Tej Ram Sharma
[6] mentions:
(7) Kusthalapura (कुस्थलपुर) (No. I, L. 20) : Kusthalapura ruled by
Dhananjaya is mentioned as one of the Daksinapatha kingdoms subdued by
Samudragupta. Smith takes it to be a mistake for Kusasthalapura, and identifies it with the holy city of
Dwarka, the capital of
Anartta, i. e. North
Gujarat. Raj Bali Pandey also identifies it with Kusasthali (
Dwarka). G. Ramdas locates the place in
Gujarat following Smith. Monier Williams also identifies Kusasthala with the town of
Dwarka. Bhandarkar, following Barnett identifies the place with Kuttalur near Polur in North Arcot.
This Kusasthall is not situated in
Gujarat but presumably on the eastern spurs of the Vindhya range near Daksinakosala. It was the capital of
Kusha, son of
Ramacandra. But its position in the list of the States of Daksinapatha indicates a place a little more to the south.
By the process of Haplology,
Kusasthalapura is simplified into Kusthalapura which may be changed to Kusasthali or
Kusavati in short.
The suffix sthala or sthali is significant : it suggests a high- lying country, an eminence, tableland, or dry-land as opposed to a damp low-land. The
Mahabharata,
Harivamsa, early Jain and Pali literature use the word in this sense. The
Mahabharata mentions both
Kusasthala as well as kusasthali. The latter is supposed to be another name of
Dwarka.
Ref - 6.
Personal and geographical names in the Gupta inscriptions/Place-Names and their Suffixes,pp.230-231