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The Historical Inscriptions of Southern India (collected till 1923) and Outlines of Political History c7: Introduction

The Historical Inscriptions of Southern India (collected till 1923) and Outlines of Political History c7

Language
English

Introduction

c7.1

A FEW traces of palæolithic man, consisting of chipped stone implements, have been found in Southern India; but they are not numerous, and they belong to an age whose distance from the present is so remote that to attempt to fix it is a matter of pure conjecture.

c7.2

After apparently a great gap in time we come to the neolithic age, and, following it with no such gap, to the iron age. Bruce Foote, the geologist of Southern India, came to the conclusion that the people of the iron age were direct descendants of the neolithic folk. All these three are combined in the term ‘pre-historic’ civilizations.

c7.3

In the neolithic age weapons and tools were made of the hardest procurable stones, skilfully flaked, chipped and polished. Axeheads were indented at the sides and bound to wooden shafts by withes cut from the forest. Hand-made pottery was used. Numerous remains of neolithic burials have been found in the Southern Dekhan and in the Districts of the Madras Presidency.

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In the iron age weapons were constructed of that metal; swords, spears, arrow heads and useful tools have been found in great numbers. Pottery was decorative, and many fragments of figurines have been discovered representing men, women and animals. Burials were in dolmens and cromlechs, and early Tamil literature abounds in allusions to the dead having been placed in great pottery urns before interment, many of which have been found in the South. Rude stone circles marked the burial place in many instances.

c7.5

The iron age gradually merged into the very early historic period. Originally, it cannot be doubted, the unit of mankind was the family. Then, as population increased, families living side by side, owing to the existence of common interests found themselves almost insensibly forced into obedience to a tribal chief whose rule met the general needs of the community. And after a lapse of time this union of families developed into a union of tribes, and this last union grew into the formation of nations; the whole process being primarily due to the disagreement of the units. Firstly family against family, then tribe against tribe, and finally nation against nation; each unit being formed for defence against other units. At the last stage the historic period begins.

c7.6

‘The earliest invaders or settlers about whom anything at all definite is known,’ write Vincent Smith in his *Oxford History of India*, ‘were the people of the *Rigveda* hymns, who called themselves Āryans, and are conveniently designated as Indo-Āryans. . . They were akin to Iranians or Persians, who also called themselves Āryans.’ But Southern India remained for a long time free of their influence, their appearance in the South being the result of peaceful penetration by missionaries or small colonies. These introduced a new religion into that country; the ancient Dravidian rites were gradually abandoned, and their place was taken by Vedic Brahmanism.

c7.7

During the later period there appears to have been a marked increase in mining and trading, and the inhabitants of Southern India were now introduced to the markets of central Asia and greatly profited thereby. A large quantity of the world's stock of gold, then becoming very popular amongst the rich, came from the territories now known as the Presidency of Madras and the Nizam's Dominions.¹

c7.8

¹ On the subject of ancient trade and commerce between India and the West Professor V. Ball's article 'A Geologist's Contribution to the History of Ancient India', published in the *Indian Antiquary* for 1884 (pp. 228 ff.) affords most valuable information. He believes that the Egyptians traded with India, though at present there is not much proof of this, Arabia certainly did, and so did the Phoenicians.

c7.9

It is impossible to assign any definite date to the spread of Āryan influence in South India, partly because that spread, as has been stated, was gradual, but Vincent Smith has suggested about 2000 B.C. as a mean date.

c7.10

The latest theory seems to be that there were two Āryan irruptions, one about 2500 B.C. and one about 1500 B.C. (Barnett, *Antiquities of India*, pp. 7, 8.)

c7.11

As far back as the time of the Purāṇas the people of South India were known as belonging to three nations, Pāṇḍyas, the Chōḷas and the Kēraḷas. The Rāmāyaṇa adds a fourth, namely, the Telugu country of the Āndhras. Their languages, and when they acquired the art of writing, their alphabets, were quite distinct. The Tamil alphabet is Semitic in character. This division of nations lasted down to comparatively modern times. But there were many sub-divisions.

