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The Early History of the Deccan (Parts I–XI) v1.c6.s6: Some Famous Janapadas of Antiquity

The Early History of the Deccan (Parts I–XI) v1.c6.s6

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Some Famous Janapadas of Antiquity

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With the second century A.D., the date of the *Geographike Huphegesis* of Ptolemy, we reach a point when epigraphic records enable us to trace more clearly than before the principal *janapadas* of the Deccan. The word *janapada* occurs already in the *Aitareya Brāhmaṇa* and some of the early texts, the Aśokan Edicts, and the Myākadoni inscription of Śrī Pulumāvi, usually identified with the last sovereign of the Sātavāhana line. It is derived from the word *jana* which has the sense of a people or tribe in the Vedic hymns and later. *Janapada* literally means the *pada*, abode, home, of the *jana* or tribe. It is used in the *Brāhmaṇa* text to denote a ‘people’, or the land or realm it occupies. It was the most important territorial unit of ancient India since the days of the Pāli canon and the epics, as the *polis* or city was that of the Hellenic world. Each developed *janapada* had its capital city, *pura, nagara*, sometimes also styled *puṭabhedana*, and, if it included a maritime territory, its seaport, often termed *paṭṭana*. It had its local ruler or chief, either a sovereign prince or a vassal of an emperor. Autonomous *janapadas* inhabited by free clans are also known. With the growth of imperialism the *janapada* would be transformed into a district or *tāluk, āhāra, viṣaya*, or *maṇḍala* of the empire, and would resume its independent status as soon as the strong arm of the suzerain (*cakravarti, śrīpṛthvivallabha*) should be withdrawn.

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It must not, however, be thought that the *janapada* was merely a political unit and nothing more. Each of these tracts of land possessed its own distinctive characteristics which are noted by the epic poets, for example in the *Karṇaparva* of the *Mahābhārata*, as well as by observers like Ptolemy,¹ Vāt-syāyana, Yuan Chwang, Bharata, Daṇḍin, and Rājaśekhara. The manners, customs, language, style and diction (*rīti*), ethnic peculiarities, flora and fauna of different *janapadas* offer a field for fruitful investigation.

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¹ Cf. McCrindle, *Ptolemy* (1927), p. 225—‘Trillingon . . . in this part the cocks are said to be bearded, and the crows and parrots white’.

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In royal eulogies we have often an enumeration of the *janapadas* to which the patron of the panegyrist claims to have carried his arms or over which he seems to have exercised sway. Fuller lists are found in professedly geographical treatises like the *Jambukhaṇḍa* of the *Mahābhārata*, the geographical cantos of the *Kiṣkindhakāṇḍa* of the *Rāmāyaṇa*, the *Bhuvanakoṣa* of the *Purāṇas*, the *Kūrma-vibhāga* of the *Atharva-pariśiṣṭa* and the *Bṛhatsaṃhitā*, the *Mahāmāyūrī*, and certain Jain texts like the *Prajñāpanā*. Incidental notices are also found in technical literature. Invaluable information is also supplied by Chinese pilgrims, Muslim chroniclers, and European travellers like Marco Polo.

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With all this material, however, it is not always possible to define precisely the limits of even the most famous *janapadas*. The task of the narrator is rendered difficult by the fact that the boundaries of the territories in question varied from age to age, and that at times the same or similar names were applied to localities distinct from one another. What follows is a brief account of the more important *janapadas* in the Deccan proper based mainly on the evidence of the texts cited above.

Vidarbha, Vatsagulma

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We may begin our survey with Vidarbha which finds mention already in certain Brāhmaṇa texts (e.g. the Aitareya and Jaiminīya Brāhmaṇas) forming part of the Vedic canon, and figures prominently in the Nāsik eulogy of Gautamīputra Śātakarṇi. The first definite clue to the location of the janapada is furnished by the Mahābhārata and its supplement, the Harivaṃśa. The king of Vidarbha is styled lord of Dākṣiṇātya, and his territory is placed on the northern fringe of Dakṣiṇāpatha in the Nalopākhyāna. Only a part of the area lay south of the Sahyādriparvat or Ajanta Range, within the limits of the Deccan as defined in these pages. The northern part comprised the valley of the Payoṣṇī,¹ the modern Pūrṇā, a tributary of the Taptī. A third portion occupied the valley of the Wardhā (Varadā) as we learn from the Mālavikāgnimitram of Kālidāsa. The bank of the Wardhā (Wārḍātaṭ) is mentioned in the Ā’in-i-Akbarī as the original name of the ṣūbah of Berār which may be taken to correspond to the ancient Vidarbha. There is still in the Yeotmal district a stream named Vidarbhā, a tributary of the Peṅgaṅgā, whose name is reminiscent of the famous janapada.

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¹ Mbh. iii, 120, 31—Vidarbharājopachitāṃ sutīrthāṃ jagāma puṇyāṃ saritāṃ Payoṣṇīm.

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The Ā’in-i-Akbarī places Berār between the two hill ranges Bandah (Vindhya, here identified with the Gāwilgaṛh Hills) and Sahia (Sahya, the Sātmālas and the Western Ghāṭs). On the east lay Biraṛh (Wairagaṛh) adjoining Bastar; to the north was Hindiah, apparently in the Hoshangābād district; to the south Bidar and Teḷiṅgāna, or the Andhra country, of which the centres in medieval times were Waraṅgal and Golconda; and on the west Mahkarābād and Baṭālah, apparently in the direction of the Bombay Presidency.

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The people, or possibly only the ruling clan, is styled Bhoja, or Krathakauśika. If the commentary of the Kauṭilīya Arthaśāstra is to be believed, the janapada, or a part of it, had another name, Sabhārāṣṭra.

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Of the cities traditionally associated with Vidarbha the earliest according to the testimony of the Harivaṃśa was Vidarbha on the southern slopes of the Vindhyas, here apparently the Gāwilgaṛh Hills. A more famous city, Kuṇḍina, is mentioned as the metropolis (Vidarbha-nagarī) in the Mahābhārata. It has been identified with Kauṇḍinyapura on the Wardhā in the Amraotī district of Berār. A later capital, Bhojakaṭa, finds mention not only in the epic but also in early Brāhmī inscriptions discovered at Bhārhut. It has been identified with Bhātkuli in the Amraotī district. Bhavabhūti mentions a place in Vidarbha which he represents as a part of Dakṣiṇāpatha called Padmapura. Rājaśekhara refers to a city in the same janapada named Vatsagulma.

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An homonymous locality finds mention in the Mahābhārata as a place of pilgrimage situated in the prabheda or water-parting between the river Son and the Narmadā. The evidence of the Brahmapurāṇa points to the same conclusion.

