Revisiting Vaḷīpaṭṭana

Looking at the big picture that has emerged from the study of the ancient ports and market towns of Goa, we perhaps need to revise a hypothesis put forth early on : that Vaḷīpaṭṭana of the South Konkan Śilāhāra, could be today’s Baḷī. [Vaḷīpaṭṭana - The Shilāhāra Capital, 23 Jul 17] We are now led to accept Moraes’ view that Vaḷīpaṭṭana was Veḷlī (Velim), not Baḷī. [Moraes, 1931 : The Kadamba Kula, 181] The reason that weighs heavily in favour of Veḷlī is the fact that this village is much closer to the Bētūl port, and therefore the sea, than Baḷī. The choice of Veḷlī, therefore, conforms better to “Ballipattana, charming with the surging waves of the ocean” of Pattanakuḍī plates (988 CE). Veḷlī is just across the river from the Bētūl port and the sea. The area now known as the Bētūl Koṭ to the southwest of Veḷlī, in Kāṇāṁgiṇīṁ (Canaguinim) village, may itself be where a part of the fortifications of the capital lay.