1883.—"... its unhappy plains were swept over, this way and that, by the cavalry of rival Mahratta powers, Mogul and Rohilla horsemen, or campos and pultuns (battalions) under European adventurers...."—Quarterly Review, April, p. 294.
CANARA, n.p. Properly Kannaḍa. This name has long been given to that part of the West coast which lies below the Ghauts, from Mt. Dely northward to the Goa territory; and now to the two British districts constituted out of that tract, viz. N. and S. Canara. This appropriation of the name, however, appears to be of European origin. The name, probably meaning 'black country' [Dravid. kar, 'black,' nādu, 'country'], from the black cotton soil prevailing there, was properly synonymous with Karṇātaka (see [CARNATIC]), and apparently a corruption of that word. Our quotations show that throughout the sixteenth century the term was applied to the country above the Ghauts, sometimes to the whole kingdom of Narsinga or Vijayanagar (see [BISNAGAR]). Gradually, and probably owing to local application at Goa, where the natives seem to have been from the first known to the Portuguese as Canarijs, a term which in the old Portuguese works means the Konkani people and language of Goa, the name became appropriated to the low country on the coast between Goa and Malabar, which was subject to the kingdom in question, much in the same way that the name Carnatic came at a later date to be misapplied on the other side of the Peninsula.
The Kanara or Canarese language is spoken over a large tract above the Ghauts, and as far north as Bidar (see Caldwell, Introd. p. 33). It is only one of several languages spoken in the British districts of Canara, and that only in a small portion, viz. near Kundāpur. Tuḷu is the chief language in the Southern District. Kanaḍam occurs in the great Tanjore inscription of the 11th century.
1516.—"Beyond this river commences the Kingdom of Narsinga, which contains five very large provinces, each with a language of its own. The first, which stretches along the coast to Malabar, is Tulinate (i.e. Tuḷu-nādu, or the modern district of S. Canara); another lies in the interior ...; another has the name of Telinga, which confines with the Kingdom of Orisa; another is Canari, in which is the great city of Bisnaga; and then the Kingdom of Charamendel, the language of which is Tamul."—Barbosa. This passage is exceedingly corrupt, and the version (necessarily imperfect) is made up from three—viz. Stanley's English, from a Sp. MS., Hak. Soc. p. 79; the Portuguese of the Lisbon Academy, p. 291; and Ramusio's Italian (i. f. 299v).
c. 1535.—"The last Kingdom of the First India is called the Province Canarim; it is bordered on one side by the Kingdom of Goa and by Anjadiva, and on the other side by Middle India or Malabar. In the interior is the King of Narsinga, who is chief of this country. The speech of those of Canarim is different from that of the Kingdom of Decan and of Goa."—Portuguese Summary of Eastern Kingdoms, in Ramusio, i. f. 330.
1552.—"The third province is called Canará, also in the interior...."—Castanheda, ii. 50.
And as applied to the language:—
"The language of the Gentoos is Canará."—Ibid. 78.
1552.—"The whole coast that we speak of back to the Ghaut (Gate) mountain range ... they call Concan, and the people properly Concanese (Conquenijs), though our people call them Canarese (Canarijs).... And as from the Ghauts to the sea on the west of the Decan all that strip is called Concan, so from the Ghauts to the sea on the west of Canará, always excepting that stretch of 46 leagues of which we have spoken [north of Mount Dely] which belongs to the same Canará, the strip which stretches to Cape Comorin is called Malabar."—Barros, Dec. I. liv. ix. cap. 1.
1552.—"... The Kingdom of Canará, which extends from the river called Gate, north of Chaul, to Cape Comorin (so far as concerns the interior region east of the Ghats) ... and which in the east marches with the kingdom of Orisa; and the Gentoo Kings of this great Province of Canará were those from whom sprang the present Kings of Bisnaga."—Ibid. Dec. II. liv. v. cap. 2.