c7.12

With regard to the trade of these times it must be noted that early Chaldæan inscriptions speak of ships of Ur, the capital city; and that from at least the fourteenth century B.C. gold, silks, spices, pearls, etc. . . . had been passing from India to the Assyrian monarchy, carried on both by caravans on land, and by the coasting trade by sea. There was also active trade with China.

c7.13

Indian products were known to the Syrians of King Solomon's Day, 1000 B.C. by their Indian names, as we know from the ancient Jewish records. On an obelisk of Shalmanezer III at Babylon are represented Indian elephants and apes.

c7.14

From about the year 700 B.C. events can be treated more historically. By this time Āryanism had flooded all north India. The remains of the aboriginal tribes had either been absorbed, reduced to servitude, or driven into the hills and forests. But the South remained principally Dravidian. The ancient Vedic theology had been expounded in the Brāhmaṇas, the philosophic Upanishads and the educational Vedāngas. The various Indian communities resulting from the fusion of Āryan and Dravidian races are known to have been very numerous. The Mahābhārata mentions six different kingdoms as existing on the Ganges River, Hastināpura, Mattra, Panchāla, Benares, Magadha and Bengal. There was another kingdom in Gujarat, another in the Indus Valley, another in the Kalinga country. But there must have been many more in the Dekhan and Peninsula and other parts. The Rāmāyaṇa names numbers of states in northern India, and fourteen kingdoms south of the Tungabhadra river. About 300 B.C. Megasthenes enumerates 118 nations as existing in India. Even after the greater number of north Indian states had been absorbed in the Empire of Magadha, King Aśōka (circ. 250 B.C.) makes mention of numerous states outside his own territory and bordering thereon.

c7.15

Judging from the known history of later years it is practically certain that all these small states lived in a condition of perpetual warfare with one another. Certainly the early literature, the Rāmāyaṇa, the Mahābhārata and the ancient Tamil poems testify that such was the case.

c7.16

About the seventh century B.C., therefore, we must assume that ‘India’ consisted of a large number of distinct states, constantly striving to destroy and absorb one another or struggling for existence. Foreigners, especially merchants from Persia, were no doubt settled in many of the coast towns and frontier cities. Somewhat later we have the evidence to this effect of the Greek writer Hekataius of Miletus (549–486 B.C.) who mentions places in India known to him. Trade in gold, spices, etc., was carried on by sea from the Malabar Coast, while the silk trade was confined to the Coromandel Coast. Maritime trade along the coasts had to contend with the dangers of piracy which appear to have been always prevalent.

c7.17

At last, during the seventh century, sixteen of the kingdoms of northern India were, after constant fighting, swallowed up in the supremacy of Magadha, and by the year 600 B.C. or thereabouts the King of Magadha, Śiśunāga, became practically an Emperor; being in possession of great territories in the north from the Hindukūsh to the Narmadā river, and from the Indus to Gayā, where Rājagriha became his capital.

c7.18

Four sovereigns in succession ruled over Magadha after the death of Śiśunāga. The fifth was Bimbisāra who came to the throne in 543 or 528 B.C.¹ The birth of Buddha had taken place about 563 B.C.

c7.19

¹ For these early dates I rely principally on the publications of Dr. L. D. Barnett, Antiquities of India (1913), and the Cambridge History of India (1922). The late historian Vincent Smith, in his Oxford History of India (1919) makes the dates about forty years earlier in each case. All however agree that the Maurya Chandragupta seized the throne in 322 or 321 B.C.

