Saurāṣṭra

Saurāṣṭra is the Kathiawar peninsula of Gujarat in western India, between the Gulf of Kutch and the Gulf of Khambhat. Its history includes the Junagadh rock inscription of the ruler Rudradāman (about 150 CE), the Maitraka kingdom whose capital Valabhī was a centre of learning where grants were made to Brahmins, Buddhists and Jains, and the temple of Somnath. The seventh-century astronomer Bhāskara I may have been born in the region. According to one strand of Tibetan biographical tradition, the eighth-century Madhyamaka master Śāntideva, author of the Bodhicaryāvatāra, was born a prince of Saurāṣṭra before becoming a monk at Nālandā, although the earliest surviving biography places his birth in southern India.