Early History of the Dekkan down to the Mahomedan Conquest c11: Section IV. Political History of the Dekkan or Mahârâshṭra—Analysis of the Historical Inscriptions in the Cave-Temples of Western India

Early History of the Dekkan down to the Mahomedan Conquest c11

Language: English

Section IV. Political History of the Dekkan or Mahârâshṭra—Analysis of the Historical Inscriptions in the Cave-Temples of Western India

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POLITICAL HISTORY OF THE DEKKAN OR MAHÂRÂSHṬRA—ANALYSIS OF THE HISTORICAL INSCRIPTIONS IN THE CAVE-TEMPLES OF WESTERN INDIA

No clue to the political history of Mahârâshṭra in the centuries immediately preceding the Christian era is now available The Purâṇas contain lists of kings and dynasties whose chronology has been to some extent determined by their known connection with the successors of Alexander the Great, but clear traces of their occupation of the south have not yet been found Chandragupta, who founded the Maurya dynasty in about B C 320, ruled over Northern India as far as Kâṭhiâvâḍ, and his grandson Aśoka, who reigned from B C 263 to B C 229, retained possession of the province¹ The rock-inscriptions of the latter, which were evidently planted in the countries which owned his sway, show that his empire extended to Kaliṅga or the Northern Circars in the east and Kâṭhiâvâḍ in the west But stray edicts have been discovered farther south, a fragment of the eighth being found at Supârâ and three minor ones on the northern frontier of Mysore In the second rock-edict he speaks of his own dominions as "the conquered countries" and mentions Chola, Pâṇḍya, Ketalaputta, and Satiyaputta down to Tambapanni or Ceylon as outlying provinces These therefore did not own his sway But in the fifth edict he mentions the Râshṭikas, Petenikas and Aparântas and a few more provinces as those for the benefit of which he appointed religious ministers If these were as much a part of his dominions as the many others which are not named, there is no reason why they should be named Again he includes most of these in the thirteenth edict among countries which received his moral teaching, along with Chola, Pâṇḍya and others, and the territories ruled over by Antiochus and four other Greek princes It would thus appear that though the countries of the Râṣṭikas, Bhojas, Petenikas, and Aparântas were not outlying provinces like those of the Cholas, the Pâṇḍyas, and Ketalaputtas, they enjoyed a sort of semi-independence , and only owned allegiance to him as suzerain The appearance of fragments of his inscriptions at Supârâ and on the confines of Mysor is to be accounted for by this fact, or by the supposition that his dominions extended up to Supârâ on the western coast and along a strip in the centre of the peninsula to Mysor, leaving the western countries of the Râṣṭikas, the Bhojas, and Petenikas, and the southern coast in a state of semi-independence And there is some

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¹ See inscription of Rudradâman, Ind Ant, Vol VII, p 260, line 8

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positive evidence to that effect Vidarbha, the country of the Bhojas, must have existed as a separate kingdom about that time For in the dramatic play of Mâlavikâgnimitra, the political events narrated in which may be accepted as historical, Agnimitra the son of Pushyamitra, the first king of the Śuṅga dynasty, who reigned in [15] the second and third quarters of the second century before Christ, is represented to have reigned at Vidiśâ, which I have before identified with Bhilsâ, probably as his father's viceroy He had made proposals of marriage with Mâlavikâ to her brother Mâdhavasena, the cousin of Yajñasena, king of Vidarbha Between these cousins there was a quarrel as regards the succession to the throne When Mâdhavasena was secretly on his way to Vidiśā, the general of Yajña-sena, posted on the frontier of the kingdom, captured him His counsellor Sumati and Mâlavikâ escaped, but Mâdhavasena was kept in custody Thereupon Agnimitra demanded of Yajñasena the surrender of Mâdhavasena Yajñasena promised to give him up on condition that his wife's brother, who was the counsellor of the last Maurya king and had been imprisoned by Agnimitra or his father Pushya-mitra, should be released This enraged Agnimitra, who thereupon sent an army against Yajñasena and vanquished him Mâdhavasena was released, and the country of Vidarbha was divided between the two cousins, each ruling over each side of the river Varadâ

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Paithan also must have been the capital of a kingdom about the time In the inscriptions in the caves at Pitalkhorâ near Chalisgaon, which from the forms of the characters in which they are engraved must be referred to the second century before Christ, the religious benefactions of merchants from Pratish-thâna are recorded, as well as those of the physician to the king and of his son and daughter² The king referred to must be the ruler of Pratishthâna or Paithan No more particular information is available On the history of the early centuries of the Christian era and the first century previous, however, the inscriptions in the cave-temples on the top of the Sahyâdri throw a good deal of light I will here bring together the information deducible from them, noticing the inscriptions in the chronological order clearly determined by the forms of the characters

