Indian Palaeography from about B.C. 350 to about A.D. 1300 c7.s13.1

c7.s13.1

In addition to the inscriptions of Daśaratha (col. XVII), which very probably belong just to the end of the 3rd century B C. (see above, § 16, A), only those of the Ceta king Khāravela of Kaliṅga (cols. XXI, XXII) and those of the Andhra queen Nāyanikā in the Nānāghāṭ cave (cols. XXIII, XXIV) can be dated approximately. Khāravela's inscription must have been incised between B. C. 157 and 147, as the king's thirteenth year is said to correspond to the year 165 of "the time of the Muriya (Mauriya) kings,"¹ and it fixes also the time of the Nānāghāṭ inscription. For, according to line 4, Khāravela assisted in the second year of his reign a western king called Sātakaṇi. This Sātakaṇi probably is identical with the first Andhra prince of that name mentioned in the Purāṇas, whose inscribed image is found in the Nānāghāṭ cave. Hence the date of the large inscription, which was incised during the regency of Sātakaṇi's widow Nāyanikā, cannot be much later than B. C. 150.²