Studies in the Geography of Ancient and Medieval India c17.18

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.