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² Inscriptions, pp 39, 41 Arch Surv West Ind, No 10

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An inscription³ in a small cave at Nâsik mentions that the cave was scooped out by the lieutenant at Nâsik of King Kṛishna of the S'âtavâhana race In a cave at Nânâghâṭ there is another, which is much mutilated and the purport of which consequently is not quite clear In that same cave figures of persons are carved on the front wall, and the following names are inscribed over them 1, Râyâ Simuka Sâtavâhano, *i e*, king Simuka S'âtavâhana, 2, Devî Nâyanikâyâ rañño cha Siri Sâtakanino, *i e*, of queen Nâyanikâ and king Srî Sâtakarni, 3, Kumâro Bhâyâ, *i e*, prince Bhâyâ, 4, Mahârathiganakayiro, *i e*, the heroic Marâṭhâ leader or the hero of the Marâṭhâ tribe, 5, Kumâro Haku Siri, *i e*, prince Haku Srî, 6, Kumâro Sâtavâhano, *i e*, prince S'âtavâhana Of these the second who has been mentioned along with his queen must have been the reigning prince, the first was an earlier king of the same [16] dynasty, the fourth was a local Marâṭhâ warrior, and the rest were young princes of the Sâtavâhana dynasty

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³ No 6, Nâsik Inscriptions, Vol VII, Jour B B R A S, and p 338, Trans Oriental Congress, 1874

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In another Nâsik cave there are four inscriptions In the first we are told that the cave was caused to be constructed on mount Triras'mi in Govardhana or the Nâsik District by the benevolent Ushavadâta, the son-in-law of king Kshaharâta Nahapâna and son of Dînika Ushavadâta gave away three hundred thousand cows, constructed flights of steps on the river Bârnâsâyâ, assigned sixteen villages to gods and Brâhmans, fed a hundred thousand Brâhmans every year, got eight Brâhmans at Prabhâsa or Somanâth Paṭṭan married at his own expense, constructed quadrangles, houses, and halting places at Bharukachchha or Bharoch, Dasapura in Mâlvâ, Govardhana, and Sorpâraga, the modern Supârâ near Bassein, made gardens and sank wells and tanks, placed ferry boats over the Ibâ, Pâradâ, Damanâ, Tâpî, Karabênâ, and Dâhanukâ, which were rivers along the coast between Thânâ and Surat, constructed rest-houses and endowed places for the distribution of water to travellers on both sides of these rivers, and founded certain benefactions in the village of Nânamgola for the Charaṇas and Parishads (Vedic schools of Brâhmaṇs) in Piṇḍitakâvaḍa, Govardhana, Suvarṇamukha, Sôrpâraga, and Râmatîrtha One year in the rainy season he marched at the command of his lord to the relief of the chief of a tribe of Kshatriyas called Uttamabhadras, who had been attacked and besieged by the Mâlayas At the sound of his martial music the Mâlayas fled away, and they were made the subjects of the Uttamabhadras Thence he went to Poshkarâṇi and there performed ablutions and gave three thousand cows and a village ⁴

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⁴ No 17 Nâsik Inscriptions, Vol VII, Jour B B R A S and Trans Oriental Congress, 1874, p 326

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In the second inscription Ushavadâta is spoken of as having, in the year 42, dedicated the cave monastery for the use of the Buddhist mendicant priests coming to it from the four quarters He deposited with a guild of weavers residing in Govardhana a sum of two thousand Kârshâpaṇas at an annual interest of one hundred Kârshâpaṇas Out of this interest he directed that a garment should annually be given to each of the twenty priests residing during the rains in his cave monastery With another guild he deposited one thousand Kârshâpaṇas, the interest on which was seventy-five Kârshâpaṇas Out of this other things (Kusana) were to be provided for the priests The carrying out of these directions was secured by their being declared in the corporation of the town of Govardhana and inscribed on the door of the monastery In the years 41 and 40 he gave away a large sum of money⁵ for gods and Brâhmaṇs The third inscription, which is a short one, mentions that the apartment on which it is engraved was the religious benefaction of Ushavadâta's wife Dakhamitrâ ⁶ The fourth is greatly mutilated but sufficient remains to show that that also records similar gifts of Ushavadâta's ⁷ In the cave-temple of Kârlı there is an inscription [17] in which Ushavadâta is represented to have granted the village of Karajıka for the support of the mendicant priests in the cave monastery of Valûraka, as the hill or the country about it seems to have been called at the time ⁸ There also is given an account of his charities similar to that in the first of his Nâsık inscriptions In an inscription at Junnar, Ayama, the minister of the lord Nahapâna the great Kshatrapa, is mentioned as having caused a tank to be dug and a hall to be constructed ⁹ The minister appears to have been a Brâhmaṇ, since he is spoken of as belonging to the Vatsa Gotra

