Early History of the Dekkan down to the Mahomedan Conquest c13: Section VI. Chronology of the Andhrabhṛityas or Sâtavâhanas

Early History of the Dekkan down to the Mahomedan Conquest c13

Language: English

c13.29 — 5 parts

Section VI. Chronology of the Andhrabhṛityas or Sâtavâhanas

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THE next question we have to consider is as regards the dates of these princes In my paper on the Nâsık cave inscriptions¹, I have accepted A D 319 as the date of Gotamîputra's accession, arrived at by, taking B C 315 as the year in which Chandragupta founded the dynasty of the Mauryas at Pâṭalıputra, and 664 years to have elapsed between hım and Gotamîputra, since the periods assigned in the Purânas to that dynasty and the subsequent ones, and the durations of the reigns of the Andhrabhṛıtya princes who proceeded Gotamîputra according to the Mâtsya when added, give 664 The "race of Khagârâta," which Gotamîputra is, as observed before, represented in one of the Nâsık inscriptions to have exterminated, I identified with the dynasty of the Kshatrapas whose coins are found in Kâṭhıâvâḍ, as well as a few inscriptions, since Kshaharâta or Khagârâta was also a Kshatrapa and had been placed at the head of the dynasty by previous writers The latest date on the coins of those princes then known was 250, which referred to the Saka era, is A D 328 This comes so close to Gotamîputra's A D 319, that the two seemed to corroborate each other But there are several objections to this view, some of which occurred to me even then (1)—The inscriptions and coins of the Kshatrapa dynasty concur in carrying the genealogy backward to Chashṭana and no further, and as yet nothing has turned up to show that any connection existed between him and Nahapâna (2)—If the Kshatrapa or Satrap dynasty held sway over Mahârâshṭra for about three hundred years as it did over Kâṭhiâvâḍ, we might reasonably expect to find in that country inscriptions or coins of most of the princes, but a few coins of the later ones only have been discovered in a village near Karâḍh² and no inscription whatever (3)—Rudradâman in his Junâgaḍ inscription calls a Sâtakarṇi, ‘lord of Dakshiṇapatha’, which he would not have done if he had been the ruler of even a part of the Dekkan (4)—And the dates occurring on some Satrap coins recenty discovered are said to be 300 and 304³ which referred to the Śaka era A D 378 and 382, that is, the Satraps were in power even long after A D 340, which is the date of Gotamîputra’s death according to the Purâṇic accounts For these reasons it would appear that the “race” of Khagârâta or Nahapâna which Gotamîputra put an end to and which ruled over this country before him, could not have been the dynasty of the Satraps (5)—Besides, according to my former view, the interval between Nahapâna and Gotamiputra is about 200 years, but the difference in form between the characters in Ushavadâta’s and Gotamîputra’s inscriptions is not great enough for that period Hence the two princes must be brought closer together

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¹ Trans Or Congr, 1874

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² Jour B B R A S, Vol VII, p 16

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³ Ind Ant Vol VI, p 57, Note, and Genl Cunningham's Arch Report, Vol XI, p 127

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[26] From the Greek geographer Ptolemy we learn that in his time the country inland from the western coast was divided into two divisions of which the northern was governed by Siro Polemios whose capital was Paiṭhan, and the southern by Baleocuros who lived in Hippocura Siro Polemios is evidently the same name as the Sırı Puḷumâvı or Puḷumâyı of the inscriptions corresponding to the Pulomat, or Puḷimat of the Purânas But there were two kings who bore that name, one the son of Gotamîputra, mentioned in the inscriptions, and another an earlier prince of the Andhrabhṛıtya dynasty This last does not appear to have been a prince of any note, wherefore very likely the former is the one spoken of by Ptolemy But the question is almost settled by the mention of Baleocuros as the Governor of the southern provinces We have seen that in the legends on the Kolhâpur coins the name Vıḷıvâyakura is associated with that of Puḷumâyı and of Gotamîputra Vıḷıvâyakura is the same as Balcocura, and I have already stated that the reason why his name, in my opinion, occurs along with those of the two princes of the Sâtavâhana dynasty, and on Kolhâpur coins alone, while it does not occur on those found in the lower Godâvarî districts, is that he was the viceroy of those princes ruling over the country about Kolhâpur This country answers to the southern dıvısıon mentioned by the Greek geographer as being governed by Baleocuros The Sıro Polemıos therefore of Ptolemy is the same as the Puḷumâyı of the inscriptions and coins

