Studies in the Geography of Ancient and Medieval India c17.24

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.