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brindra Silhara; but his era is not stated, Mr. Walter Elliot conjectures that the last expedition of Vijala Kálabhúrya, the usurper of Kulyan, was against this family. Of this event the Vijala chronicle records, that the king, "warned in a dream of his approaching death," summoned all the nobles of the kingdom, and all having attended except the Silharas, he marched against them; and after some negotiation on the Bheema river, continued his journey to Kolapoor, which he besieged, and having breached the wall, "Suri Danda" Natha submitted. One of the appellations of this family, "Tagara Púr," has excited much interest, and great endeavours have been made to throw light upon it; but the inscriptions give no clue as to where Tagara, whence they had their origin, actually was. If, however, Deogurh was in reality the Tagara of a very ancient date, many families of note may have sprung either from the local dynasty, or its nobility, at the period of the disruption of its dominions. No inscription of the Silharas has been discovered later than S. 1137 A.D. 1215, and it is most probable that the family disappeared in the subsequent troublous times.

Kadamba is a third noble family, of which their inscriptions give an unbroken genealogy of fifteen successions from Mayura Varma Déva I. to Mayura Varma Déva II, S. 956, A.D. 1034. The date of the earliest is not given; but Mr. Walter Elliot assumes that, allowing thirty years to a generation, the era may be S. 500 or 550, A.D. 578 or 628, which would raise it to an equality of descent with the Chalúkyas,—a supposition by no means, perhaps, improbable. The hereditary possessions of this family were in the province of Banawassee, and their tenure of them is believed to have been anterior to the establishment of the Chalúkyas, and contemporary with the Rattas and Silharas. To the originator of the family, Mayura Varma, is attributed the introduction of Brahmins, and the Hindoo, or Brahminical faith, into the province; but at what date it is impossible to conjecture. That they were subject to and servants of the Chalúkyas appears from several inscriptions dated S. 956, 969, 997, the incumbent holding his office of Governor of Banawassee, &c, by appointment of Bhunéka Malla Chalúkya. Of this family Dr. Buchanan obtained some interesting records in Malabar, proving that their dominions extended to the sea coast at one period, and embraced much of Malabar and the southern Concan. It is most probable, therefore, that when the Chalúkyas prevailed over them, they became feudatories of portions of their original possessions.

The Rattas have been mentioned before as for a time successful over the Chalúkyas, and being afterwards subdued by them in turn; Jaya Sinha Chalúkya, according to the Yeoor inscription, "overcame the army of 800 elephants of the son of the Moon Ratta Kula, named Krishta. He destroyed that prince, with his army of 500 elephants; thus the goddess of royalty was attained by the Chalúkya race." The Rattas were Jains, and were lords of Samditi, near Pursghur, and local inscriptions attest their existence up to S. 1019, A.D. 1097; another branch, or probably the same family, governed at Gutal, on the Tumboodra; a third at Pattudkul, near Badami, and at Belgavé, under Ramchundra Yádu, of Devagiri, bringing the existence of the family nearly to the Mahomedan conquest, at which time they were probably in possession of those ancestral offices which seem to have been analogous to the modern Nargowras, or Déshmookhs.

During the whole of the period in which these families and their superior dynasties existed, that is, from the fifth to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries of the Christian era, the Carnatic, and in particular that portion of it named Kuntala Dés, seems to have been prosperous and advancing in civilization. It was well cultivated and covered with villages, as it is at present; and the fertility of its soil, and probably the facilities it possessed of trade with the coast, and export of its manufactures and productions to Egypt and to Arabia, through Greek, Roman, and Arabian merchants, no doubt formed a national element of its prosperity, of which its beautiful architectural remains are to the present day indisputable proofs. To a great extent the Jain religion prevailed over the Brahminical up to the sixth and seventh centuries and wherever it prospered, as in Guzerat, the most elaborate and exquisitely finished temples were erected by its votaries; but neither were the Brahmins idle, for their representative edifices are met with as frequently as those of the Jains. In short, from Dwára Samoodra, now Hullabeed, in Mysore, northwards to Kolapoor, and from the Tumboodra to the Ghauts, there are few villages in which there are not examples of the architectural skill, the taste, and the wonderfully elaborate execution of the stone edifices of that period, of which the illustrations to this volume will afford the reader ample confirmation. The period referred to, the fifth to the tenth century, it will be remembered, is that from the evacuation of Britain by the Romans to the end of the Saxon dynasties; and its remains in India prove the unquestionable superiority of the eastern over the western skill in decorative architecture.