Guj: ખંભાત khambhāt
‘Pillar Village’ [Cambay, Khambavati] – City, Gujarat
From Skt/Hin: stambha/khambhā, ‘pillar’; and Skt: vāṭī, ‘site’, ‘enclosure’, ‘village’.
Khambhat was, in ancient times before its harbour silted up, an important port and trading post, dealing in silk, chintz, gems, beads and precious metals and trading to distant lands:
‘Cambay chiefly stretches out two arms; with her right she reaches out to Aden and with the other towards Malacca, as the most important place to sail…’ [Tomé Pires (1515) in Fatima (2010), p. 354].
Its agate beadmaking, practised even today, has its origins in the original manufacturing technology used by the Harappans (see Lothal).
Khambhat was the capital of Cambay State, a small princely state founded in 1730 in the final days of the Mughal Empire.
The King of Cambay from “Figurae variae Asiae et Africae,” a 16th century Portuguese manuscript in the Casanatense Library in Rome