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⁵ Nos 18 and 16, *Ibid*, which together form one inscription

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⁶ First part of No 16, *Ibid*

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⁷ No 14 *Ibid*

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⁸ No 13, Kârlı Inscriptions—Arch Surv, W Ind., No 10

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⁹ No 25, Junnar Inscriptions, *Ibid*

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Next in order come the inscriptions in which certain kings of the names of Gotamîputra Śâtakarṇi and Puḷumâyi are mentioned In the longest of the four occurring in the cave-temple at one extremity of the hill at Nâsık, we are told that in the nineteenth year of the reign of king Puḷumâyi, the son of Vâsıshṭhî, the cave was caused to be constructed and dedicated for the use of Buddhist mendicants of the Bhadrâyanîya sect by Gotamî, the mother of king Sâtakarnı Gotamîputra She ıs there called "the mother of the great kıng and the grandmother of the great kıng" Gotamîputra ıs spoken of as kıng of kıngs and ruler of Asıka, Asmaka, Mûlaka,¹⁰ Surâshṭra, Kukura, Aparânta, Anûpa, Vıdarbha and Âkarâvantî ¹¹ He was the lord of the mountaıns Vındhyâvat, Pârıyâtra, Sahya, Krıshnagırı, Malaya, Mahendra, Sreshṭhagırı, and Chakora Hıs orders were obeyed by a large cırcle of kıngs, and hıs feet were adored by them Hıs beasts of burden drank the waters of the three seas He protected all who sought an asylum wıth hım, and regarded the happıness and mısery of hıs subjects as hıs own He paıd equal attentıon to the three objects of human pursuıt, *vız*, duty, worldly prosperıty, and the satısfactıon of desıres, appoıntıng certaın tımes and places for each He was the abode of learnıng, the support of good men, the home of glory, the source of good manners, the only person of skıll, the only archer, the only hero, the only protector of Brâhmaṇs He conferred upon Brâhmaṇs the means of ıncreasıng theır race, and stemmed the progress of the confusıon of castes Hıs exploıts rıvalled those of Râma, Kesava, Arjuna, and Bhîmasena, and hıs prowess was equal to that of Nabhâga, Nahusha, Janamejaya, Sagara, Yayâtı, Râma, and Ambarîsha He was descended from a long line of kings He vanquished the host of his enemies in innumerable battles, quelled the boast and pride of Kshatriyas, destroyed the Śakas, Yavanas, and Pahlavas, left no trace or remnant of the race of Khagârâta, and re-established the glory of the Sâtavâhana family In the last line of the inscription mention [18] is made of the grant of a village for the support of the establishment in the cave-temple¹²

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¹⁰ *Aśmaka* and *Maulika* are mentıoned among the southern countrıes ın the Purâṇas

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¹¹ Surâshṭra ıs Southern Kâṭhıâvâḍ, Kukura, a portıon of Râjputânâ, and Aparânta, Northern Konkan Anûpa ıs mentıoned ın tne Purâṇas as a country sıtuated ın the vıcınıty of the Vındhyas It was the country on the upper Narmadâ wıth Mâhıshmatı for ıts capıtal, accordıng to the Raghuvamśa Âkarâvantı must be the eastern portıon of Mâlvâ

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¹² Inscription No 26, Vol VII *Jour B B R A S* and *Trans Or Congr* 1874, p 307

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In a later inscription engraved in smaller characters below this, Vâsishṭhîputra Śrî Puḷumavi, the lord of Navanara, issues orders to his lieutenant in Govardhana, Sarvâkshadalana He calls his attention to the fact that the village granted by the "lord of Dhanakaṭa"¹³ (Gotamîputra) in accordance with the above, was not liked by the Bhadrâyanîyas, and therefore assigns another to them by this charter

