Piram
Piram, 1908
(Perini) Island in Ahmadabad District, Bombay, situated in 21 36' N. and 72degree 21' E., in the Gulf of Cambay, 41/2 miles south of Gogha, and 2 1/2 from the nearest part of the Kathiawar shore. Piram is a reef of rock covered in part by brown sand, its dimensions at high water being one mile by about half a mile. It is included in the estate of the Gogha Kasbatis, to whom it was assigned by one of the Delhi emperors. Except on the south, it is surrounded by rocky reefs rising to the surface from a depth of from 60 to 70 feet. Past the island the tide runs with extreme force. To avoid the chopping sea and sunken reefs, boats crossing from Gogha to Piram stand out as if making for Dehej Bara at the mouth of the Narbada, In the east of the island millet is grown and the low sand-hills are covered by asclepias. Beyond these are some nim trees (Melia Azadirachtd) and a fringe of mangrove bushes. The island is uninhabited in the rains, but contains a few families of husbandmen and fishermen in the fair season. On the ruins of an old bastion there is a dioptric light of the fourth order, visible for 17 miles.
Piram is the Baiones Island of the Periplus. Till the fourteenth century it would seem to have remained in the hands of Bariya Kolis. Then under their leader Mokharjl, the Gohel Rajputs, who about a century and a half earlier had retired from Marwar to Gujarat, passed south from Ranpur near Dhandhuka. and took Gogha and Piram. Strengthening himself in his island fortress, Mokharjl became a great pirate chief; but his power was short lived. About the year 1300 complaints of his piracies were laid before Muhammad bin Tughlak, who was then in Gujarat quelling a revolt. Advancing in person he attacked Piram, slew Mokharjl, and took his fort. The island was then deserted, and an attempt to colonize and fortify it failed.
The Hindu seamen of the Gulf of Cambay still cherish Mokharji's memory, seldom passing Piram without making him an offering. Of his stronghold there remains, skirting the shore, a ruined wall, with, below high-tide level, a gateway ornamented by two rock- cut elephants 10 feet long and 8 or 9 feet high. No further attempt would seem to have been made to fortify Piram, till, on the decay of Mughal power, about the middle of the eighteenth century, the ambitious Surat merchant Mulla Muhammad Ali built a fort on the island and tried to establish himself as an independent chief. Afraid of the climate his people forsook him, and the Mulla, giving up Piram, built a fort at Athva on the Tapti, a few miles below Surat. The lines of the Mulla's fortress, from whose ruins the lighthouse tower was built, may be seen near the centre of the island stretching across its entire breadth. Besides traces of fortifications there are remains of temples, one of them with a rudely cut sitting figure of Buddha. The local story that Mokharjl built a mole from the mainland to Piram has, perhaps, no better foundation than the half-sunk wall and gate- way and the reefs that, at low water, stand out like a giant's causeway.
Its large store of fossils gives a special interest to Piram. Besides masses of petrified wood, large quantities of animal remains were found in 1836. Almost all were embedded in the rock in the south-east corner of the island, where the sea washes bare the lower conglomerate. The remains are the same as those of Upper Sind and of the Siwalik Hills. Besides two titanic ruminants, apparently with no living types, named the Bramatherium and the Sivatherium, there are species of elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, horse, ox, antelope, several forms of crocodile, fresh-water tortoises, and fishes of gigantic size.
This article has been extracted from THE IMPERIAL GAZETTEER OF INDIA , 1908. OXFORD, AT THE CLARENDON PRESS. |
Note: National, provincial and district boundaries have changed considerably since 1908. Typically, old states, ‘divisions’ and districts have been broken into smaller units, and many tahsils upgraded to districts. Some units have since been renamed. Therefore, this article is being posted mainly for its historical value.
