Pramāṇa · Search · About · API

Studies in the Geography of Ancient and Medieval India c17: XIII. Malaya and Mahiṣa

Studies in the Geography of Ancient and Medieval India c17

Language
English

XIII. Malaya and Mahiṣa

c17.2

There has been some criticism of the view that ‘Malaya is the southern end of the Western Ghats’. The critic says, “The Purāṇas do not help us in locating the Malaya mountain.”¹ But his views appear to go against the evidence supplied by the Puranic sections on Indian geography.

c17.3

¹ See C. Kunhan Raja in *I.H.Q.*, Vol. XXII, pp. 223-27.

c17.4

It is well known that the *Mārkaṇḍeya*, *Vāyu*, *Kūrma*, *Matsya*, *Vāmana* and *Brahmāṇḍa Purāṇas* contain a long list and the *Viṣṇu*, *Brahma* and *Śiva Purāṇas* a short list of the Indian rivers. According to both these lists, the rivers Kṛtamālā and Tāmraparṇī issue from the Malaya mountain.² Even the shortest list of rivers found in the *Agni Purāṇa* speaks of the Kṛtamālā as rising from the Malaya. Of the two rivers mentioned above, Tāmraparṇī, still known by practically that name, flows from the southern part of the Western Ghats to the Bay of Bengal. The celebrated ports of Korkai and Kayal stood on its banks. The identification of the Kṛtamālā with the modern Vaigai running by Madurai or Dakṣiṇa-Mathurā is corroborated by the *Caitanyacaritāmṛta*, an old biography of the Bengali Vaiṣṇava saint Caitanya (1485-1534 A.D.). It is clearly stated in this work that Caitanya took his bath in the waters of the holy Kṛtamālā at Dakṣiṇa-Mathurā in the course of his tours of pilgrimage in South India.³

c17.5

² See above, p. 52, note 5; p. 56, note 10.

c17.6

³ For the identification of the Malaya, see Raychaudhuri, *Stud. Ind. Ant.*, pp. 109ff. ; Pargiter, *Mark. Pur.*, trans., pp. 285, 303-04 ; Dey, *Geog. Dict.*, s.v. See also above, p. 52, note 5; p. 53, note 2.

c17.7

The evidence of the Purāṇas definitely locates the Kul-ācala or Kula-parvata (literally, a mountain associated with certain tribes) called Malaya, which was the source of the Tāmraparṇī and Kṛtamālā (Vaigai) rivers running through the Pāṇḍya country, at the extreme southern end of the Western Ghats. The name of this mountain no doubt lies at the root of the names Malayāḷam and Malabar; but reference has been made to certain ‘conflicting evidences’ that would suggest the location of the Malaya elsewhere.¹

c17.8

¹ Cf. C. Kunhan Raja in *I.H.Q.*, Vol. XXIII, p. 69.

c17.9

As a matter of fact however the Kula or tribal mountain called Malaya cannot be located in any other place excepting the southern end of the Western Ghats although there were probably other hills called Malaya which may have given rise to the ‘conflicting evidences’. We know that the hilly region of Cental Ceylon was known by the name Malaya and one of the heirs of the Ceylonese kings was often styled Malaya-rāja. A Viṣṇukuṇḍin inscription speaks of Prince Mādhavavarman II, who had his headquarters at Amarapura (i.e. Amarāvatī near Vijayavāḍa), as Trikūṭa-Malaya-ādhipati, probably indicating ‘governor of the provinces of Trikūṭa and Malaya.’ Since the name Malaya is derived from the Dravidian word malai meaning ‘hill,’ it is not improbable that this word affixed to the end of the names of certain South Indian hills was often Sanskritised as malaya and thus gave rise to a confusion. The tendency to Sanskritisation is still noticed in the name Madra-maṇḍala applied to the Madras State (in spite of the fact that the fact that the ancient Madra people lived in the Punjab with their capital at Śākala, i.e. modern Sialkot), and we can understand the working of the mind of a Sanskritist if he would refer to Tiru-malai and Anna-malai respectively as Śri-malaya (or Tri-malaya) and Anna-malaya. But there is absolutely no doubt as to the location of the celebrated Malaya Kul-ācala (Kula-parvata) at the southern end of the Western Ghats.

c17.10

B

c17.11

A famous historian has recently discovered the existence of several hitherto unknown kings and ruling families of ancient India such as Mahiṣa² (or Mahiṣya)³ and Sebaka.⁴ These dynastic names, derived according to him from those of the progenitors of the families in question, are said to have been found on certain coins of about the second or third century A.D. Without a proper examination of the coins, nothing can be said for or against the existence of the above dynasties. But a word may be said about the location of the country associated with a ruling family or a people called Mahiṣa.

c17.12

² V. V. Mirashi in *J.N.S.I.*, Vol. XI, pp. 1 ff.

c17.13

³ *I.H.Q.*, Vol. XXII, pp. 24 ff.

c17.14

⁴ *J.N.S.I.*, Vol. VIII, pp. 107 f.

c17.15

The historian has quoted passages from the Rāmāyaṇa, the Mahābhārata and the Purāṇas to show that the Mahiṣa country ‘was situated in [the] Southern Deccan’.¹ He further says, “The royal name Mahiṣa (or Mahiṣya) was probably derived from the country of Māhiṣaka or Mahiṣa-maṇḍala where this family was ruling. In my previous article on this Śaka king Māna, I followed Rapson in supporting that Māhiṣaka was the country round Māhiṣmatī, modern Oṅkār Māndhātā in the Nemāḍ District of the Central Provinces. Since then the provenance of these coins has become known. As stated before, they were found in the excavations at Kondapur and Maski in the Hyderabad State. The country under the rule of the Mahiṣa dynasty seems therefore to have been the southern portion of the Hyderabad State.”² It may be pointed out in this connection that there is definite epigraphic evidence regarding the existence of a tract of land associated with a people or a royal family called Mahiṣa in the Mysore State which is not very far from ‘the southern portion of the Hyderabad State’.

