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August, 1902.] NOTES ON INDIAN HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY.
829
NOTES ON INDIAN HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY.
BY J. F. FLEET, I.C.S. (RETD.), PH.D., C.I.E. The places mentioned in the Åntroli-Chharoli plates of A. D. 757. Y HAVE recently had occasion, in prosecuting a certain inquiry, to search maps which cover the 1 territory included in the Gujarat division of the Bombay Presidency and the neighbouring Native States, and, at the same time, to look into various points in the ancient geography of that part of the country. And the result has been the accumulation of memoranda which I shall, from time to time, write up into notes for this Journal. While bringing forward some new matter, I shall have to go again over a good deal of ground that has been more or less covered by other writers, and especially by the late Dr. Bühler. But, as may have been even already recognised from my notes on the places mentioned in the Chokkhakuți grant of A. D. 867 and the Surat plates of A. D. 1051,1 there are misreadings to be corrected and wrong identifications to be set right; and, to pave the way for anyone who may hereafter take in hand the work of preparing a map to illustrate the ancient geography of the parts referred to, in almost every case it is necessary to put on record more specific details, than have hitherto been given, as to the exact positions of the places that are to be dealt with.
The record treated of in this note has been edited by the late Pandit Bhagwanlal Indraji in the Jour, Bo. Br. R. A. Soo. Vol. XVI. p. 105 ff., with a lithograph. The original plates were shewn to him by a Patil of Kârêli in the Olpad tiluka of the Surat district in Gujarat, Bombay Presidency. And the Patil told him that they were found in excavating some foundations at a neighbouring village named Chharoli, bat better known as Antroli-Ohharoli, which is four miles to the south-east from KAreli.
The record recites that, on a specified day in the month Âbvayaja, Saka-Samvat 679 (expired), falling in A. D. 757, a Rashtrakuta king Kakkaraja II., who is to be referred to a branch of the Rashtrakata stock which preceded the MÁlkhêd family in Gujarat, granted to a Brahman, whose father was a resident of Jambtgarasthana and a member of the community of Chaturvédins of that place, a village (grama) named Sthavarapallika in the Kabakala district (vishaya). In defining the boundaries of Sthåvarapallika, it places that village on the west of (a village named) Khairoda, on the north of (a village named) Pippalachohha, on the east of two villages named) KAshthapurt and Vattara, and on the south of, again, Khairoda. And, with regard to the construction of this passage, it may be remarked that this record belongs to a somewhat limited class of records, in which the positions of villages were defined, not by saying that such and such other villages, etc., were on the east, south, west, and north of them, but by saying that they were on the west, north, east, and south of those other villages, etc.
Pandit Bhagwanlal Indraji expressed the opinion that sthavarapallika is the modern Chharoli itself, where the record was found. And in this he was quite correct. But he did not go into any of the other details. And it was left to Dr. Bähler to add that "the village of Khairoda " is represented by the modern Kherwa and the town of Kashthapurt by Kathor."
Chharoli is a village or hamlet in the Velách hà sub-division of the Nausâri division of the Baroda territory, about eleven miles towards the north-east-by-north from Surat : it is shewn in the Indian Atlas sheet No. 23, S. E. (1888), in lat. 21° 19, long. 73° 0'; and it is about two miles from the north bank of the Tapti, at its nearest point. It appears to be known as Antroli-Chharoli, in accordance 1 Page 254 f. above, and page 255 f.
See page 834 below, No. 6. • The original here says, according to the lithograph, Khairbda-simvyddedakshinatak; and the Pandit took simoydd w standing by mistake for efma-madhydd, -"to the south of the middle of the Khairöds boundary.”
• Vol. XVII, above, p. 197, note 56, In the official compilation Bombay Places and Common Official Words (1878) this name is certified as Kathôr, with the short a in the first syllable. But that seems to be certainly a mistake.