c7.20

Bimbisāra enlarged his dominions by conquest, and became very powerful. His principal queens were a princess of the great Lichchavi clan, and a daughter of the King of Kōsala. He had only been three years on the throne when he was threatened from the north-west;² for Cyrus the great King of Persia conquered Bactria, Kābul and Gandhāra and practically all the country to the west of the Indus. Bimbisāra, however, was not actually attacked by Cyrus, but the danger became greater with the advent to the Persian throne in 522 B.C. of Darius son of Hystaspes, whose general, Skylax, sailed down the Indus to the sea, thus allowing his master to annex the Indus valley about the year 512 B.C. Bimbisāra was murdered by his own son Ajātaśatru who seized the throne of Magadha (about 500 B.C.).³

c7.21

² The underlying assumption that Bimbisāra's authority extended to the N.-W. Frontier has no evidence to support it. Such evidence as is available is of a contrary tendency and would make Bimbisāra ruler of an extended Magadha and no more.—Editor.

c7.22

³ Such is the story as told in Buddhist literature. But Vincent Smith disbelieves the accusation made against Ajātaśatru (Oxford History of India, pp. 47, 48).

c7.23

This crime roused the country against Ajātaśatru and he was compelled to fight the Lichchavi and Kōsala clans. He defeated them, annexed Vaisāli, the Lichchavi capital, and constructed a frontier fortress at Pātaliputra (Patna) on the bank of the Ganges.

c7.24

In 483 B.C., according to general present estimate, the Buddha died and attained nirvāna. The occasion of his death was also the occasion, according to the Singhalese Mahāwamsa for the arrival in Ceylon of Vijaya, a prince exiled from Bengal, who became the first recognized king of the island, reigning thirty-eight years. He is said to have landed in Ceylon on the day of Buddha's death. The chronicle states that he sent an embassy to the Pāndya king of the Tamil country.

c7.25

In Persia at this time the reigning king was Xerxes, who succeeded Darius Hystaspes in 486 B.C. In his war against the Greeks he made use of a body of Indian bowmen. This was in 479. A little later Darius Codomanus of Persia had in his army fifteen war-elephants from India.

c7.26

Ajātaśatru of Magadha died about 475 B.C. and was succeeded by Darśaka and the latter by Udayin (circ. 450 to 417 B.C.). Udayin, also called Udāsin or Udaya, founded the city of Kusumapura close to the fortress of Pāṭaliputra. In 417 B.C. or thereabouts Nandivardhana came to the throne, and after him Mahānandin, the last of the dynasty.

c7.27

About 371 B.C. this last king's illegitimate son Mahāpadma Nanda usurped the throne of Magadha, and established a short dynasty that reigned for half a century. During their supremacy the country was greatly disturbed by internal dissension and by the epoch-making invasion of Alexander of Macedon and his armies of Greeks.

c7.28

Alexander had by the year 331 B.C. conquered the King of Persia and destroyed his dynasty, and had seized Egypt and founded the city of Alexandria. In 330 he was in Persia and in the next year made preparations for the conquest of Northern India. In 327 he advanced through the passes of the Hindukush, subduing the frontier tribes, and in 326 arrived at the Indus river. Crossing the river he was joined by a local ruler Āmbhi, King of Taxila, who was at feud with his neighbouring chiefs, with a force of 5,000 men, and the allies then marched to the Hydaspes or Jhelum river, where he was resolutely opposed by king ‘Poros’ or Puru on the eastern bank. Alexander made a détour, effected a crossing and attacked his opponent. The battle is known to European historians as the battle of the Hydaspes. Alexander won a great victory, slaughtered 12,000 men and captured or destroyed 200 elephants. Puru was wounded and submitted to the invader, who treated him with kindness and consideration. Alexander proceeded on his eastward march till he reached the Biās river, or Hyphasis, beyond which his soldiers refused to venture. Faced with open mutiny Alexander was compelled to retreat, and did so, leaving Puru, now his friend, as sovereign over twelve distinct nations that occupied the territory between the Jhelum and Biās rivers. In October 326 B.C. he sailed down the Jhelum, guarded on the banks by his army of 120,000 men. Great slaughter followed when any opposition was met with, and the journey to the sea lasted for ten months. In October 325 B.C. he started from the neighbourhood of Karāchi and marched back to Persia, suffering terrible hardships on the way. Eventually he arrived at Susa, with a mere remnant of his troops, in May 324 B.C.