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The Kāmasūtra, however, refers to a people called Vatsagulmakas whom the commentator places in Dakshiṇāpatha. The expression Vatsagulma is also known to the various recensions of the Bṛihatkathā. For a more definite location we should turn to the Karpūramañjarī and the Kāvyamīmāṃsā of Rājaśekhara.¹ There we find evidence about the location of a city called Vachchhoma (Skt. Vatsagulma) not only in Dakshiṇāpatha but in the particular country known as Vidarbha. The newly discovered Bāsim Plates of Vindhyaśakti II leave no room for doubt that Vatsagulma was the seat of one branch of the Vākāṭaka dynasty, and that it is represented by the modern Bāsim in the southern part of the Akola district between the Ajanta range and the river Pangaṅgā. In the days of the A'in-i-Akbarī Bāsim gave its name to a sarkār of the Sūbah of Berār. Abul Fazl refers to an indigenous race in the locality, proud and refractory, called Hatkars.

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¹ Ep. Ind., xxvi, 140.

Bhogavardhana

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The Purāṇas mention along with Vidarbha a number of janapadas among which Bhogavardhana occupies a prominent position. The name occurs very frequently in early Brāhmī inscriptions. Among its inhabitants were persons who won fame as pious donors, or as scholars well versed in the Suttantas. The territory in question lay to the west of Bāsim (Vatsagulma) and has been identified with the Bhokardan tāluk of the Aurangābād district of the Hyderabad State. Within the limits of the tāluk lie the famous caves of Ajanta. In view of this fact the reference to Suttanta scholars dwelling in ancient Bhogavardhana acquires an added significance. If the southern boundary of the ancient janapada stretched southwards as far as the Daulatābād-Jālna Hills it must have included also the village of Ellora, famous for its Buddhist, Jaina, and Brāhmaṇic caves.

Mūlaka

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Beyond the hills running from Daulatābād to Jālna stretched the famous land of Mūlaka, sometimes mis-spelt Alaka, occupying part of the Pāyanghāṭ or lowlands that terminate in the valley of the Godāvarī. On the banks of the famous stream stood its capital Pratiṣṭhāna, Paṭiṭṭhāna, the Paethan of the Periplus, and Baiṭhaṇ of Ptolemy, modern Paiṭhaṇ, headquarters of the tāluk of the same name in the Aurangābād district. The people of the locality find mention, according to some scholars, in the Aśokan inscriptions as Pitinikas. But the view is not generally accepted. In the second century A.D. Paiṭhaṇ is mentioned as the metropolis of Śrī Pulumāyi of the Sātavāhana dynasty. In the days of Govinda III, Rāṣṭrakūṭa, it was the headquarters of a district or tāluk called the Pratiṣṭhānabhukti.

Aśmaka, Assaka, Asaka

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Closely connected with Mūlaka both in literature and in inscriptions was Aśmaka (Pkt. Assaka) which had its capital at a place styled Potali, Potana, Podana, or Paudanya. The form Podana, which occurs in certain old manuscripts of the *Mahābhārata*, reminds one of Bodhan which lies south of the confluence of the Godāvarī and the Māñjrā. It may be remembered in this connexion that the *Sutta Nipāta* places the *janapada* on the Godāvarī. The territory in question is known to Pāṇini and several Buddhist and later Brāhmanical texts, e.g. the *Aṅguttara-Nikāya* and the *Purāṇas*. It possibly corresponds to the Asmagi of Pliny. The name Aśmaka, which signifies the ‘stony region’, should not be confounded with the land of the Aśvakas (‘Horse-people’) or Assakenoi in north-western India mentioned by Alexander’s historians.

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The commentator on the *Kauṭilīya Arthaśāstra* identifies Aśmaka with Mahārāṣṭra. Rājaśekhara, however, mentions them as distinct entities in the *Kāvyamīmāṃsā*. The difference of opinion may be due to the fact that Aśmaka lay on the borderland between Marāṭhawāra and Teliṅgāna and may have embraced the Telugu district of Nizāmābād as well as the predominantly Marāṭhā-speaking district of Nānder. The territory apparently occupied the central part of the Godāvarī valley between the Nirmal Range in the north and the Bālāghāt Range in the south.

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In the early Brāhmī inscriptions noticed by Lüders there is mention of monks and donors from a place called Pāḍāna which may represent the capital of the Aśmaka country.

Ṛishika, Asika

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The Nāsik eulogy of Gautamīputra Śātakarṇi mentions before Asaka or Aśmaka a territory named Asika which Lüders hesitatingly restores as Ṛishika. According to an alternative reading of a passage of the Hāthīgumphā inscription of Khāravela, Asikanagara, apparently the capital of the Asika country, seems to be placed on the Kaṇhabemnā, i.e. the Kṛiṣṇaveṇā or Kṛiṣṇā river. Both the *Jambukhaṇḍa* of the *Mahābhārata* and the *Bhuvanakosha* of the *Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa* mention among southern *janapadas* a people called the Ṛishikas. The *Mahābhārata* mentions them together with the Vidabhas or Vidarbhas, while the *Purāṇa* associates them with peoples in the Far South like the Ṛishabhas, Siṃhalas, and those who dwelt in Kāñchī, as well as Tilaṅga (Andhra country) and Kuñjaradarī (‘Elephants’ cave’, Ānegundi). It is not improbable that the name Ṛishika or Asika was applied to the territory lying between Vidarbha in the north, Tilaṅga (Telugu or Andhra country) in the east, and Ānegundi in the south. The association with the river Kṛiṣṇā, to which the Hāthīgumphā record apparently bears testimony, should be remembered in this connexion. Asika could have occupied only the middle valley of the Kṛṣṇā, the lower valley being peopled by the Tilaṅgas or Telugus and the upper reaches by the Karṇāṭas, who find separate mention in the Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa. In chapter 57 of that text the Naishikas are mentioned between the Bhogavardhanas and Aśmakas on the one hand and the Kuntalas and the Andhras on the other. The situation points to the territory we have assigned to Ṛishika or Asika. It is not improbable that Naishika is a corrupt form of the same name.

Andhra, Triliṅga, Veṅgī

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The Andhras are mentioned in the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa and the inscriptions of Aśoka. The Mayidavolu inscription of about the fourth century A.D. locates their country (Andhrāpatha) in the lower valley of the Kṛṣṇā in the district round Dhaññakaḍa or Amarāvatī. The Chezerla inscription, too, connects the Andhras with the Kṛṣṇā. In the days of Yuan Chwang (seventh century A.D.) An-to-lo, or Andhra, had its capital at Ping-k'i-lo or Veṅgīpura, identified with Pedda-vegi, about seven miles north of Ellore, in the West Godāvarī district, and ten miles north-west from Colair Lake. The name Mahā-Andhra or Greater Andhra was, however, still applied to the Dhaññakaḍa (Skt. Dhānyakaṭaka) area. In the twelfth century A.D. Dhoyī connects the Andhras with the Godāvarī. In eastern Chālukya records the name Andhra is applied to a very wide region bounded on four sides by the Eastern Ocean (the Bay of Bengal), the Kālahasti Hill (between Nellore and Chittoor), the Mahendra mountain (in Gañjām), and Śrīśailam (in Kurnool).¹ In the thirteenth century A.D. Anmakoṇḍa near Waraṅgal is described as the ‘ornament of the Andhra country’ (Andhrāvanī-maṇḍana).² In the next century the name Andhra-khaṇḍa-maṇḍala is restricted to the territory that extended from the Gautama-nadī or the Godāvarī to the borders of Kaliṅga-ārabhya Gautama-nadītaṭa-ā Kaliṅgam.³ The Śaktisaṅgama Tantra (a medieval work) applies the name Andhra-deśa to the country which stretches from Jagannātha (Purī) to the shrine of Bhramarāmbikā.⁴ The last-mentioned spot reminds one of the Po-lo-mo-lo-ki-li (Bhramaragiri) of the Chinese pilgrim and the Bhramara-koṭya-maṇḍala in the Bastar State.⁵

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¹ The Eastern Chalukyas (D. C. Ganguly), 137; cf. Ep. Ind., iv, 43.