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Ptolemy died in A D 163, and is said to have written his work after A D 151 Puḷumâyı, therefore, must have been on the throne some time before this last date We will now proceed to reconcile this date with those mentioned in the inscriptions, and to determine more particularly the date of Puḷumâyı's accession Some of Ushavadâta's benefactions were founded in the years 40, 41 and 42, and the latest date connected with Nahapâna is that in the inscription of his minister Ayama at Junnar, *viz*, 46 These dates should, I think, be referred to the Saka era For, we have seen that before the time of Gotamîputra, the country was subject to the inroads of Śakas and other foreign tribes, and the Scythians who are identified with the Śakas had, according to the Greek geographers, established a kingdom in Sind and even in Râjputânâ The era known by the name of the Śaka and referred to in all the early copper-plate grants as the era of the Śaka king or kings must have been established by the most powerful of the Śaka invaders,⁴ who for the first time [27] obtained a permanent footing in the country, and Nahapâna and Chashṭana⁵ or his father must have been his Satraps appointed to rule over Western India, and Mâlvâ. On this supposition the latest date of Nahapâna must correspond to A.D. 124. Gotamîputra or Puḷumâyi therefore must have acquired possession of this country after that year. The earliest date of Puḷumâyi occurring in the inscriptions is the second year of his reign, and since the inscription could not have borne that date if Nahapâna or his successors had been in power, it is clear that Puḷumâyi began to reign after the overthrow of the latter. Now, we also learn from Ptolemy that Tiastenes reigned at Ozene about the time when he wrote, and was therefore a contemporary of Puḷumâyi. Tiastenes has, I think, been reasonably identified with Chashṭana. But according to the Junâgaḍ inscription noticed above, Chashṭana's grandson Rudradâman was the reigning prince in the year 72, which, taking the era to be the Śaka, is 150 A D Chashṭana and Puḷumâvi therefore could not have been contemporaries in 150 A D Ptolemy's account must, in consequence, refer to a period much earlier, *i e* to about the year 132 A D, since about eighteen or twenty years at least must be supposed to have elapsed between the date of his information when Chashṭana was on the throne and the year 150 A D when his grandson was in possession of it, his son Jayadâman having occupied it for some time in the interval Again, in the nineteenth year of Puḷumâvi, Gotamîputra was in possession, according to the large inscription at Nâsik, of a good many of those provinces which, according to the Junâgaḍ inscription, were conquered and ruled over by Rudradâman The date 72 in the inscription seems to refer to the sweeping away by a storm and excessive rain of the dyke on one side of the lake therein mentioned and not to the cutting of the inscription on the rock So that it is doubtful whether Rudradâman had conquered those [28] provinces before 72 or did so after 72 and before the incision of the inscription Supposing he conquered them before 72, the nineteenth year of Puḷumâyi must correspond at least to the second or third year before A D 150, that is, Puḷumâyi must have begun to reign, at the latest, about the year A D 130 And even if we understand him to have conquered them after 72, Puḷumâyi's accession cannot be placed much later, for the interval between Chashṭana who was Puḷumâyi's contemporary and his grandson Rudradâman who was reigning in 150 A D will be considerably shortened Nahapâna or his successor must thus have been overthrown by Gotamîputra or Puḷumâyı about five or sıx years at the most after his latest recorded date, *vız* A D 124

