Note 46 — Chapter VIII · THE VALABHIS (a.d. 509–766.)
Reading edition
Though, except as applied to the Porbandar range of hills, the name Barada is almost unknown, and though Ghumli not Barada was the early (eighth-twelfth century) capital of Porbandar some place named Barada seems to have existed on the Porbandar coast. As early as the second century a.d., Ptolemy (McCrindle, 37) has a town Barda-xema on the coast west of the village Kome (probably the road or kom) of Sauráshṭra; and St. Martin (Geographie Grecque et Latine de l’Inde, 203) identifies Pliny’s (a.d. 77) Varetatæ next the Odomberæ or people of Kachh with the Varadas according to Hemachandra (a.d. 1150) a class of foreigners or mlechchhas. A somewhat tempting identification of Barada is with Beruni’s Bárwi (Sachau, I. 208) or Baraoua (Reinaud’s Fragments, 121) 84 miles (14 parasangs) west of Somanátha. But an examination of Beruni’s text shows that Bárwi is not the name of a place but of a product of Kachh the bára or bezoar stone. ↑