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² Ibid., iii, 85.

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³ Ibid., iv, 358.

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⁴ Indian Culture, July, 1941, p. 39.

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⁵ Inscriptions in C.P. and Berar (Hiralal), p. 150.

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It is suggested by some scholars⁶ that as the Serivāṇij Jātaka places Andhra-pura, apparently the capital of the Andhras, on the river Telavāha, we are to look for the classic Andhra country in the region of the Tel, a tributary of the Mahānadī, with which it is proposed to identify the Telavāha. But there is no early warrant for pushing the northern boundary of the Andhras to the banks of the Tel river. The country on the Tel (Telāṭaṭa-vishaya) is expressly mentioned as a part of Kosala and not of Andhra.¹ The name Telavāha, ‘oil-carrier’, may actually refer to the Kṛṣṇaveṇā or the Kṛṣṇa as is hinted in the passage² ‘vikhyāta-Kṛṣṇaveṇṇā-TAILA-snehopalabdha-saralatvaḥ’ ‘possessed of smoothness caused by sesame oil of the famous Kṛṣṇa’ or, according to the alternative meaning, ‘of dark hue and possessed of loyalty arising from affection for (king) Taila’.

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⁶ Ind. Ant., 1918, p. 71.

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¹ History of Orissa (R. D. Banerji), i, 216.

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² Ind. Ant., viii, 17; cf. Ep. Ind., xii, 153.

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The Śaktisaṅgama Tantra draws a distinction between the Andhra country and another land which it calls Tailaṅga-deśa.³ The last-mentioned territory is placed between Śrīśailam and the Chola country. But the distinction is not always maintained. The name Triliṅga, a variant of Tailaṅga, is traditionally derived from three shrines (liṅgas), namely those at Kāleśvaram, Śrīśailam, and Drākṣārāma,⁴ all of which are located within the territory defined above as the Andhra country. The suggestion that Triliṅga is a contraction for Trikaliṅga is opposed to the evidence of the Purāṇas, which clearly draw a distinction between Kaliṅga, in the south-east of India, and Tilaṅga, which is included among the janapadas of the south. Muslim writers represent as the capital of Tilaṅg or Teliṅgāna the city of Waraṅgal, the very place which, together with the neighbouring city of Hanamkoṇḍa, is placed in the Andhra country by Indian literature and epigraphs. The boundaries of Tiliṅga-deśa are given in the Śrīraṅgam plates of the fourteenth century A.D. as being Mahārāṣṭra on the west, Kaliṅga (parts of Orissa and the Vizagapatam district) on the east, Pāṇḍya on the south, and Kānyakubja in the north. Pāṇḍya of this passage evidently refers to the Pāṇḍyas of Noḷambavāḍi (capital Uchchaṅgi), i.e. the Chitaldroog-Bellāry area. As to Kānyakubja, the Nagod stone inscription⁵ suggests that it was the name of a deśa (country) as well as that of a city, and that the ‘Kanyakubja-deśa’ extended southwards to Central India. The Ā’in-i-Akbarī seems to make the northern boundary of Teliṅgāna conterminous with the southern frontier of Berār.⁶ In the days of the Kākatīya king Rudra (A.D. 1163), the Andhra-Triliṅga country over which he ruled was bounded on the east by the sea, on the south by Śrīśaila, on the west by the neighbourhood of Kaṭaka (either Kalyāṇakaṭaka, i.e. Kalyāṇī,⁷ or Mannaikaḍagam, i.e. Mālkheḍ), and on the north by the slopes of Mount Mālyavanta. This Mālyavanta obviously cannot be identified either with the homonymous range near Kishkindhā mentioned in the Rāmāyaṇa and the Rāmopākhyāna, or with the hill bearing the same name in the far north mentioned in the Mahābhārata and the Purāṇas.⁸ It may have reference to the fortified hill of Mallangaḍ in the Karimnagar (Yelgandal) district of the Hyderabad State. That Rudra's realm was called Tillaṅga (one of the many variants of Triliṅga) is clear from the *Vratakhaṇḍa* of Hemādri (*Tillaṅgādhipateḥ paśorviśasanam Raudrasya raudrākṛiteḥ*). The name Andhra is applied to the same country when Hemādri refers to Queen Rudramma or Rudrāmbā, daughter of Rudra's nephew and successor Ganapati (*Andhraiḥ purandhrī nihitā nṛipatve*). In an inscription of the sixteenth century the two names of the kingdom are combined in the expression Āndhra-Triliṅga-madhyama country.¹

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³ Indian Culture, July 1941, 39.

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⁴ Telugu Literature by P. Chenchiah and Raja M. Bhujanga Rao, p. 14.

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⁵ Ep. Ind., xxiii, 188.

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⁶ Translation by Jarrett, vol. ii, 228.

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⁷ Cf. Ep. Ind., xiii, 306, 314—Kuntala-chakravarti-kaṭaka, royal camp or capital of the emperor of Kuntala (i.e. the Western Chālukya emperor of Kalyāṇī).

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⁸ Rām., iv, 28, 1; Mbh., iii, 158, 37; 279, 26.

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¹ *Historical Inscriptions of Southern India* (Sewell), p. 265.

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Students are apt to be bewildered not only by the use of the alternative names Andhra and Triliṅga but also by the numerous variants of the expression Triliṅga itself. The earliest form of the name is perhaps Triliṅga, corresponding to the Trilingon of Ptolemy and Tiriliṅga of the Purle plates of the Gaṅga king Indravarman. The form Tilaṅga is found in the *Purāṇas* and Tiliṅga in the Śrīraṅgam plates of the Śaka year 1280 (A.D. 1358). A Kurgod inscription of the latter part of the twelfth century A.D. has the form Teluṅga. Hemādri uses the names Tillaṅga and Tailaṅga. The *Śaktisaṅgam Tantra* refers to Tailaṅga-deśa. Amīr Khusrav has Tilang and Abul Fazl Teliṅgāna. None of these names, not even the expression Andhrāpatha occurring in the Moyidavolu inscription of about the fourth century A.D., is, however, known to the court poet of Samudragupta who makes his hero smash across the Godāvarī and penetrate into the heart of the Andhra-Telugu country. The name used by Harishena to denote the country between the Godāvarī and the Kṛiṣhṇā is Veṅgī.