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⁴ Prof Oldenberg thinks Kanishka to be the founder of the era but this view is, I think, untenable (1)—A dynasty of three kings only cannot perpetuate an era The dynasty of the Guptas composed of seven kings was in power for more than a hundred and fifty years, but their era died a natural death in the course of a few centuries (2)—The characters in Kanishka's inscriptions, especially the ya as conjoined with a preceding consonant, are later than those we find in the first century One has simply to compare Inscription No 1 in Plate XIII of the third volume of General Cunningham's Arch Reports with No 4 to see the great difference in the forms of the letters in the times of the earliest Kshatrapas and of Kanishka The former belongs to the time of the Kshatrapa Śoḍâsa and the letters are almost like those we find in Ushavadâta's inscriptions at Nâsik, while those in the latter, which is dated in the ninth year of Kanishka, are considerably later, and both the inscriptions exist in Mathurâ (3)—There is no ground to believe that Kanishka reigned over Gujarât and Mahârâshtra, but the Śaka era began to be used very early, especially in the last country (4)—The Guptas whose gold coinage is a close imitation of that of the Indo-Scythian dynasty, came to power in A D 319 while the last of the three kings Kanishka, Hushka and Vâsudeva must, if the reign of the first began in A D 78, have ceased to reign about A D 178, *i c*, about 100 years after the foundation of the dynasty And the latest date of Vâsudeva is 89 If so, an interval of 140 years must have elapsed between the last of the Indo-Scythian kings and the first Gupta, but the close resemblance in the coinage necessitates the supposition that it was much shorter. Albîrûnî's statement that the initial date of the Gupta era was 241 Saka, *i.e.*, 319 A.D., has been pronounced unreliable by some antiquarians. As to this point and the era of the Satrap dates, see Appendix A.

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⁵ Professor Oldenberg considers Chashṭana to be a Satrap appointed by Gotamîputra, a supposition which is unwarrantable, since a prince like Gotamîputra whose aim was to expel and destroy foreigners cannot be expected to appoint a foreigner, as Chashṭana's name indicates he was, to be a viceroy, and to use a foreign title, and we have seen that Baleocuros, who was a viceroy of that monarch or of his son, does not use that title. Rudradâman, the grandson of Chashṭana, appointed, as we see from his Junâgaḍ inscription, a Pahlava of the name of Suviśâkha, who was the son of Kulaipa, to govern Surâshṭra and Ânarta. This circumstance confirms what we gather from other sources, namely, that this was a dynasty of princes of a foreign origin, who had adopted Hindu manners and even names, had in some cases entered into marriage alliance with native royal families, and were domiciled in the country.