c7.29

Alexander died in Babylon in June 323 B.C.

c7.30

Before passing on, one or two notes may be found useful. About the year 444 B.C., as we learn from the Mahāwamsa the King of Ceylon was called Pāṇḍu Vāsudeva; and in 377 Pāṇduka-Abhaya, was king. Both these rulers were probably connected with the royal family of Pāṇdyas of Madura.

c7.31

About 420 B.C. was the date of the Greek writer Herodotus. Ktesias lived about 400 B.C.

c7.32

After Alexander's expedition Europe learned much more about India than had ever been previously known, and the Indians of the north were brought into more intimate relations with the peoples of the west. A great increase of trade took place, welcome to both sides, and fostered by protection of caravans travelling by land and by the establishment of Alexandria as a mart for commercial activity. This led to the settlement in Indian cities of Greek merchants and the presence there of foreign travellers. Greek philosophy, religion and science were studied in India and the Buddhist and Jaina philosophies were discussed in Athens.

c7.33

For a time however these amenities were checked by the coming to great power of Chandragupta, the Maurya king, who overthrew the Nanda dynasty of Magadha and usurped the throne in 322 or 321 B.C. His first endeavour was to drive out the Macedonian garrisons left behind by Alexander, whose generals he succeeded in defeating. Then he seized the throne of Magadha and became the practical Emperor of the whole of northern India.

c7.34

In 305 B.C. Chandragupta was attacked by Seleukos Nikator, who then ruled over Western Asia, but the attack failed and peace was made, Chandragupta receiving large cessions of districts west of the Indus, and giving 500 elephants in exchange.

c7.35

In 302 B.C. Seleukos sent Megasthenes as ambassador to the Court of Chandragupta. Megasthenes has left behind him a most valuable record, the *Indika*, in which he describes all that he saw and heard while at Pāṭaliputra and on his journeys. Chandragupta's capital was a great walled city and Megasthenes said the walls were furnished with 570 towers and 64 gates.

c7.36

If the *Kauṭilīya Arthaśāstra*, as we have it, was really, as alleged, the work of Chandragupta's Brahman Minister Chāṇakya, alias Kauṭilya alias Viṣṇugupta, we should learn a great deal from it concerning the condition in his day of the mass of the king's subjects, and of the mode of government of the country; but there seems to be some doubt as to its genuineness, and an opinion has been growing up that it may be, in part at least, a composition of later years.¹ This being so I refrain from quoting from it passages which, if genuinely the production of a minister of the crown, would prove that the people of the time must have led most miserable lives owing to State persecution.² The late Dr. Vincent Smith's remarks in his *Oxford History of India*, p. 92, are very much to the point if the *Śastra* was actually written by Kauṭilya, as the author believed. ‘The dark spots on the picture’, he writes, ‘are the appalling wickedness of the statecraft taught in the *Arthaśāstra* and the hateful espionage which tainted the whole administration’. The work has been translated by R. Shamasastri in the *Indian Antiquary* for 1905 (pp. 5, 47, 110), and I would especially call attention to the section in Book V, *The Conduct of Government Officers*, sub-section ‘Replenishment of the Treasury.’ (*p. 301 Ed. of 1915*).

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¹ See *I.A.*, vol. liv for September 1925, p. 171, and the opinions of scholars referred to therein.

c7.38

² In regard to this opinion of the late Mr. Sewell, attention may be invited to the chapters on the *Arthaśāstra* in the late Mr. F. J. Monahan's work, *The Early History of Bengal*. The author is one who had made a special study of the work in comparison with the other sources, and the following sentences are taken from a summary at the end of the chapters, in which a detailed examination of the work had been undertaken by him :— ‘The picture which the work presents is that of a paternal government, tempered by respect for religion and custom, and, probably, limited also by the power and privileges of guilds and corporations. Though the government was not democratic, it is likely that the life of the guilds and various other associations may have afforded occasion for such democratic processes as elections, debates, and decisions by majority vote.’ ‘On the whole, it may be claimed for the *Arthaśāstra* that its general spirit is enlightened and humane, and though in some places it advocates methods and expedients flagrantly repugnant to our ideas of public morality, the general objects held in view are the maintenance of law and order, the punishment of the wicked, and the protection of the peaceable citizen’ (pp. 137, 138).—*Editor*.