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The Gupta poet distinguishes Veṅgī from Piṣhṭapura represented by modern Piṭhāpuram in the East Godāvarī district. On the other hand, Pallava charters with equal clarity differentiate it (Veṅgīrāṣhṭra) from Karamarāṣhṭra which included Chendalur in the Ongole tāluk north of Nellore. It is permissible to think that it roughly corresponded to the Reṇḍ-ēṟulu-naḍimi-viṣhaya or Sindhuyugmāntara-deśa,² ‘two-rivers-middle-district’ apparently lying between the Godāvarī and the Kṛiṣhṇā, ‘which possessed all kinds of grain and an abundance of fruit’. In the eighth century A.D. the eastern boundary of Veṅgīmaṇḍala seems to have extended to the confluence of the Kṛiṣhṇaveṛṇā or Kṛiṣhṇā and the Musī which flows past Hyderabad.³ In the eleventh century A.D. the southern and northern limits of the country seem to have been fixed at the Manneru river (in the Nellore district) and the Mahendra mountain (in the Gañjām district) respectively. This is suggested by the expression *Manneṭi-Mahendra-madhyavartinaḥ*, ‘living between the Manneru and the Mahendra’,⁴ used in reference to the inhabitants of the land. Curiously enough, in the time of the Kalachurya kings⁵ (A.D. 1156–83) Veṅgī is distinguished not only from Kaliṅga, of which the Mahendra mountain was the most conspicuous feature according to Kālidāsa, but also from Andhra, which may have denoted at the time only the Andhra-khaṇḍa-maṇḍala between the Godāvarī and Kaliṅga. Veṅgī therefore was very probably used in its old sense of the district between the two rivers, namely the Godāvarī and the Kṛṣṇa.

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² *Ep. Ind.*, iv, 36, 303.

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³ Ibid., vi, 213.

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⁴ Ibid., vi, 335.

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⁵ Ibid., xv, 319, 324.

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Yuan Chwang, the Chinese pilgrim of the seventh century A.D., must have regarded Veṅgī and Andhra as identical, since he mentions Ping-k'i-lo or Veṅgīpura as the capital of An-to-lo (Andhra). However, he draws a distinction between this territory and T'e-na-ka-che-ka (Dhānyakaṭaka, i.e. the Amarāvatī region) to which a note added to the pilgrim's text applies the name 'Great Andhra'. This Great Andhra must have virtually corresponded to the Andhrāpatha of an early Pallava charter.

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If the identification of Veṅgīpura with Benagouron in the country of the Salakenoi (Śālaṅkāyanas) mentioned by Ptolemy be accepted, the antiquity of the city is carried back to the second century A.D. The Salakenoi occupied a part of the territory of the Maisolia, which doubtless corresponds to 'the region of Masalia' referred to in the Periplus. The Bharata Nāṭya Śāstra refers to a deśa (country) styled Mosala along with Kosala (upper Mahānadī valley) and Tosala (Puri district). Mosala, Kosala, and Tosala form a group of ethnic names whose significance has been emphasized by Sylvain Lévi, among others, in his Pre-Aryan and Pre-Dravidian in India. There can be little doubt that Mosala answers to the Masalia or the Maisolia of the classical writers, and should be identified with the Masulipatam region.

Kaliṅga

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It has been stated above that according to an inscription of the fourteenth century A.D. the Andhra-khaṇḍa-maṇḍala extended to the borders of Kaliṅga. Unlike Andhra this last mentioned territory is not expressly named in any Vedic text, but is known to Pāṇini, the Mahāgovinda Suttanta, several Jātakas, the Uttarādhyayana Sūtra of the Jainas, and the great epics of ancient India. It is also referred to by Aśoka and the Hāthīgumphā inscription of Khāravela. Pliny alludes to it in clear terms, and an echo of the name is recognized in the Kalliga of Ptolemy.

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The Bodhāyana Dharmasūtra regards Kaliṅga as an impure country, outside the Brāhmanical pale, but not unfrequented by Aryans. There was, however, a considerable Brāhman population in the day of Aśoka (third century B.C.).

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According to the tradition recorded by the Mahābhārata it was watered by the river Vaitaraṇī in Orissa. The Purāṇas carry the western boundary to the Amarakantaka range, the source of the Narmadā, the Son, and the Mahānadī. The southern boundary of the janapada was not well defined. Kālidāsa pushes it as far as the Mahendra mountain and uses the title Mahendranātha, lord of the Mahendra Hill or Range, as a standing epithet of the ruler of Kaliṅga. In the fifth century A.D., the southern limits reached even Piṣṭapura or Pīṭhāpuram in the East Godāvarī district.¹ But usually they stopped at Yellamañchili and Chīpurupalle in the Vizagapatam district. A late medieval text carries the southern boundary much farther south to the banks of the Kṛṣṇā.² But in the days of Khāravela (second or first century B.C.) Pihuḍa in the Masulipatam region is clearly distinguished from Kaliṅga proper, and the Aihole inscription of 634 A.D. makes separate mention of Piṣṭapura and Kaliṅga, thus restricting the latter to the region north of the East Godāvarī district. In Sanskrit texts like the *Bharata Nāṭya Śāstra* and the *Bhuvanakosha* of the *Purāṇas*, Kaliṅga is distinguished both from Kosala in the upper valley of the Mahānadī, and from the Andhra country watered by the Godāvarī and the Kṛṣṇā. The Aśokan inscriptions carry the northern boundary in the third century B.C. beyond Tosali (in the Puri district). But Bharata distinguishes the Tosalas from the Kaliṅgas. In the days of Yuan Chwang Kaliṅga is distinguished from Wu-t'u (Orissa), Kung-yü-t'o (Koṅgodamaṇḍala, a part of the Gañjām district), Kosala, and Andhra (Pedda-Vegi region between the Godāvarī and the Kṛṣṇā). In the *Ā'in-i-Akbarī* we have a reference to the *sarkār* (district) of Kalang daṇḍpāt which lay beyond Parsotam (Purushottama-kshetra, i.e. Puri, which was included in the *sarkār* Kaṭaka), but did not extend as far as Rājahmundry which gave its name to a separate *sarkār*.

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¹ *Ep. Ind.*, xii, 2.

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² *Indian Culture*, July 1941, 38.

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Pargiter remarks that Kaliṅga as a settled kingdom appears to have consisted properly of the plain between the Eastern Ghāṭs and the sea. But its kings seem to have exercised sovereignty over the forests and hills farther inland, for the Amarakantaka range in which the Narmadā rises is said to be in the western part of Kaliṅga—*Kaliṅgadeśa paścārdhe parvate'marakaṇṭake*. That large tracts of the country were covered with jungles appears from references to *Kaliṅgāraṇya* in Pāli texts and to *Trikaliṅgāṭavi* in inscriptions—*Veṅgimaṇḍalam Trikaliṅgāṭaviyuktam*.

