The Geographical Dictionary of Ancient and Mediaeval India c5.s5.28

c5.s5.28

Gâṅga—It is the name of the country of Râḍha as well as of its capital Saptagrâma which is called Gâṅgê by Ptolemy and the "Port of the Ganges" in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea in the province of Bengal. Gâṅgê is mentioned in Ptolemy as the capital of the Gaṅgârides who were evidently the people of Râḍha which was situated on the western side of the Ganges (see McCrindle's Ptolemy and his Commerce and Navigation of the Erythraean Sea, p. 146). Gâṅga as a country is mentioned in the Karhad Plate Inscription of Kṛiṣhṇa III (see Epigraphia Indica, vol. IV, p. 278) and also in the Harihara and Belur inscriptions (Rice's Mysore Inscriptions, pp. 70, 222). In the first mentioned inscription, Gâṅga is placed between Kaliṅga and Magadha. Mr. Schoff in his notes on the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, p. 255, says "the name (Ganges) is applied in the same paragraph to district, river, and town" and according to him, by the district is meant Bengal. But considering the situation of the town Gâṅga, the district must mean Râḍha, as Saptagrâma (the town Gâṅga), in the first and second centuries of the Christian era was the chief town of Radha and not of the whole Bengal (JASB., 1910, p. 599). See Râḍha. Perhaps Gâṅga was the Gâṅgâyanî of the later Vedic period, of which the king was Chitra (Kaushitaki Upanishad, I, 1). The Gaṅgâ dynasty ruled over the south of Mysore (see Talakaḍa) and Coorg, with Salem, Coimbatore, the Nilgiri and parts of Malabar from the second to the ninth century A. D. : Coimbatore and Salem were called the Kongu country (Rice's Mysore Inscriptions, Nos. 151—157 and pp. 70, 222, 262). A branch of the family ruled over Orissa (Ibid., Intro., XLVII) who evidently conquered Radha or the present districts of Hûglî, Midnapore, &c., and from them, i. e., the Gaṅgâ dynasty, as well as from its situation on the western bank of the Ganges, it was called Gâṅga. Choragaṅgâ killed the Mandâra king on the bank of the Ganges after his conquest of Utkala, and Mandâra has been identified by some with Suhma or Râḍha (JASB., 1895, p. 139, note; 1896, p. 241). Hence there can be no doubt that Râḍha was ruled over by the Ganga kings of Orissa in the 12th century. Gâṅga was perhaps the country of Gâṅga or Gâṅgya of the Kaushitakî Upanishad (I, 1), of which the king waf Chitra, who was called Gâṅgâyâṇî being the son of Gâṅgya (variant Gâṅga), i.e., king os Gâṅgya or Gâṅga.