c7.39

Apart from the statements made in the *Arthaśāstra* we gather some notion as to the sort of lives led by the people under the rule of Chandragupta and his successors from independent sources. Justin, a Roman writer (*Epitoma Pompei Trogi*, 15, 4,) dealing with the period when Chandragupta was reigning triumphantly after his campaign against Seleukos, says that the Hindu monarch after his victory ‘had forfeited by his tyranny all title to the name of liberator, for, having ascended the throne, he oppressed with servitude the very people whom he had emancipated from foreign thraldom.’ Three centuries later Strabo (xv. 1, 40) asserts that Chandragupta forced all farmers, great and small, to hand over to the Government Treasury three-quarters of the produce of the land, keeping only one-quarter for the maintenance of themselves and their families; and that Chandragupta assumed, as a general principle that he was the absolute owner of the soil of all the lands that came under his rule.

c7.40

That the subjects of the Maurya Kings were liable to torture for non-payment of Government demands is proved by the words of King Aśōka, who, after his conversion to Buddhism, recorded in his Kalinga edicts his regret that individuals had been subjected to undeserved imprisonment and torture.

c7.41

About the year 296 B.C. Chandragupta, warned by the Jain teacher Bhadrabāhu of the near approach of a terrible famine which it was prophesied would last twelve years, is said to have abdicated, devoted himself to an ascetic life and journeyed with Bhadrabāhu to Śrāvana-Belgola in Mysore, where shortly afterwards the latter died. Chandragupta survived him for twelve years and then, after the custom of the Jains, starved himself to death. His followers in large members are said to have travelled southwards to Punnād.

c7.42

He was succeeded about 296 B.C. by his son Bindusāra, surnamed Amitra-khada, known to the Greeks as Amitrochates, who was on friendly terms with Antiochus Soter of Western Asia. He is believed to have enlarged his dominions towards the South and, at any rate, to have ruled North Mysore. Deimachos was the ambassador of Antiochus at the Court of Bindusāra.

c7.43

On the latter's death, at a date variously estimated as 273 or 268 B.C., (I accept the latter) there followed a period of confusion, for a struggle ensued between Bimbisāra's sons for the monarchy. It ended in a decisive triumph for Aśōka, a younger son; who, it has been stated was guilty of terrible atrocities before he finally crushed his elder brother.

c7.44

Aśōka was not actually crowned till 264 B.C., four years after his father's death.

c7.45

Eight years after his coronation, viz. in 256 B.C. Aśōka made war on the King of Kalinga. It was conducted in savage fashion. Later on in life the king, in his edicts, admits that he was responsible for the deaths of 100,000 of his enemy's people, and the carrying away into captivity of 150,000 more, while a still greater number died of want and starvation. These horrors made a deep impression on Aśōka's mind. Two years later he became a convert to Buddhism and governed for the rest of his life with kindness and moderation. His rock-cut edicts amply testify to his love of justice and mercy, and to his desire that all his subjects should act up to those principles. That being so it may be assumed that to the best of his ability he abolished such parts of former codes as encouraged cruel treatment of the people. In his Kalinga edicts he specially laments that some of his officials had inflicted unjust imprisonment and torture on individuals.

c7.46

Aśōka's territories comprised all northern India, and the Kalinga country, Dekhan, and part at least of the South as far as the North of Mysore. He had friendly relations with neighbouring states, and even with others so far away as Syria, Egypt, Macedonia, Cyrene, Epirus and Corinth. He recognized as sovereigns in their own lands the Āndhra Kings of the Telugu country, the Chōla and Pāndya rulers of the Tamils, the King of the Kērala coast, and the King of Ceylon. A number of other nationalities are mentioned in the edicts and placed in the same class as the Āndhras. He sent members of his family to spread Buddhism in Ceylon.