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¹³ Paṇḍit Bhagvânlâl and Dr Bühler, whose transcripts and translations of the Nâsik inscriptions were published about ten years after mine, read the expression thus understood by me as धनकटसमनेहि for the Sanskrit धनकटश्रमणे But what the Śramaṇas or Buddhist priests of Dhanakaṭa, which was situated hundreds of miles away on the lower Krishṇâ, could have to do with the matter of the granting of a village near Nâsik to the Bhadrâyanîya mendicants of the place it is impossible to conceive The expression must, I think, be taken as धनकटसामिनेहि for the Sanskrit धनकटस्वामिभि or धनकटसामियेहि corresponding to महासामियेहि in the first part of No 25, the Sanskrit of which is महास्वामिकै The form सामिनेहि must have come into use on the analogy of such forms as अत्तेनहि for आत्मभि and राजानेहि for राजभि

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On the wall to the left of the verandah of the cave is another inscription It purports to be an order or notice issued from the camp of the victorious army of Govardhana, by Gotamîputra Sâtakarṇi, lord of Dhanakaṭaka, to Vishṇupâlita, his lieutenant in Govardhana, informing him that the king has granted a field measuring 200 Nivartanas, which was up to that time in the possession of one Ushabhadata, for the benefit of recluses The charter here engraved is represented to have been originally issued in the year 18, that is, in the year preceding that in which the cave-temple was completed and dedicated Below this is inscribed another charter issued in the form of an order to Śramaka, the governor of Govardhana, by the queen of Gotamîputra Sâtakarṇi, who is also called the royal mother She therein speaks of a field granted before, probably the one conveyed by the above charter, and says that it measures one hundred Nivartanas, and she assigns another hundred by this charter out of a field belonging to the crown which was her patrimony It appears that two hundred Nivartanas were granted by the first charter, but probably it turned out that the field measured one hundred only, hence she now makes it up by granting another hundred out of another field The date of this grant is 24, *i e*, it was made six years after the first ¹⁴

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¹⁴ No 25 Ibid

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Besides these, there are two inscriptions at Nâsik recording the benefactions of private individuals, dated in the second and seventh years of the reign of Sîri (Śrî) Puḷumâyi, and two in the cave at Kârlî,¹⁵ dated in the seventh and twenty-fourth years of his reign

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¹⁵ Nos 4 and 27 Ibid

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Since Gotamî is spoken of as the mother of a king and the grandmother of a king, and the wife of her son Gotamîputra Śâtakarṇi is [19] represented as the mother of a king, and since the only other king besides Śâtakarṇi mentioned in these inscriptions is Puḷumâyi, it appears that this last was the grandson and son respectively of these two ladies He was therefore the son and his mother Vâsishṭhî the wife of Gotamîputra Śâtakarṇi Śâtakarṇi issued the charter contained in the second inscription in the year 18, which must be the eighteenth year of Puḷumâyi's reign, since dates referring to his reign only are found at Nâsik and Kârlı and not to that of Gotamîputra Even the date of the large inscription noticed above in which Gotamîputra's great deeds are recorded is referred to Puḷumâyi's reign And the grant of the village alluded to in that inscription and the one below appears to have been made by Gotamîputra, since he is spoken of as "the lord of Dhanakaṭaka," though the portion of the rock containing the words that would have rendered the sense clear has been cut away Gotamî is spoken of as dedicating the cave in the present tense, wherefore it must be understood she was alive at the time The father and the son appear thus to have reigned at the same time, the son on this side of the country since the inscriptions are dated in his reign, and the father at Dhanakaṭaka, which has been identified with Dharaṇîkoṭ in the Guntur district of the Madras Presidency And this is confirmed by the fact, mentioned above, of Gotamî's having been called the mother of the great king and the grandmother of the great king This statement would be pointless if she were not both at one and the same time ¹⁷

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¹⁶ Nos 14 and 20, Arch Surv West. Ind, No 10

