Indische Palaographie von circa 350 a. Chr. – circa 1300 p. Chr. c24.s1.5

c24.s1.5

After Nahapāna, the territory of these satraps probably embraced the districts originally governed by Nahapāna and Caṣṭana separately. The suzerainty of the Andhras was, apparently, alternately successfully disputed and reasserted during the reigns of the first two satraps, Caṣṭana and Jayadāman. The distinction between the titles mahākṣatrapa and kṣatrapa on these earliest coins may be thus explained --- Caṣṭana originally a simple kṣatrapa becomes a mahākṣatrapa, while his successor bears only the inferior title (Bh.JRAS. 1890, p. 645). The independence of this dynasty seems to have been permanently established by the third satrap, *Rudradāman*, who boasts, in his Junāgaḍh inscr., of having twice conquered the Sātakarṇi king of the Deccan, and of having won for himself the title of mahākṣatrapa (*svayamabhigata-mahākṣatrapanāmnāḥ*). After the time of Rudradāman, as is proved by the coin-dates, the reigning sovereign is regularly styled mahākṣatrapa; and the the heir apparent, who governed some portion of the kingdom as viceroy, is styled kṣatrapa.