c7.47

As regards the southern limit of Aśōka's territories we must be guided by the commencement of the Jatinga-Rāmēśvara, Brahmagiri and Siddhāpura Edicts, all of which are engraved on rocks near the village of Siddhāpura in the Chitaldrug district of northern Mysore. From these we learn,’ writes Dr. Hultzsch in his new and comprehensive work on the Edicts of Aśōka (Introd., p. xxxviii), ‘that the head-quarters of Aśōka’s southernmost province was a place of the name Suvarṇagiri, and that his representative there, just as at Ujjayinī, was a royal prince (Āryaputra).’ Brahmagiri and Siddāpura belonged to a district called Isila, which was subordinate to the Viceroy at Suvarṇagiri. Dr. Hultzsch suggests that Suvarṇagiri may have been the same as the modern Kanakagiri in the Nizām’s State, south of Maski.¹

c7.48

¹ The discovery of the Aśōka Edicts at Maski, otherwise Māsangi and even Piriya Māsangi, Kan. for bigger Māsangi, raises the possibility that Aśōka had a viceroyalty corresponding to the land of Kuntala, the Southern Mahrata country, so called. Maski is in a gold producing district and the edicts were actually discovered in prospecting for gold. The probability of a viceroyalty in this region becomes the more since the Tamils, in their classical literature, locate the northern (Vaḍuga) frontier (Vaḍugar-Munai) somewhere about this region. The existence of a place called Kanakagiri, about twenty miles across Hampi, the site of the old Vijayanagar, makes it probably enough the seat of the viceroyalty; the more so, as some of the Aśōka Edicts were found further south in Mysore, and more recently to the eastwards at Gooty. The Mysore edicts happen to be addressed to the Governor of a division named Isila. Isila seems to be the Prakrit equivalent of Riṣyaka, and in the region of Hampi there is a Riṣyamukha Parvata, and the division might well have gone by that name, Isila being almost the exact equivalent in Prakrit, or Pāli, or the Sanskrit Riṣyaka. In later epigraphs, almost in the same region, some chieftains claim to have belonged to Vāli Vamśa, which seems to indicate that the tradition that Hampi was the kingdom of Kishkinda was kept alive in the tenth and eleventh centuries A.D. (Ep. Ind. xiii, 186-87). So the location of Suvarṇagiri either at Kanakagiri or somewhere near seems quite probable.—Editor.

c7.49

Aśōka died about 226 B.C.,² and after him the Maurya Empire gradually broke up. The Eastern Provinces were ruled by his grandson Daśaratha, and the Western by another grandson Samprati, but very little is known about them. The last known Maurya King Brihadratha was assassinated by his commander-in-chief Pushyamitra about 184 B.C., who established a new and short-lived dynasty, that of the Sungas. From 184 B.C., therefore, though we hear of Maurya princes for several centuries more as ruling fragments of the country, especially in the South, the Maurya Empire ceased to exist. As an instance of these small principalities it may be noted that as late as the seventh century A.D. one of them in the Konkan, ruled by Maurya chiefs, was subdued by the Chāḷukya sovereign Pulakēśin II.

c7.50

² This is Dr. Barnett’s date. Vincent Smith placed the event in 232 B.C. and the Cambridge History of India in 237 or 236 B.C.

c7.51

About the time when Aśōka’s power was strongest two important provinces, Baktria and Parthia, broke away from the Seleukid sovereignty, and became independent. The former was ruled by Greek kings, who were formally recognized by the King of Syria, Antiochos, about 208 B.C. After this the Greeks settled down firmly in Baktria, and largely influenced the history of the north-west of India and beyond the frontier. That history, however, belonging to the north, I pass it by. But before doing so I append a note which serves to shew the intercourse which existed about this period between India, Western Asia and Europe.