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¹⁷ Dr Bühler (Arch Surv of West Ind, Vol IV, p 110,) supposes me to have rested my conclusion as regards this point on this statement alone, and calls it a mistake But he will find my other reasons also stated in the remarks at the end of my article in the Transactions of the Oriental Congress of 1874. And even this statement has a very high corroborative value. For, if the object of the writer was to represent Gotamî's "special claim" to honour, that is better served by supposing that her son and grandson were great kings at one and the same time. Every queen belonging to a dynasty in power is the mother of a king and grandmother of a king, and there is nothing special in the fact if the son and the grandson bore the title at different times. If the son was dead, no object is gained as regards this point by saying she was the mother of that son that is not gained by saying she was the grandmother of a *living* great king. And if it was a fact that Gotamîputra was dead when the cave temple was dedicated and Puḷumâyi alone was reigning, we should expect to find the exploits of the latter also celebrated in the inscription, but there is not a word in praise of him. If Puḷumâyi became king only after Gotamîputra, the latter must have died nineteen years before the dedication of the temple, and it certainly is not what one acquainted with the manner and motive of Hindu inscription-writers would expect that a king who had been dead for nineteen years should be highly extolled in the inscription and the reigning king altogether passed over in silence.

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Since the charter of the year 24, intended as supplementary to that of 18, was issued by Vâsishṭhî, while the first was issued by her husband, it appears probable that Gotamîputra had died in the interval and Vâsishṭhî reigned as regent at the capital, while Puḷumâyi continued to govern the Dekkan or Mahârâshṭra. The years given in the charter must be those of Puḷumâyi, since even the large inscription is dated in the nineteenth year of his reign. These kings belonged to the Sâtavâhana dynasty.

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The names of other kings, apparently of the same dynasty, are found in other inscriptions. In one of the caves at Kânheri near [20] Thânâ, a grant is recorded in the eighth year of the reign of Mâdharî- putra Śakasena ¹⁸ In two other inscriptions at the same place the name of the reigning prince is given as Gotamîputa Sîrı Yañña Sâtakaṇı (Gotamîputra Śrî Yajña Sâtakarṇı) ¹⁹ In one of these the year that is given is not legible, but still appears to be the sixteenth of his reign There is one inscription at Nâsık which is dated in the seventh year of that kıng ²⁰ Paṇḍıt Bhagvânlâl has brought to light the name of another prince There is according to hım an inscription on the Nânâghâṭ in which is recorded the dedication of a cıstern of water in the thirteenth year of Vâsıṭhıputa Chatarapana Sâtakanı

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¹⁸ No 19, Jour B B R A A S, Vol VI and Vol XII, p 409 In the first copy the name is clearly Sakasenasa, but in the second, which is Paṇḍıt Bhagvânlâl's rubbing, something like an effaced mark for the vowel *i* appears above the first two consonants The Paṇḍıt, therefore, reads the name as Sırısenasa for Śrîsenasya, but the *k* is dıstınct even in his copy *Siki* cannot mean anything, wherefore it appears that the indistinct marks which do not occur in the first copy are due to some flaw in the rock, and do not represent the vowel *i* Dr Bhâu Dâjı also read the name as Sakasenasa But the copy of the inscription given in Plate LI Vol V of the Archæological Survey of Western Indıa and marked No 14 leaves no doubt whatever on the point The name there is dıstınctly Sakasenasa Further confirmation if necessary will be found later on It is therefore clearly a mıstake to call the kıng *Sırisena*.

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¹⁹ Nos 4 and 44, Jour B B R A S, Vol VI

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²⁰ No 4, Jour B B R A S, Vol VII, and Trans Or Congr, 1874, p 339

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A large number of coins of copper and lead were dıscovered a few years ago, buried in what appears to have once been a Buddhist stûpa at Kolhâpur Another hoard had been found some time previous in about the same locality The legends on those coins are in characters the forms of which greatly resemble those in the cave inscriptions above noticed. They are as follows²¹

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²¹ Jour. B. B. R. A. S., Vol. XIII, p. 305, and Vol. XIV, p. 153-54. There are in my possession coins of lead of the same size as those figured here, and a good many smaller ones in which I find the same legends as those given above. They also were found at Kolhâpur. Some of the smaller ones appear to be of bronze.

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Rañño Vasiṭhîputasa Viḷivâyakurasa
Rañño Gotamîputasa Viḷivâyakurasa
Rañño Mâḍharîputasa Sevalakurasa