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The windows of the capital city in the days of Kālidāsa, as mentioned before, looked out on the sea, and the deep roar of the waves drowned the sound of trumpets:

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*yamātmanaḥ sadmani sannikṛṣṭo, mandradhvaniyājitayāmātūryaḥ*
*prāsādavātāyanadṛśyavīciḥ pravodhayatyarṇava eva suptam.*³

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³ *Raghuvamśa*, vi, 56.

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In literature we sometimes hear of seven Kaliṅgas. But usually only three seem to be mentioned. That is the meaning usually attached to the name 'Trikaliṅga' which occurs frequently in inscriptions. We have already referred to the expression Modogalingae used by Pliny which is analysed by some scholars as Mūḍu+Galiṅga, that is, three Kaliṅgas. Another view takes Trikaliṅga to denote not three Kaliṅgas but elevated, high, or hilly Kaliṅga¹—the expanse of hill and plateau that overlooks the plains of Gañjām and Vizagapatam. Modogalingae in like manner may be taken to stand for the Madra-Kaliṅga of the *Mahābhārata*, and for ‘Modugula’ of the Vizagapatam district. Another people, the Matsya Kaliṅgas, are mentioned in the *Rāmāyaṇa*. The name recalls the Matsyas of the Vizagapatam district mentioned in the Dibbida plates. The connexion of the Kaliṅgas with the Gangaridae of the lower Ganges valley has been discussed above in connexion with early foreign notices of the Deccan. Kālidāsa does not regard the two peoples as close neighbours. He makes the hero Raghu cross the Kapiśā (the Kāsāi river in Midnapore), and take the road pointed out by the Utkalas of northern Orissa towards Kaliṅga, which is expressly mentioned as the region round Mount Mahendra. Utkala thus fitted in between the mouths of the Ganges, occupied by the Gangaridae, and Kaliṅga proper. Pliny himself puts the distance from the mouth of the Ganges to Cape Calingon and the town of Dandagula at 625 miles.

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¹ *Ind. Ant.*, 1933, 35 ff.; *Journal of the Bihar and Orissa Research Society*, 1928, 539-47.

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As already stated above, Dandagula corresponds to Dantakūra of the *Mahābhārata* and Dantapura of the *Mahāgovinda Suttanta* and of epigraphs. The name of the city probably survives in that of the fort of Dantavakra near Chicacole, north-east of Vizagapatam. Many other capitals of ancient Kaliṅga stood in the same area, e.g. Simhapura or Singupuram and Kaliṅganagara, identified by many scholars with Mukhaliṅgam on the Vamśadharā, and by others with Kaliṅgapatam at the mouth of the same river. Rājapura mentioned in the *Mahābhārata* and Kāñchanapura figuring in Jaina works cannot be satisfactorily identified. The *Bhūmikhaṇḍa* of the *Padmapurāṇa* mentions another city in Kaliṅga named Śrīpura. The question of its connexion with Sirpur about forty miles east by north from Raipur must await future discoveries for a solution.

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In inscriptions we have reference to a tract called Madhyama-Kaliṅga or central Kaliṅga whose name points to the existence of other parts of Kaliṅga in the north and the south. Madhyama-Kaliṅga included the Bhogipura or Bhogapura *viṣaya*, which is perhaps to be identified with the Bhogapuram village and its neighbourhood in the Bimplipatam division of the Vizagapatam district. To its south-west, apparently separated from it by the river Nārada, lay the Elamañchi-Kaliṅga of Eastern Chālukya records, doubtless corresponding to the modern Yellamañchili. To the north-east of Bimplipatam, apparently beyond the River Gostanī, stretched the part of Kaliṅga that included the Rākaḷuva village, modern Rāgoḷu near Chicacole. It is referred to in the Rāgoḷu plates simply as Kaliṅga-viṣaya. The administrative divisions and districts (*rāṣṭra, viṣaya*), into which Kaliṅga was divided in the days of kings belonging to the Māthara, Vāsiṣṭha, Gaṅga, Eastern Chālukya, and other families, will be described a few pages farther on.

Aparānta, Koṅkaṇa

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Having attempted a survey of the principal *janapadas* in the centre and on the eastern coast of the Deccan we now turn to the west. The surf-bound littoral to the west of the Sahyādris (*Samudra-tīra-Sahyānta-deśa*), lined with a succession of ports that represented for long ages most of the wealth and strength of a considerable portion of the Deccan, is already known to the *Mahābhārata* as Aparānta, ‘Western Border’. The sea-god himself is said to have made for Jamadagni’s son (Paraśurāma) on this shore a region (*deśa*) called Śūrpāraka—

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*tataḥ Śūrpārakam deśaṃ sāgarastasya nirmame*
*sahasā Jāmadagnasya so’parāntamahitalam.*¹

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¹ Mbh., xii, 49, 67.

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Śūrpāraka is the name of a country (*deśa*), a district (*āhāra*) as well as a city. The famous Rāmatīrtha at Śūrpāraka is mentioned in the *Vanaparva* of the *Mahābhārata* as well as a Nāsik cave inscription of Uṣavadāta. The city corresponds to Suppāra or Suppāraka of the Pāli texts, Sopāraka or Sopāraga of early Brāhmanic inscriptions, Suppara of the *Periplus*, Soupara of Ptolemy, and Sūbāra of Alberunī. It has been identified with modern Sopāra in the Thāṇa District of the Bombay Presidency about six miles to the north of Bassein.

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As is well known, one version of the Aśokan Rock Edicts was brought to light in this locality. The emperor expressly refers to the Aparāntas (Aparāta), and seems to include under that head the Raṭhika-Piṭinikas, if not the Yona-Kamboja-Gandhāras. A wide meaning is given to the term by certain Purāṇic texts which apply the name Aparānta to the whole of western India, including not only Śūrpāraka but also the Pulindas, Nāsikyas, people dwelling north of the Narmadā, Bhirukachchhas (of Broach), Māheyas, and Sarasvatas on the banks of the rivers Mahī and the Sarasvatī in Gujarāt, Kachchas (of Cutch), Surāṣṭras of Kāṭhiāwār, Ānartas of the Dwārakā region in north-west Gujarāt and the Arbudas (round Mount Abu). But in the *Kurmavibhāga* section of the *Mārkaṇḍeya-purāṇa* and the *Bṛhatsaṃhitā* Aparāntika or Aparāntaka is used in a much more restricted sense. It is distinguished from Haihaya (in the Narmadā valley) and southern *janapadas* like Bhirukachchha (Broach), Nāsikya (Nāsik), &c. Even Koṅkaṇ finds separate mention. It is the restricted sense of Aparānta which seems to have been known to the court poets of Gautamiputra Sātakarṇi and Rudradāman in the second century A.D. The Nāsik eulogy of Gautamiputra distinguishes Aparānta from Asika (Riṣhika), Asaka (Aśmaka), Mūlaka, Anūpa, Suratha (Surāṣṭra), &c., i.e. the Deccan table-land behind the Ghāṭs, the Narmadā valley, and Kāṭhiāwār. The evidence of the Junāgaḍh rock inscription of Rudradāman points to a similar conclusion. A Kaṇheri Buddhist cave inscription conveys the definite information that an inhabitant of Kalyāṇa, Calliena of the *Periplus*, modern Kalyan in the Ṭhāṇa District, Bombay, was also an Aparāntika. In other words, Aparānta included Kalyāṇa as it did Sūrpāraka, both being situated in the Ṭhāṇa District. But it lay outside the table-land to the east of the Sahyādris.