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The history of the relations of these princes appears to be this Nahapâna was a Satrap rulıng over Mahârâshṭra Hıs capıtal was probably Junnar since the inscriptions at the place show the town to have been in a flourıshıng condition about that tıme, and we have a record there of the gıft of hıs mınıster He must have dıed soon after 46 Saka or A D 124 Gotamîputra and Puḷumâyı came from the south-east to regain the provinces lost to their famıly, overthrew Nahapâna's successor, whoever he was, kıld all hıs heırs, and re-establıshed their power over this sıde of the country This appears to be what ıs meant by Gotamîputra's having been represented in the Nâsık inscrıptıon to have "left no remnant of the race of Khagârâta," and to have "regained the prestige of hıs famıly" Chashṭana founded or belonged to another dynasty of Satraps whıch reıgned at Ujjayınt In the Junâgaḍ inscrıptıon, men of all castes are represented to have gone to Rudradâman and chosen hım theır lord for theır protectıon,⁶ and he ıs spoken of as havıng re-establıshed the kıngdom that had been lost,⁷ hımself assumed the tıtlę of the Great Kshatrapa, conquered Akarâvantî, Anûpa, Surâshṭra, Aparânta and other provinces which, as we have seen, were owned by Gotamîputra, and some more, and as having twice subdued Sâtakarṇi, the lord of Dakshiṇâpatha, but still not destroyed him in consequence of his connection⁸ with him not being remote [29] and acquired a good name on that account The meaning of all this appears to me to be this Gotamîputra Sâtakarṇi, after having destroyed Nahapâna or his successor, turned his arms against another dynasty of foreigners that was ruling at Ujjayinî Or the Kshatrapa sovereign of Ujjayinî, Chashṭana, or very probably his son Jayadâman, having observed the growing power of Gotamîputra or Puḷumâyi who had put an end to a kindred family of rulers, and desirous of preventing his further growth, must have attacked him A fact such as this must be the basis of the popular stories about a king of Ujjayinî having attacked Sâlivâhana at Paiṭhaṇ and been defeated by him Sâlivâhana is but another mode of pronouncing Sâtavâhana,⁹ and Puḷumâyi or Gotamîputra was a Sâtavâhana The ruler of Ujjayinî was defeated and pursued by the victorious Gotamîputra into his own dominions, when the latter subjugated Avantî, Anûpa, Surâshṭra and Aparânta, and dethroned Jayadâman For a time he and his successors held sway over the territories owned by Chashṭana, but subsequently Rudradâman collected a band of followers, the same as those that are represented in the inscription as having chosen him their lord, and driving away the Sâtavâhanas, regained his lost kingdom and got himself crowned as Mahâkshatrapa But as appears from the Supârâ coin of Yajña Śrî which bears such striking resemblance to the Kshatrapa coins and is so unlike the Kolhâpur coins of that monarch, large or small, and from the fact that his son Chaturapana was his viceroy or representative, the Sâtavâhanas retained possession of a part at least of the Kshatrapa territories up to the time of Yajña Śrî They even entered into blood relationship with the Kshatrapas, as we learn from the Kânheri inscription, which speaks of the wife of Vâsishṭhîputra Sâtakarṇi being the daughter of a Mahâkshatrapa But Rudradâman pursued his victories and according to his Junâgaḍ inscription twice conquered Sâtakarṇi the lord of Dakshiṇâpatha, but did not destroy him, and acquired a good name by his forbearance towards one whose connection with him was not remote Thus the lord of Dakshiṇâpatha that he conquered was Yajña Śrî Sâtakarṇi He could not have been his son Chaturapana, for the expression "non-remoteness of the connection" suits the former better than the latter, as Chaturapana's wife was the daughter of a Mahâkshatrapa, perhaps his own and the connection with him was positively close The re-acquisition of his lost kingdom by Rudradâman took place after the nineteenth year of Puḷumâvi’s reign, that is, after about A D 150 It is in this way alone that the scraps of information derived from the Greek writers and gathered from inscriptions, coins, and popular legends as well as the dates, can be made to harmonize with each other

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⁶ The expression ıs सर्ववर्णैरभिगम्य रक्षणार्थं पतित्वे वृतेन Ind Ant, Vol Vıl, p 260, 1, 9

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⁷ In Paṇḍıt Bhagavanlâl's transcrıpt ın Vol VII, Ind Ant, the readıng ıs भ्रष्टराजप्रतिष्ठापकेन But ın a foot-note Dr Bühler says that the correct readıng may be राज्य for राज In Dr Bhâu Dâjı's copy of the inscrıptıon the ष्ट्य ıs dıstınct, p 118, Vol VII, Jour B B R A S Bhâu Dâjı and Paṇḍıt Bhagvânlâl translate thıs expressıon hy "obtaıned glory of great exploıts by the re-establıshment of deposed kıngs," (p 20, Vol VII, Jour B B R A S), and "he who has restored to theır thrones *deposed kings*," (p 260 *a*, Vol VII, Ind Ant) If राज were the reading, this translation would of course be correct, but with राज्य it is far fetched There is nothing here to show that the lost *râjya* or kingdom re-established by Rudradâman was any other person's than his own So that, it looks natural to understand him to have re-established (his own) lost kingdom