c7.52

After the Greek Kings of Baktria had firmly established themselves in independence the Indians adopted many words from their western neighbours. A large number of terms used in astronomy, astrology and coinage in India are derived from the Greek. The art of the time shews strong Greek influence especially in Gandhāra and the north-west.

c7.53

In the wars between Rome and Carthage which took place at this time Indian elephants trained to war were used by the Carthaginians. About 170 B.C. the Persian army included 120 elephants, as we learn from the Jewish chronicle of the time (1 Maccabees, viii. 6). In 163 B.C. there were thirty-two war elephants carrying Indian drivers (mahouts) and howdahs in the army of Antiochos Eupator of Syria (1 Maccabees, vi. 30-37). On a frieze in a tomb in Marissa in Palestine believed to date from about 100 B.C., painted in fresco on the wall is a figure of a fully caparizoned elephant certainly Indian. A fresco at Pompeii, lately discovered by Professor Spinazzola represents the Goddess Venus in a chariot drawn by four elephants.

c7.54

To return to the history proper--it has been shewn that Aśoka's Empire broke up after his death; and amongst other ruling dynasties that then come to the front were the Chētas of Kalinga, with whom South India had little to do, and the Āndhras of the Telugu country to their South. The Āndhras were Buddhists. They are known to have ruled from at least 250 B.C., but they came to great power about the year 220, and remained in a dominant position till the third century A.D.

c7.55

The position of the new Sunga King Pushyamitra was very precarious. There began in his time a great tribal movement in Mongolia and Turkestan. One of these tribes, the Śakas, driven out of their own country north of the Jaxartes, or Syr Daryā river, by the incursions of hordes from Western China known as the Yueh-chi, were forced over the mountain borderland southwards and began to settle in India in large and increasing numbers. About 170 B.C. war broke out between Pushyamitra and the Āndhra king Yajña Śrī Śātakarṇi in which the former's son Agnimitra was victorious.¹ At that time the Āndhra monarch was ruling over a large extent of country including Berar, part of the Central Provinces and Hyderabad, as well as over his own Telugu tracts; which fact accounts for the Kālinga Khāravēla's inscription of about 159 B.C. calling the Āndhra ruler 'Lord of the West.' Pushyamitra also had to contend with the Hellenistic king of Baktria, Menander, about 155 B.C., who was victorious in several campaigns and eventually forced his way into parts of Oudh and Rajputana. About 153 B.C. Khāravēla, who has just been mentioned allied himself with the Āndhra king Pūrṇōtsanga and attacked the Sunga king. Khāravēla stormed Rājagriha, penetrated into Magadha, and compelled Pushyamitra to make peace.

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¹ Opinions differ as to the real result of the war. [Sewell is apparently mixing up two separate persons. Dr. Barnett gives under this date reference to the war between Agnimitra and Yajña Sēna, King of Vidarbha and Āndhra. This king was ruling over Vidarbha according to the drama Mālavikāgnimitra. The Āndhra King later on was Pūrṇōtsanga as Sewell says. There is no Āndhra King Yajña Śrī Śātakarṇi about this time in any of the Āndhra lists.--Editor.]

c7.57

It is interesting to note, as regards the great antiquity of the city of Kāñchī (Conjeveram), that Patanjali notices its existence as early as 150 B.C.

c7.58

Pushyamitra's successor, his son Agnimitra, when he came to the throne in 148 B.C. was heavily burdened with political difficulties; and as these increased in later years, partly owing to the numerous incursions of hordes of Śakas and Pahlavas into his country, the supremacy of Magadha rapidly declined, and finally disappeared. The invaders triumphed and themselves became rulers of northern India from about 50 B.C. or later.

c7.59

About 27 B.C. the last king of the Kāṇva dynasty, which had succeeded that of the Sungas, was killed by an Āndhra king whose name is not known; and from that time forward till about A.D. 300 Northern and Western India were practically under the foreign rule of the Śakas, firstly that of the Kushan dynasty, and from about A.D. 100 that of the Satraps or Kshatrapas.