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Kālidāsa refers to Aparānta in a famous passage which leaves no room for doubt that it lay between the Sahya or the Western Ghāṭs and the sea. In this connexion he refers to Mount Trikūṭa—‘There he made the Mount Trikūṭa itself a lofty pillar of his victory, in which the marks scored by the tusks of his infuriated elephants looked like distinct inscriptions of his valour.’ The mention of the Trikūṭa mountain cannot fail to recall the famous dynasty of the Traikūṭakas who exercised sway over Aparānta and other countries (*Aparāntādideśapati*) in the fifth century A.D., with seats at Āmraka and Aniruddhapura. Trikūṭa is also mentioned in an Ajanta inscription of about the same age, where it is distinguished from Lāṭa, i.e. the territory round Navasārikā, modern Nausārī, in the Baroda State on the south of Surat and some neighbouring lands. The commentary on the *Kāmasūtra* of Vātsyāyana, written probably in the thirteenth century A.D., agrees with earlier authorities in placing Aparāntadeśa on the shores of the western sea. It may be noted that Vātsyāyana, like the writer of the Ajanta epigraph, distinguishes Aparānta from Lāṭa.¹

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¹ *Hyderabad Archaeological Series*, Monograph No. 14, p. 11.

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From the sixth century A.D. a new name, Koṅkaṇa-viṣaya, appears as a designation of the strip of territory between the Western Ghāṭs and the sea. A grant of the early Chālukya king Maṅgaleśa (c. A.D. 597-609) refers to a village in the Koṅkaṇa-viṣaya named Kuṇḍivāṭaka which has been identified with Kundi in the Saṅgameshwar tāluk, Ratnagiri District. Koṅkaṇa or Koṅkaṇ seems at first to have been distinguished from Aparānta (Ṭhāṇa District), as the evidence of the *Bṛhatsaṃhitā* suggests. But already by A.D. 888 it had come to include ‘a territorial division known as the Variavi hundred and sixteen which was the country round the modern Wāriāv just to the north of Surat and formed at that time a part of Lāṭa’. In A.D. 1112 a ruler of the Koṅkaṇa-rāṣṭra had the title of ‘lord of Gokarṇa, the best of towns’, implying perhaps the inclusion within the southern limits of Koṅkaṇa, of the holy city of Gokarṇa, modern Gokarn in the district of North Kanara. Its sanctity dates back to the age of the *Mahābhārata*—

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*atha Gokarṇamāsādya triṣu lokeṣu viśrutam*
*samudramadhye rājendra sarvalokanamaskṛtam.*

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The late medieval *Śaktisaṅgama Tantra* describes Koṅkaṇa as a country (*deśa*) lying on the sea coast and extending from Ghatta (the Western Ghāṭs) to the middle of the district round Koṭiśa. Koṭiśa doubtless refers to Koṭi-tīrtha at Gokarn (North Kanara).

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The name Koṅkaṇa has several variants such as Kumkaṇa, Kuṅkuṇa, and Kauṅkaṇa. Alberuni writing about A.D. 1030 calls it Kunkan and mentions Tana (Thāṇa) as its capital.

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Fleet refers to a verse in Dr. Gundert’s Malayāḷam Dictionary which enumerates seven divisions of the Koṅkaṇ:¹

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¹ Fleet, Kanarese Districts, 283.

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Kārāṭam cha Virāṭam cha Mārāṭam Koṅkaṇam tathā
Havyagam Taulavam chaiva Keraḷam cheti saptakam.

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Here Greater Koṅkaṇ includes not only Koṅkaṇa proper but Kārāṭa, possibly Karāḍ in the Sātāra District; Virāṭa, i.e. Hāngal in the Dhārwār District; Mārāṭa (the Marāṭhā country); Havyaga, probably North Kanara; Taulava, South Kanara; and Keraḷa, Malabar. Epigraphic records point to the existence of the following divisions of Koṅkaṇ, namely,

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1. The Payve, Hayve, or Haive five hundrèd, identified with North Kanara. Haiga or Hayve apparently means ‘the land of snakes’, from hābu or hāi, the local Kanarese for a snake. The Sanskrit rendering of the name was Ahikshetra.

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2. The Koṅkaṇa nine hundred which is taken to correspond with the territory round Goa.²

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² Near Goa stood Chandrapura or Chandor (Indian Culture (I.C.), ii, 3, 399), famous in the history of the Śilāhāras.

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3. Revatidvīpa, possibly represented by the modern Reḍi, ‘a fortified promontory about eight miles south of Veṅgurla in the Ratnāgiri District, Bombay’. Fleet is inclined to identify it with the Koṅkaṇa nine hundred.

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4. The Iridige country, styled a Mahāsaptama or Great Seventh (according to Fleet), possibly included the Sāwantwāḍi State and part of the Ratnāgiri District.

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5. The Koṅkaṇa fourteen hundred, which had Purī for its chief city. The district comprised Śriṣṭhāṇaka (Thāṇa) of which the Shaṭshashṭi-vishaya (Salsette) was a part. It is also known to have included Nāgapura, possibly the modern Nāgaon, about six miles south-east of Alībāg in Kolāba District, Chemūli, Chaul in the same district, Śūrpāraka (Sopāra, north of Bassein), and the Mahirihāra-vishaya possibly the territory round Bhiwandi.³ It is thus apparent that Koṅkaṇa fourteen hundred extended over parts of Kolāba and Thāṇa Districts.

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³ Ep. Ind., xii, 256.

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6. The Kāpardikadvīpa or Kavadidvīpa ‘lakh-and-a-quarter country’. Fleet identified this territory with the Koṅkaṇa fourteen hundred. But he also expressed the opinion that ‘Kāpardikadvīpa is evidently the island, with the adjoining territory, of Shaṭshashṭi, Sāsaṭi or Salsette near Bombay’, so named after Kapardin I or II of the Śilāhāra dynasty.⁴

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⁴ Kanarese Districts, 283, 543, 567.

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7. The Lāṭa country, including the Variavi hundred and sixteen, which is identified with the modern Surat District with certain adjacent parts of the Baroda State (e.g. Nausārī).⁵

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⁵ Ibid., 283, 310.

