Studies in the Geography of Ancient and Medieval India c8.s3.45

c8.s3.45

The Karṇāṭa country is said to have extended from Rāmanātha upto Śrīraṅga. Śrīraṅga is either Śrīraṅgam opposite Tañjāvūr on the other side of the Kāverī or Śrīraṅgapattana (Seringapatam) near Mysore. Rāmanātha seems to be either the Rāmanāthapuram (former Ramnad) District, or the Rāmanātha Maṭha in the Madurai District, or the Rāmeśvara Tīrtha near the junction of the rivers Tuṅga and Bhadra.¹ The possible reference to Śrīraṅgam or Ramnad as a boundary of Karṇāṭa suggests that it is not the ancient Karṇāṭa country, the heart of which was in the Kannaḍa-speaking land, *Kannaḍa* being the same as Sanskrit *Karṇāṭa*. With the expansion of the empire of the Kanarese kings of Vijayanagara, the name Karṇāṭa extended over a large part of the Deccan. After the battle of Talikoṭa in 1665 A.D., the Vijayanagara kings withdrew first to Candragiri (Chittoor District) and then to Vellore (North Arcot District). But, as has already been indicated, even when their kingdom became confined to a very small area far away from ancient Karṇāṭa, they were known as the Rāyas of Karṇāṭaka. About the end of the seventeenth century, Zulfiqār Ali Khān (*circa* 1692-1703 A.D.), the progenitor of the Nawābs of Arcot, was created the ‘Nawāb of the Carnatic (Karṇāṭaka).’ It is not impossible that the verse actually refers to the kingdom of these Nawābs of the Carnatic.