The Geographical Dictionary of Ancient and Mediaeval India c5.s1.78

c5.s1.78

Aparantaka—Konkan and Malabar (Markandeya Purana, ch. 58): it is the Ariake of Ptolemy, according to whom it extended southward from the Nerbuda. In the Raghuvamsa (IV, v. 53) Aparanta is said to be on the south of the Murala. According to the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, Ariake extended southwards from the gulf of Cambay to the north of Abhira. Ptolemy's Ariake is the contraction of Aparantaka, but that of the Periplus is the contraction of Aranyaka. According to Sir R. G. Bhandarkar, Aparanta was the northern Konkan, the capital of which was Surparaka (modern Supara) near Bassein. Asoka sent here a Buddhist missionary named Yona-Dhammarakkhita in 245 B.C. According to Bhagvanlal Indraji, the western seaboard of India was called Aparantika or Aparantaka (Ind. Ant., vol. VII, pp. 259, 263). Bhatta Svami in his commentary on Kautilya's Arthasastra (Koshadhyaksha, Bk. ii) identifies it with Konkana.