The Early History of the Deccan (Parts I–XI) v1.c6.s8.37

v1.c6.s8.37

Palaepatnae, Baltipatna—is identified by some scholars with Baleyavattana or Beliapatam in the Malabar District a few miles to the north-west of Cannanore. But this would place the port much too far south to make the suggestion acceptable. The actual position must have been between Chaul (between Alibāg and Kolāba) and Byzantium, apparently in North Kanara. There can hardly be any doubt that the classical writers really mean Valipattana in the ‘samudratīra-Sahy-anta-deśa’, mentioned along with Chemūlya and other places in the Khārepāṭan plates of Raṭṭrāja (A.D. 1008). The exact identity of the port, which is styled a ‘mahādurgga’ in the epigraph, is uncertain, but it must have lain in the territory of the Śilāhāras of southern Koṅkaṇ, which according to Fleet very probably comprised the Koṅkaṇa nine hundred, i.e. the present territory of Goa and the Iridige country, including the Sāwāntvāḍi State and the Ratnāgiri District.