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NOVEMBER, 1873.)
PORTS SOUTH OF RATNAGIRI.
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quarters. There can be no doubt which was has retained much more wealth and trade than the ruling power at the time this division was Khâre pagan. But as a slight testimony to made, for while the Musalmans had the whole the former predominance of Musalmans in both of the fine site on the river-bank west of the these places, Professor Bhåndarkar told me the stone, the Hindus were confined to the steep other day, as one of his early recollections, that and narrow valley in which the present town when he first left Målwa n as a boy he was stands. This stone is, of course, the residence struck on arriving at Khà repatan by finding of a bhát, as is also a large rock which stands the Musalmans making use of the same wells as out above the water close to the present land- the Hindus, which in most parts of the collecing-place, and which must have been a serious torate they are not allowed to do. inconvenience when Khårepatan had a From Kharepatan to the fort of Boura large trade.
there is an easy road of about seven kos, and Among the many tombs on the hill-side there the ghat is an old one and easy for bullocks. are a few not otherwise distinguishable from Colonel Graham, as I have before mentioned, says the rest except by lying east and west, instead of that it was made by the Musalmans about 1600. north and south as the Musalman tombs do, and The fort of Bauri stands on a narrow ridge which from this fact and old tradition are said projecting out from the general line of the ghats, to cover the graves of Jews. And in the mid- but at a slightly lower level, and is an imposing dle of the present town there is a colony of object both from above and below. But, proCarnatic Jainas and a Jaina temple, the only one, bably from being easily commanded from above, I believe, in the Southern Konkan. In this it seems never to have been of nearly so much temple is a small idol of black marble, found in importance as Vis & lg adh, Pun Alâ, &c. the bed of the river only three or four years It is said to have been built by Yusuf Adil ago. The absence of garments and the curly Shậh, the first king of Bijapur, in A.D. 1489. hair are even to ordinary observers proof of its While he was building it, a venerable Musal. being a Jaina or Buddhist idol, and the deity is mân, who gave himself the name of Gebi Pir, identified as Parsvanatha from the seven-headed visited him in a dream and claimed the site of snake which surrounds the head of the god like the fort as his own. The king therefore dea canopy. The proportions are peculiar, but dicated the Fort to the Pir, and built in it the carving is elaborate, and the image al. three tombs, for the Pîr himself, his sister, and together in perfect preservation.
her son, and over them erected the domed The fact of Jews and Jains having lived in building which still stands as the most promi. Kharepatan at a distant period would, nent feature of the fort. After Sivaji had once even without the evidence of the Musalman taken the fort and once lost it to the Musalruins, show that it was a much larger place than mâns, he again took it and gave it to the first at present. The Musalmans, who are as poor aş Pant Amatya. The latter believes that he most of their lace in this district, say that the owed victory on a certain occasion to the Pir, old city contained 18,000 houses, and, looking at and accordingly paid his devotions to the tomb the tombs and the extent of the ruins, there is no and endowed it with Rs. 350 a year. Since difficulty in believing this. Ferishtah mentions then all the Pants of Baurâ have paid divine that in 1471 the Portuguese landed and burnt honours to the Pîr, and the common people; the towns of A dilå båd a place I have never Hindu as well as Musalman, have followed heard of) and Cara patam, on the shores the example of their chiefs, and to this day of the Bijapur empire," and this is the only worship at his tomb on Thursdays. The fort reference to the place I have found. There was dismantled in 1845, and the then Pant is no doubt that the site of the old town is abandoned it as a residence, and built a new as superior to that of Rajapur as the har. town in a most delightful situation on the edge bour of Gheria is to J & itapur: but whether of the ghêts overlooking the fort. From Bauthe fact is due to the Portuguese having burnt rå to Kolhapur the road is remarkably level the town, as mentioned above, or to some other and open. This route, then-by Gheria, Kha. forgotten accident, it is certain that Rajapar repatan, Baurâ, and Kolhapur-must
• Briggs, Tr. vol. IV. p. 540.