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Here we have the same names as before, but the words Viḷivâvakurasa and Sevalakurasa have not yet been interpreted by any student of Indian antiquities. On a former occasion I put forth a conjecture that they were the names of the viceroys of those kings appointed to govern the country about Kolhâpur.²² For, coins of two of these princes and of a few others belonging to the same dynasty are found near Dharaṇikoṭ in the Gantur District about the site of Dhanakaṭaka, the old capital. The legends on these do not contain those words, and the coins are of a different type from those found at Kolhâpur. These last, therefore, it appeared to me, were struck on this side of the country, and consequently bore the names of the viceroys under whose authority they were issued. The truth of this conjecture I will demonstrate further on. It will be seen from what is to be stated hereafter that the Vâsiṭhîputa of these coins who had Viḷivâyakura for his viceroy can be no other than Vâsishṭhîputra Puḷumâyi. [21] The Gotamîputa must be Gotamîputra Yajña Sâtakarṇi of the inscriptions, for the father of Puḷumâyi did not reign on this side of the country, as none of the inscriptions are dated in his reign though his exploits are described in the Nâsik Caves Madharîputa must have come after Gotamîputa and not after Vâsiṭhîputa, as is maintained by some scholars, for his viceroy was a different person from that of the other two The fact that these two had the same viceroy shows that one of them immediately succeeded the other Another prince with a different viceroy could not come between them In the stûpa dug out at Supârâ, Paṇḍit Bhagvânlâl found a silver coin in a copper casket On the obverse of the coin, which bears a well-shaped head of the king, we have the legend Rañño Gotamiputasa Sîrî Yañña Sâtakanisa, which means "[this coin is] of the king Gotamîputra Śrî Yajña Sâtakarṇi" This therefore is the prince in whose name the coin was issued There is another legend on the reverse which though some of the letters are not distinct appears to be *Gotamiputa-Kumâru-Yañña-Sâtakani-Chaturapanasa* the sense of which is "[this coin is] of Chaturapana Yañña Sâtakani, prince of Gotamîputa"²³ The coin was thus like the Kolhâpur coins issued in the names of two persons, of whom Yajña Śrî Sâtakarṇi was the reigning sovereign, as his name appears round the bust, and Chatarapana who was his son represented him as viceroy in the province in which the coin was issued, and which from the shape and get-up of the coin appears to have been once ruled over by the Kshatrapas of Ujjavinî or Kâṭhıâwâḍ.

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²² Jour. B. B. R. A. S., Vol. XIV, p. 154.

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²³ The nether portions of the letters *chaturapanasa* only are impressed on the coin so that the reading is somewhat doubtful, but *panasa* is distinct enough Paṇḍit Bhagvânlâl puts *Chaturapanasa* at the beginning of the legend and reads *Chaturapanasa Gotamiputa Kumâru Yañña Sâtakani* which he translates "Yajña Sâtakarṇi, son of Gotamîputa, and prince of Chaturapana," and states his belief that Chatura pana was the name of Yajña Śrî's father But to connect Kumâru, which forms a part of a compound with the genitive, Chaturapanasa, is grammatically not allowable, while the genitive which is always required to show whose coin it is, is wanting Hence Chaturapanasa is the last word and the whole is a compound, Kumâru is probably a mistake for Kumâra and Yañña Sâtakani is the father's name placed before Chaturapanasa to show that he was his son (*Jour B B R A S*, Vol XV, pp 305-6)

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There is an inscription at Kânherı which is in a mutilated condition, but which with the help of Mr. West's eye copy and an impression given in one of Dr. Burgess' Reports has been partially restored by Dr. Bühler. Therein is made the dedication of a water-cistern by Śateraka who was the confidential counsellor of the Queen of Vâsislıṭhıputra Sâtakarṇi, who belonged to the family of the Karddamakas and was the daughter of a Mahâkshatrapa whose name is obliterated. The opening letters of the second line have also been effaced, but what we might expect to find there is the name of her son, after we have had those of her husband, family, and father. From the letters in West's copy which look like *Sakarâja* one might think the son meant was Śakasena, still the conjecture is somewhat hazardous.²⁴ The name of this Vâsisṭhı [22] putra is Sâtakarṇi, wherefore he was not Puḷumâyi, but very likely Chatushparṇa (Chatarapana) Sâtakarṇi.

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²⁴ *Jour. B. B. R. A. S.*, Vol. VI. and *Archæol. S. of W. I.*, Vol. V, Inscription No. 11, also p. 78 of the latter. There would be nothing improbable in it if we here read the name of Śakasena. For this name and that of his mother Mâdharî point to a connection with the Śakas whose representatives the Kshatrapas were, and this connection is unfolded in this inscription.

Linked texts (4)

Mālavikāgnimitra — Kālidāsa, Sanskrit
Raghuvaṃśa — Kālidāsa, Sanskrit
Purāṇa — Sanskrit
Nasik cave inscription (No. 16, N. 5) (ed. Hultzsch 1906) — Prakrit