Mahārāṣṭra

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The Koṅkaṇa is popularly regarded as part of a greater unit called Mahārāṣṭra. According to Grant Duff ‘Mahārāṣṭra is that space which is bounded on the north by the Sautpoora [Sātpurā] mountains; and extends from Naundode [Nāndod] on the west, along those mountains, to the Wyne Gunga [Waingaṅgā], east of Nagpoor [Nāgpur]. The western bank of that river forms a part of the eastern boundary until it falls into the Wurda [Wardhā]. From the junction of these rivers it may be traced up to the east bank of the Wurda [Wardhā] to Manikdroog, and thence westward to Mahoor [Mahur]. From this last place a waving line may be extended to Goa, whilst on the west it is bounded by the ocean.’ According to Elphinstone the country lies ‘between the range of mountains which stretches along the south of the Narbadā parallel to the Vindhya chain, and a line drawn from Goa, on the sea coast, through Bidar to Chanda on the Warda. That river is its boundary on the east as the sea is on the west.’¹

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¹ A History of the Mahrattas (by Grant Duff, revised by S. M. Edwardes), i, 3-4.

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It will be seen that the area described above includes many of the *janapadas* to which we have already referred, namely, Vidarbha, or Berār, Bhogavardhana, Mūlaka, and possibly a part of Aśmaka. In the *Purāṇas* all these territories are distinguished from Mahārāṣṭra. Nay, even Śūrpāraka, Nāsikya, and part of the Kṛṣṇā valley find mention in these texts as separate *janapadas*. The evidence of the *Kāvyamīmāṃsā* of Rājaśekhara points to the same conclusion. That work distinguishes Mahārāṣṭra from Aśmaka, Vidarbha, Śūrpāraka, Nāsikya, and Kauṅkaṇa. It is obvious that early Hindu geographers used the name Mahārāṣṭra in a very restricted sense.² The only region in the present Marāṭhā country which does not seem to be expressly excluded by these authorities is the *desh* or open country behind the Ghāṭs, stretching from the Pravarā or perhaps the Junnar-Ahmadnagar hills to the neighbourhood of the Kṛṣṇā. No doubt in the *Vāyupurāṇa* we have separate mention of a people called Pauṇikas whose name recalls the Pūṇaka-*viṣaya* of the Talegāon inscription, which is identified with the country round Poona. But the reading is uncertain. The corresponding passage of the *Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa* has Paurikāḥ, i.e. the people of Purikā, a place mentioned in several early Brāhmi inscriptions found at Bhārhut.

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² Alberuni, too, distinguished Mahratta-desh from ‘Kunkan’, Sachau i, 203.

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The upper valley of the Godāvarī was occupied in early times by the Daṇḍakas and the Nāsikyas. Besides these, the *Purāṇas* refer, in connexion with the famous river, to a *pradeśa* (district) where stood Govardhanapura

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*Sahyasya chottare yāstu yatra Godāvarī nadī*
*prithivyāmapi kṛtsnāyāṃ sa pradeśo manoramaḥ*
*Govardhanam puram ramyam Bhārgavasya mahātmanaḥ.*

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‘Along the northern slopes of the Sahya mountain, where the river Godāvarī flows, is a district conspicuous for its beauty in the whole world; (there stands) the charming city of Govardhana, belonging to the high-minded Bhārgava.’

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There is even now a famous place of pilgrimage named Govardhana tīrtha at a village six miles to the west of Nāsik. It was an important place as early as the second century A.D. when it gave its name to a district (Govardhanāhāra) of the Sātavāhana empire. Its sanctity even at that early date is apparent from a Nāsik cave inscription of Uṣavadāta.

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Daṇḍaka is the name of a janapada as well as that of a great forest in the early epic. Like Vidarbha it is associated with the Bhojas. The Kauṭilīya Arthaśāstra refers to a disaster that befell a Bhoja prince of Daṇḍaka as a consequence of his misdeeds. The Rāmāyaṇa mentions Madhumanta as the capital of the janapada. In the time of the Sarabhaṅga Jātaka this was at Kumbhavatī, while the Mahāvastu gives the honour of being the principal city of this district to Govardhana.

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A town of the name of Nāsikya is known to Kātyāyana. Nāsik also finds mention in early inscriptions discovered at Beḍsā and Bhārhut. A Nāsikya viṣaya is mentioned in the Dhulia plates of Karkaraja A.D. 779. A Nāsika deśa figures in the Wani grant of A.D. 807.

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As with the upper valley of the Godāvarī, so also a place not very far from the head waters of the Kṛṣṇā, viz. Karahāṭaka, is known to ancient literature, e.g. the Mahābhārata. But it is not clear if it was included within the limits of Mahārāṣṭra proper. The name Mahārāṣṭra is not known either to the Rāmāyaṇa or to the longer epic. Therefore the question whether the area covered by it included Karahāṭaka in the upper Kṛṣṇā valley, or lay outside that district cannot be solved satisfactorily. In the Purāṇas the people of ‘Kṛṣṇādvīpa’ (island (?) or a doāb (?)) are distinguished from the Mahārāṣṭras. The origin of the name Mahārāṣṭra has been traced by some scholars to the Rathikas of the Aśokan edicts and the Mahāraṭhis of the Sātavāhana period. In the Kiṣkindhākāṇḍa of the Rāmāyaṇa a people called Riṣṭikas are placed between the Vidarbhas (in the north) and the Mahishakas (the people of the Mahisha-viṣaya of Kadamba records, Erumaināḍu of Tamil literature, modern Mysore in the south). It is not clear whether the name corresponds to the Rathikas of Aśoka, or to the Rishikas or Asikas of Gautamīputra Sātakarṇi. The first indubitable reference to Mahārāṣṭra (Mahāraṭṭha) occurs in the Ceylonese chronicles of the fourth or fifth century A.D., and the Kāmasūtras of Vātsyāyana Mallanāga who must have flourished before Subandhu (seventh century A.D.). The chronicles distinguish Mahārāṣṭra not only from Mahisha-maṇḍala (Mysore, or as Fleet suggests, Māhishmatī) and Vanavāsa (in North Kanara) but also from Aparāntaka (Northern Koṅkan). The commentator on the sūtras of Vātsyāyana carries the northern boundary to the Narmadā and the southern to the borders of Karṇāṭa—

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Narmadā Karṇātaviṣayayor madhye Mahārāṣṭra viṣayaḥ. But it is difficult to say how far he followed the tradition current in the days of Vātsyāyana himself.

