202 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. [N.S., XV, 
nath river under Podunde This alone suggests that the term 
Atharah Garh had a special OR NE and when we find 
that the adjoining kingdom of Sambalpur,!' now a district of 
Behar and Orissa, was known by this very name the sugges- 
tion rises almost to a certainty. In a very remarkable report 
written by a certain Mr. Motte who visited Sambalpur i in search 
of diamonds in 1766 A.D. we read that “ The Sambalpur Pro- 
‘vince is so called from its capital; but the Rajah takes the 
zi “ title of Rajah of eighteen forts. Such titles are common 
‘among the Hindus, and I doubt if the capital of the Maha- 
“rattas which we a Sattarah-gur or the Star fort is not 
‘ Sattarah-gur or the seventeen forts, for oars? is not a star 
‘in any of the Hindu languages. Ther e two Rajas o 
“‘ thirty-six forts—one in the Allahabad Sevsinoe, the other to 
“ the northward of Lucknow.” 
is evidence will probably satisfy most people that 
the term Atharah Garh was, in this part of India, a conven- 
tional expression indicating the existence of a Raj or kingdom ; 
and that our Chhattisgarh (of which, oddly enough, Mr. Motte 
makes no mention) was so called from the existence within it 
of two allied _—) But we have other indications leading to 
the same conclusio 
nan fa Ra atanpur spe ya of 1114 A.D. (No. 140 
in the Descriptive List of Central Provinces Inscriptions) we 
of that Kokalla, a ruler of the Chedi kingdom from which 
Chedi hou 
The earliest direct reference to Atharah Garh is found in 
a Raipur Inscription of 1415 A.D. (No. 125 in Rai Bahadur 
Hiralal’s ‘‘ Descriptive list ’’) where we are told that Simhana- 
deva, King of Raipur, conquered “18 forts or strongholds of 
adversaries.” This may well have been the occasion of the 
establishment of the separate appanage of Raipur,’ for in the 
Bastar State we find the same — peepee: * In 1502 A.D. 
round Ratanpur when it was conquered by off-shoots of the 
se. 
! The Sambalpur Atharahgarh is a with at length in Chapter VI. 
The view here su suggested that the Kingdom of Raipur was an 
*‘ appanage” of the Ratanpur Raj seems to be most consistent with 
what we know of the relations Serre tert ihe two. Raipur was certainly 
