Vallabhipur

Map of Bhavnagar district

Vallabhipur is a town in Bhavnagar district in Gujarat. Its ancient name was Walai.

History

James Tod writes that By what route Kanaksen, the first emigrant of the solar race, found his way into Saurashtra from Lohkot (Lahore), is uncertain : he, however, wrested dominion from a prince of the Pramara race, and founded Birnagara in the second century (A.D. 144).

Four generations afterwards, Vijayasen, founded Vijayapur, supposed to be where Dholka now stands, at the head of the Saurashtra peninsula. Vijayapur has been doubtfully identified with Bijapur in the Ahmadabad district (BG, i. Part i. 110).

Vidarba was also founded by him, the name of which was afterwards changed to Sihor.

But the most celebrated was the capital, Valabhipura, which for years baffled all search, till it was revealed in its now humbled condition as Walai, ten miles west of Bhavnagar. The existence of this city was confirmed by a celebrated Jain work, the Satrunjaya Mahatma. The want of satisfactory proof of the Rana's emigration from thence was obviated by the most unexpected discovery of an inscription of the twelfth century, in a ruined temple on the tableland forming the eastern boundary of the Rana's present territory, which appeals to the ' walls of Valabhi ' for the truth of the action it records. And a work written to commemorate the reign of Rana Raj Singh opens with these words : "In the west is Sorathdes, (Saurashtra) a country well known : the barbarians invaded it, and conquered Bal-ka-nath ; all fell in the sack of Valabhipura, except the daughter of the Pramara."

References

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