras was much greater, using the same name Koṅkaṇa but with capital at Thana or Sthānaka. Under these Śilāhāras the country was also very prosperous as an Arab writer (976 A. D.) had recorded that "the country from Cambaya to Saimur, the villages lie close to one another and there is much land under cultivation" (Vol. II p. 166).