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214
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
NOVEMBER, 1926
scale in the north of Thana by the second century A.D., it is not perhaps over-rash to date its arrival in the North Konkan a century or two before that date. It seems to have reached India from the Malay country by way of Ceylon, and the Bhandaris, who from the earliest period of Bombay history have been closely associated with the tree, probably came with it from the Ratnagiri District of the South Konkan, which has always been one of their chiet strongholds. Some Bhandaris certainly acquired a position of power in Chaul and neighbouring areas before the fourteenth century, and there is ample evidence that they were employed as soldiers both by the Marathas and by the British. Sivaji's famous Hetkaris were Bhandaris and the earliest militia and police force in Bombay was composed largely of Bandareens, as they were styled by contemporary writers. There is also a strong tradition that just prior to Portuguese rule in Bombay the Bhandaris actually revolted from Muhammadan overlordship and were strong enough to hold Mahim and the northern parts of the Island for a space of eight or ten years. Whatever the exact truth may be, there is no doubt that the Bhandaris represent an early element of Bombay society, that they wielded political and military influence in the immediate neighbourhood of Bombay about the end of the thirteenth century, and that although their hereditary occupation is the tapping of the palm-tree and the manufacture of palm liquor, they possessed a traditional inclination to martial pursuits and formed an efficient element in the forces of both the Marathas and the East India Company in the seventeenth century.
The Silahora rulers yielded place in A.D. 1265 to Brahman viceroys of the Ya davas of Devgiri, who had emerged triumphant from the struggle conneeted with the dissolution of the Chalukya power in the Deccan. Yadava authority over the Northern Konkan appears to have been acknowledged up to A.D. 1297, three years after Alau-d-din Khilji's raid on the Deccan. For several years after that date the political circumstances of Bombay are obscure ; but it seems probable that Thana, including Bombay, was administered by local Hindu rulers until about A.D. 1350, when the Muhammadan governor of Gujarat took forcible possession of the country. One of these Hindu Rais or Chiefs, who is known to tradition as Raja Bimb or Bhim Raja, is of more than ordinary historical importance ; for he appears to have transferred his capital from Thana in Salsette, which he probably found too exposed to attack, to the island of Mabim in Bombay, and by that act raised Bombay at once above the level of a mere aboriginal fishing settlement.
Of Bimb's precise identity, no authentic record exists, and the popular view that ho belonged to the family of the Solankis of Anahilwada or the Yåda vas of Devgiri is unstenable. The most plausible supposition is that he was a leading member of the Pathare Prabhu community, which had held high officiał tank under the Silaharas and had ample opportunity of establishing a small principality of its own in the sparsely-populated island of Mahim in Bombay during the confusion that followed the Muhammadan invasion of the Deccan. Any. how there is no reason to doubt that for some few years Bimb ruled at Mahim, granted offices and rent-free lands to his followers, and was directly responsible for the establishment of a town, which was given the pompous Sanskrit name of Mahika vati. From the shortened form of this name, Mahî, the Portuguese name Mahim was derived. The story that he brought in his train, direct from Gujarat or the Deccan, the various castes and classes mentioned in the preceding paragraphs, together with Bhois (palanquin-bearers) and Thakurs (men-at-arms) is manifestly absurd. But it is not unreasonable to assume that in moving the seat of government from Salsette to Mahim he introduced into Bombay a considerable number of his own caste-fellows and allied tribes and castes, who had settled in Thana and the towns and villages of the North Konkan during the four and a half centuries of Silahara rule. From the commencement of the fourteenth century, therefore, may be dated the presence in Bombay Island, in appreciable numbers, of the Pathare Prabhus, Panchkalshis, Palshi. kar or Yajurvedi Brahmans, Bhois, Thakurs, Malis or Vadrals, and Agris. Of these the Prabhus