c7.60

With the decay of the kingdom of Magadha the Āndhras had been growing in strength. Their coins have been found in many places, on the West as far as Nasik; and an inscription bearing the name of the family proves that in Eastern Mālwa, Āndhra rule had succeeded that of the Sungas about 50 B.C. In later years they made Vengi near the Godavari river their capital. Their kings bear the family name Śātakarṇi or Sātavāhana. They were enthusiastic followers of the religion of Buddha, and erected, in the neighbourhood of the Krishna river a number of great stupas built to enshrine the relics of their honoured teacher. The most elaborate of these was the well-known stūpa at Amarāvati, a huge dome encrusted with sculptured marbles, and having round it marble rails and gateways. The art of this period shews certain traces of Greek and Persian influence.

c7.61

By the beginning of the Christian era the great Republic of Rome had given way to a still greater empire, and we learn from the writings of Strabo (A.D. 20) and Pliny (A.D. 77) that there existed in Rome an inordinate love of importation of luxuries from the East. Trade with India, therefore, enormously increased and there is reason to suppose that numbers of Roman merchants made their centres of trade, if not their homes, in such places as Madura and in the sea-port towns of the west coast, sending Indian products to Rome and receiving in return Roman goods. Large numbers of Roman coins have been found in South India. The Peutingerian Tables place a temple of Augustus, the Roman Emperor, on the Malabar coast. Strabo mentions an embassy which the Pāṇḍya king of Madura sent to Augustus Cæsar, probably in 22 B.C. Pliny recommends to the Romans a geographical study of the route to India, which he says is a very important subject because ‘in no year does India drain our Empire of less than 550 millions of sestertices, giving back her own wares in exchange.’ He mentions the Kalinga, Āndhra and Pāṇḍya kings. (History Natural xii. 41; vi. Caps 22, 24, 26; Bostock and Riley’s translation). He mentions an embassy which was sent to Claudius Cæsar in Rome in A.D. 41, following on the adventure of a certain freedman, Annius Plocamus, who farmed the Red Sea customs, and who in a gale was carried to Ceylon where he was treated kindly and brought to the notice of the king. He tells us of the port of Muziris in Malabar (Muyirikoḍu); of the Kēralaputra, king of that country; of the Chēras; of how the seas were infested by pirates; of Cochin; of the Pāṇḍya king and his capital Madura. He describes the Indian banyan-tree and the many products of the country.

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The author of the Periplus (A.D. 80) and the geographer Ptolemy (A.D. 130) mention the articles of trade brought from India, and especially from South-India in their days: beryls, spices, muslins, precious stones, cottons, etc. They tell us of the Godavari and Bhīma rivers; of Masulipatam (Māsolia, Mesolus); of Gūḍūr near Masulipatam and Kanchikacharla on the Krishna river (Koddura, Kontakossyla Emporium); of the port of Korkai (Kolchoi); of the Vindhya mountain range (Vindirs); of Travancore, known by its ancient name Purali (Paralia); of Karuvūr on the Kāvērī river; of the beryl mines at Padiyūr in the Chēra kingdom, which were called by the name of the old tract in which they were situated, viz., the Padināḍu (Pounnāta); of Pālūr in Ganjam (Pālūra); and of many other places.

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In A.D. 71 the city of Jerusalem was sacked by the Romans, and a number of Jewish refugees are said to have fled to the Malabar coast. There is no definite proof of the fact, though it is certain that a Jewish colony existed there from a very ancient date.

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An Indian embassy was received by the Emperor Trajan in Rome in A.D. 107; another by Antoninus Pius in A.D. 138; in A.D. 336, another was sent to Constantine; and in A.D. 361 an embassy from Ceylon was sent to the Emperor Julian.

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There being no known inscription in Southern India earlier than 250 B.C. or thereabouts of the reign of Aśōka, the lists which follow begin from that date, with appended historical notes where requisite.

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