The Historical Inscriptions of Southern India (collected till 1923) and Outlines of Political History c9.s2.t4.1

c9.s2.t4.1

Sātavāhana or Sātakarṇi kings. Originally chiefs of a tribe in the neighbourhood of the Vindhya hills. Aśōka's rock-edict XIII. c. B.C. 250 mentions them as ruling a country beyond his borders. Khārāvēla's inscription of 168 B.C. in the Hāthigumpha cave (I.A. 1920, p. 43, vol. XLII, 276, 281) says that the Āndhra kingdom lay to the West of Kalinga (See I. Ramadas's Monograph in I.A. April 1923). The ancient Kalinga kings were Jains. The Āndhras were Buddhists. The latter rose to great power on the decay of Aśōka's one time, about the second century B.C., extended almost all across India as far as Nasik. An inscription discovered as Kodavalu near Piṭhāpūr, Godavari district, shews that at least about A.D. 208 the Āndhras were ruling that country. The Amarāvati Stupa with its wonderful marble sculptures, the Gaṇṭupalle cave-group, and many Buddhist stupas about the Godavari and Kistna tracts were the work of the Āndhras. The relationship of successive kings to one another is not clearly known.