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52. Slippara. — This is the modern Sopara (19° 25' N., 72° 41 ' E. ), a few miles north of Bombay. It is said to have been the capital of the Konkan between 50*0 B. C. and 1300 A. D. It appears in the Mahabharata as Shurparaka, as a very holy place. Some Bud- dhist writings assert that Gautama Buddha, in a former birth, was Bodhisattva of Sopara. See Imp. Gaz . , XXIII, 87.
52. Calliena. — This is the modern Kalyana (19° 14' N., 73° 10' E. ), on the eastern shore of the harbor of Bombay. It was the principal port of the Andhra kingdom during the periods when it held the west coast. According to Lassen, the name was also applied to the strip of coast on either side of the harbor, roughly between 1 8° and 20° N.
Cosmas Indicopleustes, in the 6th century A. D., found it one of the five chief marts of Western India, the capital of the powerful Chalukya kings, with a trade in brass, blackwood logs, and articles of clothing. See Imp. Gaz., XIV, 322.
The word kalyana means “blest,” and is at least reminiscent of similar names on the western shores of the Erythraean Sea.
52. The elder Saraganus; Sandares; to which should be added NambanilS of § 41. (The text has Sandanes and Mambarus. ) Here are three important references, both for fixing the date of the Periplus and for throwing light on a dark period of Indian history.
The great empire of the Mauryas went to pieces in the 2d cen- tury B. C., leaving as its strongest successor its Dravidian element, the Andhra country in the Deccan, which comprised the valleys of the Godaverl and Kistna; the Telugu peoples, roughly the modern Nizam’s dominions. In the south the other Dravidian kingdoms, the Tamil-speaking Cholas, Pandyas and Cheras, retained their independ- ence as before. North of the Yindhyas there was anarchy. The Bengal states had resumed their local governments, while the West and Northwest had succumbed to the Asiatic invaders, the Saka and Kushan tribes. The western coast below the Vindhyas was a bone of contention between the Saka commanders and the Andhra mon- archs, who maintained the feud for at least a century, with varying success.
The provinces of Surashtra, Gujarat and Malwa, after years of warfare, were incorporated under a stable government by the Western Kshatrapa, or Saka Satraps, who subsequently defeated the Andhras and annexed the Konkan coast. This is thought to have been the origin of the Saka era, dating from 78 A. D. , still largely used in India. A half-century later the Andhras under Vilivayakura II, or Gautaml- putra Satakarni, reconquered the coast-land, only to lose it to the
