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MARCH, 1925]
ANCIENT TOWNS AND CITIES IN GUJARAT AND KATHIAWAD
6. Uppalaheta.
Uppalaheta was the headquarters of a 'pathaka' or what would called a sub-division in the eighth century. Cf. aut sastequà (Siladitya VI
now he
grant of 447 G.E.).
As it is stated to be in Kaira district, it must be the same as modern Upleta in Thasra Taluka, 35 miles due east of Kaira. Modern Upleta then has once seen better days; for as the headquarter of a 'pathaka' (which included 200 or 300 villages) it must have been a fair sized town. As the place is mentioned nowhere else, nothing more can be stated about it.
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7. Kantaragrâma and Karmântapura.
A forged grant of Dhruvasena II 6 mentions one Kantaragrama; Surat plates of Dhruva III 67 [dated Saka 789] refer to one Karmântapura. But both these are the names of one and the same place, which is none other than the village Kattargam, two or three miles north-east of Surat.
Kattargam is the popular corruption of Kantaragama, which in turn is the Praktised spelling of Sanskrit Karmântapura, r and m sounds being transferred for phonetic convenience. This identification is further supported by the statement anache afacercar: graft aftercare: of the forged plate which is obviously modelled upon the statement कर्मान्तपुरप्रतिबद्धषोडशोत्तरमामशतान्तःपाती in the genuine plate. Both statements obviously refor to one and the same place. If Karmântapura is thus Kantaragrâma, it follows from philological logic that the modern Kattargam village is the same as ancient Karmântapura.
There are other considerations also which support this identification. Nandiaraka village in the Kantaragrâma district was bounded on the west by the sea; this shows that the district was like modern Ratnagiri a coastal one. Then again Pârâhanaka village of the genuine plate was immediately to the south of Mottaka or modern Mota (five miles to the north of Bardoli). Karmántapura then must be in a coastal district not far from Bardoli. Both these conditions are satisfied by modern Kattargam.
Modern Kattargam then must have been a fair sized city in the ninth century. For, it was the headquarter of a big district of 1,600 villages and Yasodhara observes टात प्राममध्ये . Its prosperity however declined, possibly because the headquarter of the district was shifted elsewhere; it probably was only a fair-sized town, if not merely a big village during the fourteenth century, hence the forged grant which seems to belong to this century calls it a 'grama ' instead of pura'.
8. Karpatavanijya,
This place is mentioned as the headquarter of a territorial sub-division of 84 villages in the Kapadwanj grant of Akalavarsha Subhatunga dated 867 A.D."9 About the identity of this Karpatavanijya with Kapadwanj, where the plates were found, there can be no doubt; phonetic changes explain themselves; modern Kapadwanj contains some houses as old as 800 years; near the walls of the city there is the site of a still older town.
The importance of Karpatavanijya, though only a taluka town in the ninth century, lay in its being on the trade route from Central India to the coast. In the Solanki period the town was transformed into a fort by Siddharaja Jayasimha, who also constructed a tank70 to supply drinking water to the troops and townsmen. Being a fort on the southern frontier of the Solanki dominions, it must have been in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries a place of great importance.
66 Ind. Ant., Vol. X, p. 284. 68 Com. on Kama Satra, 1.4.2. 70 Kaira Gazetteer.
67 Ind. Ant., Vol. XII, p. 179. es Ep. In., vol. I, p. 55.
