Indian Antiquary Vol 31

SR No.: 032523
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 556
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 19 MB

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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[SEPTEMBER, 1902.
Girinagara, whence the grantee's father had come, was an ancient city the site of which seems to be that now occupied by the town of Junagadh, in the Sôrath division of Kathiawar, which is to be found in the Indian Atlas sheet No. 18, N. E. (1898), in lat. 21° 31', long. 70° 31'. An early epigraphic mention of the city, by the name Girinagara, is contained in the Junâgadh rock inscription of the Mahakshatrapa Rudradaman, dated in A. D. 150.10 And it is also mentioned, by the same name, in the Brihateahhitd, written in the sixth century A. D., which places it in the "southern division" according to the arrangement followed by Varâhamihira in that work,11 The name of the city, in the modern form Girnar, has now passed over either to the great mountain itself, which is immediately on the east of Junagadh, or else to some particular peak of it, which may perhaps be the Ambâmâtâ peak (so called after a goddess of that name who seems to be also known as "the Girnâri goddess"), 12 but is more likely to be the highest of the five principal peaks, the so-called Gorakhnath, 3656 feet high, about four miles on the east of Junagadh. That peak seems to be the one which is mentioned as Urjayat in the record of A. D. 150,13 and again in the Junagadh Gupta inscription bearing dates in A. D. 455 and the following two years.14 And the Raivataka of the Gupta record seems to be the Dattatreya or Dåtår peak, 2779 feet high, about three miles on the south-east of Junagadh.16
Korilla, the town from which was named the territorial division, the Korilla pathaka, in which lay the village Samipadraka, is, as was suggested by Pandit Bhagwanlal Indraji, the modern Koral, or perhaps Kôral,18 in the Chôrandâ subdivision of the Baroda territory. Kôral is shewn in the Indian Atlas sheet No. 23, N. E. (1894), in lat. 21° 50', long. 78° 16', on the north bank of the Narbadâ, about sixteen miles north-east-by-east from Broach. And, as remarked by Dr. Bühler in endorsing the Pandit's identification, Kôral was still, in the beginning of the nineteenth century, the head-quarters of a parganâ,17
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As regards Dhahattha, the Pandit, who read the name as Dhâhaddhs, proposed to identify the place with the modern Dohad, the head-quarters of the Dôhad taluka of the Pañch-Mahals. Dr. Bühler, however, pointed out two objections to this :18 in the first place, that the distance of Dôhad from Kôral, nearly a hundred miles, -is too great for that town to have been in the Kôrilla pathaka; and secondly, that the ancient name of Dohad, "or more correctly Dehwad," is given as Dadhipadra in an inscription of A. D. 1146 at Dôhad itself. And, while accepting the name as Dhâhadda or Dhâhaddha, he quite correctly identified the place with the 'Dhawat' of the Atlas sheet No. 28, N. E., fourteen miles north-half-west from Kôral.19 He further identified the Sraddhika agrahara with the 'Sadhli' of the map, eleven and a half miles towards the north-north-east from Koral. And he proposed to identify Samipadraka either with the Samra' of the map,20 five and a half miles on the north of Kôral, or with Samri,' a mile and a half further on to the north.
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10 Archeol. Surv. West. Ind. Vol. II. p. 129.
11 See Vol. XXII. above, p. 178.
11 See Gas. Bo. Pres. Vol. VIII., Kathiawar, p. 441. I find it impossible to locate this peak, either from information given in the Gazetteer, or from the map. The Gazetteer, it may be mentioned, would place the town of Junagadh quite wrongly, in lat. 21° 1', long. 70° 13'; see page 487. It appears (ibid. p. 487) that the Mahatmya of Girnar would give Junagadh the name of Karnakubja; but that, no doubt, is quite as apocryphal as is the statement that the place was called originally Manipura, then Chandrakêtupura, then Raivata, and then, in the Kali age, Pauritanapura. The last name is, of course, a translation of Junagadh, "the old or ancient fort."
13 Loc. cit., note 10 above.
14 Gupta Inscriptions, p. 64.
15 From the Gar. Bo. Pres. Vol. VIII. p. 441, it appears that the Jains apply the name Rêvatachala to the whole mountain, but that this name really belongs, now, to a hill immediately over a tirtha known as the Bevatakupḍa. But, where, exactly, the Bêvatakunda and Bévatáchala are, is not made clear.
16 See the next note.
17 See Vol. XVII. above, p. 198, and Gas. Bo. Pres. Vol. VII., Baroda, pp. 194, 195. The official compilation Bombay Places certifies the final letter of the name as the lingual); but that seems rather dubious. The same compilation mentions (Koral or) Köral as the head-quarters of the Choranda subdivision; but, in the Gas. Bo. Pres. Vol. VII. p. 536, we are told that 'Karjan' is the head-quarters of the subdivision. 31 Vol. XVIII. abo e, p. 176.
18 Vol. XVII. above, p. 193, note 38. 2 Vol. XVII. above, p. 193. 20 Ibid.