The Early History of the Deccan (Parts I–XI) v1.c6.s8.3

v1.c6.s8.3

The *Rāmāyaṇa* mentions a Vaijayantapura in the south in the direction of Daṇḍaka. The reference may be to the port of Byzantium or Byzanteion of the classical writers, or to Banavāsi—the Banaouasei of Ptolemy—described in the Aihole inscription as a place ‘which has for a girdle the rose of swans that sport on the light waves of the river Varadā’. The Byzantium of the classical writers is a market-town on the coast, and Ptolemy draws a distinction between it and Banaouasei, which is an inland city. But the latter too is known from Indian evidence to have borne the name of Vaijayanti. It is, however, interesting to note that Alberunī places his ‘Banavas’ on the sea coast. It is possible that foreigners did not always understand the distinction between Vaijayantī-Banavāsi in the interior on the banks of the river Varadā, and its port which may have lain somewhere on the west coast and apparently bore the same name. In a similar way Chinese writers turn the inland city of Kāñchīpura into a South Indian port of departure for Ceylon,¹ apparently confounding the Pallava capital with its port on the Coromandel coast.