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We have the next glimpse of Mahārāṣṭra in the Aihole inscription of Pulakeśin II (A.D. 634). That record mentions the sovereignty of the Cālukya king over the ‘three Mahārāṣṭrakas’—*agamad-adhipatitvaṃ yo Mahārāṣṭrakāṇāṃ navanavati-sahasra-grāma-bhājāṃ trayāṇām*, ‘he acquired the sovereignty over the three Mahārāṣṭrakas with their nine and ninety thousand villages (or hamlets)’. As Vanavāsi, the Koṅkaṇas (including apparently Puri, ‘the queen of the western sea’), and Lāṭa find separate mention, it is not improbable that the three Mahārāṣṭrakas of the Cālukya period occupied much the same area as the Mahāraṭṭha of the Ceylonese chronicles, which is likewise distinguished from Aparānta (the Koṅkaṇ) and Vanavāsa. It possibly lay to the south of the Tapti valley in the north, and north of the valley of the Varadā, a tributary of the Tuṅgabhadrā, on the banks of which stood the city of Vanavāsi. Various suggestions have been offered for the identification of the three regions alluded to in the words ‘*Mahārāṣṭrakāṇāṃ … trayāṇām*’. According to one scholar the territories implied are Vidarbha, Mahārāṣṭra proper, and Kuntala. But the way in which Vanavāsi is distinguished from Mahārāṣṭra by the Ceylonese chronicles of the fourth and fifth centuries A.D., and also by the Purāṇas and the *Kāvyamīmāṃsā* (about A.D. 900), together with Kuntala and Vidarbha, shows that there are difficulties in the way of accepting this view. It is by no means impossible that the reference is to the traditional *thadis* or dales into which the Marāṭha country is divided, namely, *Gaṅg-thadi* (banks of the Godāvarī), *Bhīm-thadi* (banks of the Bhīmā), and *Nir-thadi* (banks of the Nīrā, a tributary of the Bhīmā). It is interesting to note that in several records of the early Cālukya period a territory is sometimes referred to by the position it occupies in relation to one of two of the rivers named above. The expression *uttaram-Bhaimarathyāḥ*, ‘the country north of the Bhīmarathī or the Bhīmā occurs in the Aihole inscription itself. An earlier record of the reign of Pulakeśin II, dated A.D. 616-17, refers to the grant of a village in a *bhoga* (subdivision) of a territory on the south bank of the Bhīmarathī. The Jejūrī plates of Vinayāditya (A.D. 687) mention the district on the north bank of the Nīrā (*Nirā-nady-uttara-taṭa*).¹ In a later age Rudrabhaṭṭa’s commentary on the *Vaidyajīvana* contains a reference to a city named Shaṭkheṭaka in *Godātaṭa-madhyadeśa*.² From the facts cited above it may be presumed that the nomenclature of the great divisions of Mahārāṣṭra in the days of Pulakeśin and also in later ages had some reference to the principal rivers that flow through the Marāṭha country. The southernmost division may have embraced the district mentioned in the Jejūrī plates—*Nirā-nady-uttara-taṭa*, which formed part of the *Nir-thadi* of tradition. Next came the territory described in the Sātāra grant of A.D. 616-17 as lying ‘on the south bank of the river Bhimarathī’. It included the Śrinilaya-bhoga. Together with the country that according to the Aihole inscription stretched ‘north of the Bhaimarathī’ it constituted the Bhim-thadi of tradition. To its north lay the Goparāṣṭra-vishaya of the Nirpaṇ record. Godātaṭa is not expressly mentioned in connexion with this vishaya. But the district lay in that region. It is thus possible to trace in inscriptions of the time of Pulakeśin II and his grandson Vinayāditya the parts of the Marāṭhā country known as Nir-thadi, Bhim-thadi, and Gang-thadi (Godātaṭa), the first two directly, the third by implication. It is to be noted further that two of these divisions are known to have been placed under the brothers of Pulakeśin himself, while the third, the valley of the Nirā, may have been under his direct rule.

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¹ *Ep. Ind.*, xix, 64.

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² Ibid., vi, 132 n.

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The next glimpse of Mahārāṣṭra (Mo-ha-la-ch'a) is afforded by Yuan Chwang, the famous Chinese pilgrim who visited the country in A.D. 641. This country, he informs us, was six thousand *li*, or one thousand British miles, in circuit, and its capital which had a large river on its west side was above thirty *li*, or five miles, in circuit. In the east of the country was a mountain range with ‘towering crags and a continuous stretch of piled-up rocks and scarped precipice’. Here was a monastery constructed in a dark valley. ‘Its lofty halls and deep side-aisles’ were quarried in the cliff. ‘Story above story they were backed by the crag and faced the valley.’

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In the opinion of Fleet the metropolis to which the pilgrim refers is not Vātāpi, which is mentioned as the Chālukya capital in the epigraphs, but Nāsik. The convent and rock-cut structures in the glen on the eastern frontier of the country have been taken by scholars to refer to the famous Ajanta monuments. If this view be correct the Bhogavardhana country may at this time have been regarded as a part of Mahārāṣṭra.

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The Śaktisaṅgama Tantra, a much later authority, describes Mahārāṣṭra as a country that ‘extended from Tryambaka to Karṇāṭa, and comprised Ujjayinī, Mārjāra-tīrtha (or tīra) and Kolāpuranivāsinī’. Trayambaka has been correctly identified with the ridge of the Western Ghāṭs, in which the Godāvarī takes its rise. It is situated in the Nāsik District. Karṇāṭa is the Kanarese country which is also referred to as lying on the southern frontier of Mahārāṣṭra by the commentator on the Sūtras of Vātsyāyana. Ujjayinī, which was in the interior of Mahārāṣṭra (*madhye ch-Ojjayinī Śive*), should not be identified with the homonymous city in Malwa, but rather with the modern Ujjayinī or Ujjani in the Sinnar *tāluk* of the Nāsik District.¹ Mārjāra-tīrtha is difficult to identify. If the correct reading is Mārjāra-tīra, then the reference must be to a spot on the *banks of a river*, and the only river that can be thought of in this connexion is the Māñjrā, the famous tributary of the Godāvarī. Kolāpura is the same as Kollāpura, modern Kolhāpur. The reference to this place shows that the Marāṭhā country now definitely extended beyond the river Kṛṣṇa. Kolhāpur may have stood near the borderland of Mahārāṣṭra and Karṇāṭa, as it does at the present day.

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¹ Ibid., xii, 33.

Karṇāṭa, Kuntala

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The boundaries of the Karṇāṭa country that lay to the south of Mahārāṣṭra are given by Wilks as follows¹:

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¹ *Hyderabad Gazetteer*, 100.

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‘Commencing near the town of Bidar . . . Following the course of the Kanarese language to the south-east, it is found to be limited by a waving line which nearly touches Adoni, winds to the west of Gooty, skirts the town of Anantapur, and passing through Nandidroog, touches the range of the Eastern Ghāṭs; thence pursuing their southern course to the mountainous pass of Gazzalhati, it continues to follow the abrupt turn caused by the great chasm of the western hills between the towns of Coimbatore, Pollāchi, and Pālghāṭ; and sweeping to the north-west, skirts the edges of the precipitous Western Ghāṭs, nearly as far north as the sources of the Kistna (Kṛṣṇa); whence following first an eastern and afterwards a north-eastern course, it terminates in rather an acute angle near Bidar, already described as its northern limit.’

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