Kamboi is a town located in Chanasma

taluka A tehsil (, also known as tahsil, taluka, or taluk) is a local unit of administrative division in some countries of South Asia. It is a subdistrict of the area within a district including the designated populated place that serves as its administr ...

, in Patan district, in the modern Indian

state State may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State * ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States * ''Our S ...

Gujarat Gujarat (, ) is a state along the western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the Kathiawar peninsula. Gujarat is the fifth-largest Indian state by area, covering some ; and the ninth ...

. It is west of

Chanasma Chanasma is a small town and a municipality in Chanasma Taluka of Patan district in the state of Gujarat, India. Etymology There is a legend regarding origin of the name of town. There was a mosque on the bank of the tank in the town which ha ...

on the Harij-

Mehsana Mehsana (), also spelled Mahesana, is a city and municipality in Mehsana district, in the Indian state of Gujarat. Established in 14th century, the city was under Gaekwads of Baroda State from 18th century to the independence of India in 1947 ...

road. It uses the postcode number of 384230.

History

Historian R. C. Majumdar describes Kamboi as being about west of Anahilwara Patan. It was the site of a decisive victory in 1392 over Farhat-ul-Mulk by Zaffar Khan, who later founded the Muzaffarid dynasty.

Etymology

Kamboika is stated to have been evolved from the

Pali Pali () is a Middle Indo-Aryan liturgical language native to the Indian subcontinent. It is widely studied because it is the language of the Buddhist ''Pāli Canon'' or '' Tipiṭaka'' as well as the sacred language of '' Theravāda'' Buddh ...

''Kambojaka'' or ''Kambojika'' as follows: Kambojika

> Kamboyika

> Kamboika since hard palatal j is known to change to soft y in Indo-Aryan languages and further ''yi''

> ''i''. The change of palatal ''j'' to soft ''y'' is not unusual. The Shabazgarhi Inscriptions of king

Ashoka Ashoka (, ; also ''Asoka''; 304 – 232 BCE), popularly known as Ashoka the Great, was the third emperor of the Maurya Empire of Indian subcontinent during to 232 BCE. His empire covered a large part of the Indian subcontinent, s ...

also write Kamboja as Kamboya where j is replaced with y.) To give a few more illustrations, the terms SamJogita, SamaJa, Jajman, Jadu, Jogi and GaJni etc. are also found written as SamYokita, SamaYa Yajman Yadu, Yogi and GaYni where also the j has become soft y. And lastly, the ''penultimate'' letter k being sandwiched between two vowels gets eliminated in ancient

Indo-Aryan languages The Indo-Aryan languages (or sometimes Indic languages) are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family. As of the early 21st century, they have more than 800 million speakers, primarily ...

following a documented procedure as noted by ancient

Prakrit The Prakrits (; sa, prākṛta; psu, 𑀧𑀸𑀉𑀤, ; pka, ) are a group of vernacular Middle Indo-Aryan languages that were used in the Indian subcontinent from around the 3rd century BCE to the 8th century CE. The term Prakrit is usu ...

ic Grammarians. According to third century Prakritic grammarian Acharya Varuchi, the consonants k, g, ch, j, t, d, p etc. falling between two vowel sounds usually get elited. Hence KamboiKa

> Kamboi Thus, the 15th-century records refer to this town as Kamboi.

Tourism

Jain tirtha

The Kamboi town has an old

Jain Jainism ( ), also known as Jain Dharma, is an Indian religion. Jainism traces its spiritual ideas and history through the succession of twenty-four tirthankaras (supreme preachers of ''Dharma''), with the first in the current time cycle being ...

tirtha (''pilgrim place'') at its centre. The moolnayak of this temple is a white-coloured idol of Bhagawan Manamohan Parshvanath in the Padmasana posture. The idol dates back to King Samprati’s period (224 – 215 BCE). Other idols in the temple have inscriptions dating back to the 16th century. The temple was renovated in 2003. There is also an old temple to Siyojmata, a goddess of the town.

Land-locked trade port

Recent archaeological

excavations In archaeology, excavation is the exposure, processing and recording of archaeological remains. An excavation site or "dig" is the area being studied. These locations range from one to several areas at a time during a project and can be condu ...

have discovered that even though

land-locked A landlocked country is a country that does not have territory connected to an ocean or whose coastlines lie on endorheic basins. There are currently 44 landlocked countries and 4 landlocked de facto states. Kazakhstan is the world's largest ...

now, the Kamboi and Kambay had been once well known sea ports on the western coast of Gujarat. Similarly also, there was a port named Gandhar in Taluka Bhroach (ancient Bharukachcha) contiguous to Narbada."Ancient ports of Gujarat"
''Geospatial World''.

Notes and references

Notes

References

* Hindu Polity, A Constitutional History of India in Hindu Times, Part I & II, 1978, Dr K. P. Jayswal * * The Sind, M. C. Lambrick * Epigraphia Indica, Vol XXIV, pp 45–46
"Shri Kamboi Teerth"
{{Patan district Jain temples in Gujarat Cities and towns in Patan district