Byzantium of Konkan

In the year 667 BC, the ancient city of Byzantium was founded by Greek colonists at the conflux of Sea of Marmara, the Golden Horn and Bosphorus. This city, would later acquire numerous names over the course of history, instrumental in changing the course of Europe, Africa and Asia plenty of times. Augusta Antonia, New Rome, Roma Constantinopolitana, and Constantinople before finally changing it's current name in 1930 to Istanbul. But this post, isn't about Istanbul or even about Türkiye. But, it's about the name 'Byzantium' and how it got sailed to the most oddest locations from Europe - to the Konkan coast of western India. 

When the Europeans started mapping the Indian subcontinent, they gave some Hellenized names to Indian towns. Bharuch was written as Barygaza, Ponnani in Kerala was Tyndis, and a list of places whose current names are hard to decipher - Brama, Hipocura, Chersonesus etc. It was in the same fashion, that old maps find a place on the Konkan coast, called as Byzantium (or Byzanteion / Byzantine). This theory is stated by the Pleiades Project and by historians S. Tripati, A.S. Gaur and S.N. Bandodkar (1998). 

But how did a 'Byzantium' land on the Konkan coast? Neither was/is Vijaydurg in any way resembling Istanbul, nor was there any direct linkage between the two towns. There are numerous speculations but none have concrete answers. The ancient Greeks used the word 'Chersonesus' to describe the area around Goa, which has a literal meaning of 'peninsula'. But that logic cannot be applied to Vijaydurg here, as it wasn't technically a peninsula. The local towns of Bharukachha (modern day Bharuch) and Muchhiripatnam became Barygaza and Muziris. By this logic, Vijayadurg must be having some name that may have been Hellenised as Byzantine. But there was another theory proposed by W.H. Schoff in 1924, that Byzantium may correspond to the Karnataka town of Banavasi (in Uttara Kannada district) which had it's former names Vaijayanti or Vaijayantipura or Jayanthipura, which can be misread in Hellenistic way as Byzantium or Byzanteion. But at the same time, Banavasi isn't a port so either a port area close to Banavasi was labelled as Byzantium, or it's Vijayadurg itself with some unexplained reason as why it was called as Byzantium. 

But old maps says otherwise. A 1865 dated map by Karl Spruner von Merz recreates the Ptolemic map of Asia and mentions Byzantium straight south to Musopalle and north of Tyrannosboas, denoting Jaigad and Malwan (both in today's Sindhudurg district). Many of these Hellenistic names actually had literal Greek meanings and so as they saw the town's geography, they gave these names. But Byzantine is an exception and as described above, it has multiple meanings to it's placement in India. There is another theory that states these Hellenistic names were basically geographical placeholders and cartographic reference points. Having said that, a Byzantium in India with no connection the the actual Byzantium city is actually pretty interesting. 

Going a bit more with the Karl Spruner von Merz map, it's important to point out the literal translations of some places the map had deciphered and published, back in 1865.