The Historical Inscriptions of Southern India (collected till 1923) and Outlines of Political History c8.20

c8.20

¹ This entry of the late Mr. Sewell, under 179 B.C., makes his position clear as to the authority upon which he makes the note. This is probably from Professor Barnett's *Indian Antiquities*, page 41 (entries under 170 and 153 B.C) where the name is set down correctly as Yajñasena. But he is made an Āndhra and a Sātakarṇi, on what authority is not clearly stated. Kālidāsa's drama, *Mālvika-Agnimitra* is the authority for the data regarding Agnimitra's war against the Vidarbha king Yajñasena. Between him and a paternal first cousin of his, there was a war of succession. Agnimitra espoused the cause of the latter though he was the son of a younger brother, and ultimately made the country of Vidarbha into two states divided by the river Varada. The northern of these two parts, and therefore, that on the immediate neighbourhood, was given over to Yajñasena, and over the southern part he placed Mādhavasena, his own brother-in-law, as against the *prakrityamitra*, a neighbour, whose interests naturally clashed with those of his own. The drama always uses the term ‘Vidarbha’ for the state and ‘Vaidarbha’ for the king, and leaves us in little doubt as to what is actually meant. This is made much more clear by the people being spoken of as *Krathakaiśikas*, the people who inhabited Berar, even according to the sixth book of the Raghuvamśa, where the *svayamvara* of Indumati is described in detail. The state of Vidarbha thus indicated is a comparatively narrow one and can hardly be regarded as synonymous with that of either the Āndhras or of a Sātakarṇi at any time of the history of that dynasty. Vidarbha is to be regarded as a distinct geographico-political entity. Whether the dynasty that ruled over the territory was Āndhra or no, by blood relationship, it was distinctly Vaidarbha in point of political character. It would be too much to argue, in the circumstances, that the Vidarbha rulers figuring in these transactions were in any sense Āndhras and for the name actually given, there is no warrant whatsoever in the Paurāṇic lists of the Āndhras anywhere.—*Editor*,