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Introduction
XV
and Lāta there was Svabhra - the region round about the river Svabhramats or Sā barmatī. Kachchha (or Cutch) was known by this very name from ancient times. The region round about Ābu was known as Maru. So that'... ...... Ānartta - Surāshtra - Svabhra - Maru - Kachchha......... Aparānta ........,' of the Girnar Rock Inscription of Rūdradāman of 150 A. D. practically gives us the whole of the present-day Gujarāta. Of these, references to Saurāshtra and Aparānta in older Samskýta literature are plenty.
References to the word Lăța in earlier literature are few. Lāțas are mentioned, in the Anuşāsanaparva of the Mahābhārata, among Kshatriya tribes. Lātas are also mentioned in Vātsyāyana's Kämasútra. Ptolemy (150 A. D. ) refers to the province of Lāta by the form Larike, while the Gulf of Cambay was known as the sea of Lar, and Al Masudi ( 944 A. D. ) calls it the Larwi sea (p. 510 the B. G.). Lāta is frequently mentioned in the incriptions and literature from the beginning of the fifth century* onward.
Mr. Altekar quotes a verse from the Mahābhārata which mentions Aparānta, the Paschima Samudra or the Western Sea and Prabhāsa where Arjuna made his pilgrimage. For Saurashtra or Surāshtra, the B. G. Vol. I. p. 1 refers to the Mahābhārata and Pāṇini's Gaņapātha. Mr. Altekar gives quotations from the Mahābhārata, the Rāmāyana, the Märkandeya, the Kürma and the Vishņu Purāņas, as well as from the Baudhāyana Sūtras, the grammer of Pāṇini and the Arthasāstra of Chāņakyax
* See for an interesting discussion of the origin of the word Lāča Mr. Ratnamaộirao Jhote's History of Cambay.
X Mr. S N. Majmudar - Sastri in his notes to the Ancient
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