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⁸ The reading is सबंधावदूरया It is allowable to insert त and take it as संबंधावष्टूरतया But the sense of the word, which is "remoteness," will not suit the context, as he could not have "acquired a good name," *i e*, been esteemed by people for not destroying the Lord of the Dekkan on account of the remoteness of the connection Remoteness or distance of the country would compel one to let his enemy alone, and there could be no virtue in it The द therefore in the word must have crept in through mistake, wherefore the true reading must be संबंधादूवतया

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⁹ Hemachandra's Prakrit Grammar

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But the date thus assigned to Gotamîputra is not consistent with that derived from the Mâtsya Purâna Our next endeavour, therefore, should be to ascertain whether none of the Purânas agrees sufficiently with the conclusion arrived at, and, if any does, to account for the [30] great discrepancy between it and the Mâtsya and others That there is very little agreement among them as regards the Andhrabhṛitya dynasty, I have already indicated above The genesis of our Puranic literature seems to be this Certain versified accounts of certain things, purporting to be narrated by a bard to Ṛishis assembled together at a sacrificial session, were handed down orally from generation to generation, and these were after some time committed to writing The later Purâṇas, devoted to the exaltation of a particular deity and to the inculcation of certain doctrines, derived their accounts of these things from the earliest written Purâṇas and not from the oral tradition Of the works of this class which I am going to compare for our present purpose, the oldest appears to me to be the Vâyu, and next to it the Mâtsya The Vishṇu is later, and the Bhâgavata, the latest The text of the old Purâṇas gradually became corrupt, and the authors of the later ones were in some cases misled by their incorrect readings enumeration, the Mâtsya omits two, and the Bhâgavata, one, and the total of the years assigned to each prince in the Vâyu exceeds 112 There is evidently some mistake here, but if we take the general statement to be the correct tradition handed down, the dynasty became extinct in B C 73 The dynasty next mentioned is that of the Kâṇvas or Kâṇvâyanas There were four princes of this line, and they reigned for forty-five years, though the Bhâgavata, through a mistake to be explained hereafter, makes the period to be 345 years They were

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[31] followed by the Andhrabhṛityas But here, there is a statement in the Vâyu and the Mâtsya, the like of which does not occur in the account of the other dynasties The founder of the Andhrabhṛityas, Sindhuka, according to the first Purâṇa, and Śiśuka, according to the other, is said to have uprooted not only the Kâṇvas, but "whatever was left of the power of the Śuṅgas"¹⁰ And the Kâṇvas are pointedly spoken of as Śuṅgabhṛityas or "servants of the Śuṅgas ¹¹ It, therefore, appears likely that when the princes of the Śuṅga family became weak, the Kâṇvas usurped the whole power and ruled like the Peshwas in modern times, not uprooting the dynasty of their masters but reducing them to the character of nominal sovereigns, and this supposition is strengthened by the fact that like the Peshwas

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¹⁰ काण्वायनस्त (नस्त) तो भृत्य सुशर्माण प्रसह्ध तम्। शुङ्गानां चैव यच्छे षं क्षययित्वा बलं तदा ॥ सिन्धुको अन्ध्रजातीय प्राप्स्यतीमां वसुन्धराम्॥ Vâyu

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¹¹ चत्वार शुङ्गभृत्यास्ते नृपा काण्वायना द्विजा । Vayu

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"A servant of the race of the Andhras having destroyed Suśarman of the Kâṇva family with main force and whatever will have been left of the power of the Śuṅgas, will obtain possession of the earth" The statement in the Mâtsya is similar