c17.16

¹ Op. cit., p. 4.

c17.17

² Loc. cit.

c17.18

An inscription of the Kadamba king Viṣṇuvarman I (about the end of the fifth century)³ was found in a village in the Tumkur Taluk of the Tumkur District in the northern part of the Mysore State. This is the Hebbata grant published in the Annual Report of the Mysore Archaeological Department for 1925.⁴ The grant was issued by Kadamba Viṣṇuvarman I in his fifth regnal year, when the king was staying at the adhiṣṭhāna (meaning ‘a city’) of Kūḍalūr. By this grant, Viṣṇuvarman I created an *agrahāra* of the village called Herbbaṭa situated in the Sāṭṭipalli-Jāripāṭa division of the Mahiṣa *viṣaya* (district) and offered it with *dakṣiṇā* and libation of water, in accordance with the *brahmadeya-nyāya*, to a Yajurvedīya Brāhmaṇa belonging to the Badira family or clan and to the Gautama *gotra*. It seems clear from this inscription that the present Tumkur area in the Mysore State was known in the fifth century A.D. as the Mahiṣa territory which formed a part of the dominions of the Early Kadamba kings. While discussing the evidence of this interesting inscription, we observed elsewhere, “The name of the Mahiṣa *viṣaya* (cf. Māhiṣaka of the Puranic lists) is evidently the source from which the present Mysore (Mahiṣūr) has derived its name.”¹ It seems to us that the original name of Mysore was derived from the words *Mahiṣa* and *ūr* and signified ‘the city of the Mahiṣas’. Whatever however be the value of this suggestion, the Hebbata grant of the Kadamba king Viṣṇuvarman leaves no room for doubt that the northern part of the present Mysore State was known in ancient times as the Mahiṣa country. Whether this country included, towards the north, the present Kondapur and Maski areas of Southern Hyderabad, at least in a particular period of history, can hardly be determined in the present state of our knowledge. But it is by no means improbable. We know that, in ancient records, the extent of a country is often differently indicated. Thus Tāmralipta is mentioned in literature sometimes as an independent state, sometimes as a part of Suhma and sometimes as a part of Vaṅga. Similarly, Taxila (Takṣaśilā) is sometimes represented as an independent kingdom, sometimes as a part of Gandhāra and sometimes as a part of Uraśā (roughly the modern Hazara District of the North-West Frontier region of West Pakistan).² This is no doubt due to the fact, also supported by modern history, that a small kingdom retained its old name even when it was expanded to cover wide areas. It may be recalled in this connection that with the rise of Kanarese powers like the Cālukyas, Rāṣṭrakūṭas and the houses of Vijayanagara, the name Karṇāṭa and Kuntala extended over wide regions outside the Kannada-speaking area.¹ Since the English East India Company extended its power over extensive areas of Northern India from their base in Bengal, the Company’s dominions in North India, including the present Bihar and the major part of Uttar Pradesh, were for a long time known as the Presidency of Bengal.

c17.19

³ See The Successors of the Sātavāhanas, p. 393.

c17.20

⁴ See op. cit., p. 98, Plate X.

c17.21

¹ The *Successors of the Sātavāhanas*, p. 293, p. 216, note.

c17.22

² See *ibid.*, p. 216, note; also H. C. Raychaudhuri, *Studies in Indian Antiquities*, pp. 186 f. Raychaudhuri further points out how the city of Uragapura sometimes belonged to the Cola but sometimes to the Pāṇḍya kingdom. Similarly Koṭivarṣa (the modern Dinajpur District) was sometimes included in the Puṇḍravardhana *bhukti* but sometimes in Rāḍha. See also above, p. 157.

c17.23

¹ Note how the name Karṇāṭaka (Carnatic) came to be applied to the dominions of the Nawabs of Arcot in the Tamil country. See above, pp. 155 ff.; cf. pp. 60, 89-90 Cf. also the case of Gandhāra (Raychaudhuri, P. H.A.I., p. 202).

c17.24

Sometimes, however, it is seen that a tract of land, later annexed to a kingdom, retains the name of the latter even when the heart of the kingdom itself comes in a later epoch to be known by a different name. We have referred above to the more recent case of Karṇāṭaka in the Tamil land, which owes its origin to the expansion of the Vijayanagara empire outside the original Karṇāṭa country. The ancient names Andhrāpatha near the mouths of the Kṛṣṇā, Sātavāhanīya-rāṣṭra or Sātavāhanīy-āhāra in the present Bellary District and Nalavāḍi in the present Bellary-Anantapur region may possibly offer older instances of the same type, as the hearts of the Sātavāhana (Andhra) and Nala countries probably lay elsewhere. But, in the absence of any clear evidence to the contrary, it is possibly better, in the present state of our knowledge, to believe that the heart of the ancient Mahiṣa country lay in the present Mysore State.

c17.25

The name Mahiṣa, applied to a people and their land, must have originally derived from the totem of the said people. It is thus possible to think that there were more settlements of the Mahiṣa people in different parts of the country than one. Māhiṣamatī on the Narmadā seems also to owe its name to the Mahiṣas. But there is as yet no genuine evidence (excepting doubtfully read legends of a few coins) to show that the southern part of the former Hyderabad State was known as the Mahiṣa country.

Linked texts (14)