Studies in the Geography of Ancient and Medieval India c17.15

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’.