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they were Brâhmans and not Kshatriyas Thus then these dynasties reigned contemporaneously, and hence the 112 years that tradition assigns to the Śuṅgas includes the 45 assigned to the Kâṇvas The Śuṅgas and the Kânvas, therefore, were uprooted, and the family of the Andhrabhṛityas came to power in B C 73 In a general way, the number of princes belonging to this line is given as thirty in the Vâyu, the Vishnu, and the Bhâgavata, and twenty-nine in the Mâtsya, and the total duration is stated to be 411 years in the first, 456 in the second and the third, and 460 in the fourth The disagreement here is not great, wherefore the tradition as to thirty princes and about 456 years may be accepted as correct But the discrepancy between this general statement and the more particular accounts that follow, as well as the disagreement between the several Purânas in this last, is very great This will be apparent from the following table —

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[32] Thus, the Vâyu has seventeen princes and 272 years and a half, and the Mâtsya, thirty and 448 and a half The Vishnu gives twenty-four names and the Bhâgavata, twenty-two This last Purâṇa has in many cases corrupted the names and confounded Hâla with the Arishṭakarman of the Vishnu, whom it names Anishṭakarman Hâleya It also omits the fifth prince of the Vishnu Purâṇa The details given in the Mâtsya come very close to the general tradition and thus confirm it Should we then attribute the very great discrepancy between these details and those of the Vâyu to the corruption of the text of the latter? Two or three names might drop away in this manner, but the omission of thirteen names and the reduction of the total duration by 176 years must I think be accounted for in

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some other way. Besides the tradition about 456 years, there is a statement in the Vâyu Purâna, in a verse below, to the effect that the "Andhras will have possession of the earth for three hundred years,"¹² which seems to point to another. That such a tradition existed is indicated by the mistake in the Bhâgavata by which the Kâṇvas are assigned three hundred and forty-five years. The original account, which the author of this Purâṇa must have seen, probably assigned forty-five years to the Kâṇvas and three hundred to the next or Andhrabhṛitya dynasty. But since that dynasty was also assigned another duration, *viz.* 456 years, he connected the "the three hundred" with the preceding, and gave 345 years to the Kâṇvâyana family. Now, the manner in which the two traditions are to be reconciled is by supposing that the longer period is made up by putting together the reigns of all the princes belonging to the several branches of the Andhrabhṛitya dynasty. That the younger princes often reigned at Paiṭhaṇ and the elderly ones at Dhanakaṭaka appears clear when we compare the inscriptions with the statement in Ptolemy. When the throne at the principal seat became vacant, the Paiṭhaṇ princes succeeded. But some probably died before their elders, and never became kings of Dhanakaṭaka. From an inscription found at Banavâsî by Dr. Burgess it would appear that another branch of that dynasty ruled over Kânaṛâ. The period of three hundred years and the seventeen names given in the Vâyu Purâna refer probably to the main branch. The Mâtsya seems to me to put together the princes of all the branches, and thus makes them out to be thirty. The total of the years assigned to the several reigns in the Vâyu is 272½, and if we should suppose one or two reigns lasting for about twenty-eight years to have dropped out by the corruption of the text, it would become 300½ Thus then the Vâyu and the Mâtsya Purânas each give a correct account, but of different things The Vishnu, which gives twenty-four princes, is not entitled to so much credit as the Vâyu It is a later work and the author's purpose being sectarian, he probably did not care so much for the accuracy of his details, and hence omitted even the duration of each reign The Bhâgavata is still more careless, as has already been shown

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¹² आन्ध्रा भोक्ष्यन्ति वसुधां शतं द्वे च शतं च वै। Vâyu.

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If then we take the account in the Vâyu Purâna to refer to the main branch of the dynasty and consequently generally correct, the period that intervened between the rise of the Sâtavâhanas *or* Andhrabrityas and the end of the reign of Sivasvâtı is 206 years¹³ The dynasty must, as we have seen, have been founded in B C 73, wherefore the end of Sivasvâtı's reign and the accession of Gotamîputra must be placed in A D 133 We have seen that Puḷumâyı, whose capital was Paiṭhaṇ according to Ptolemy, and who from the inscriptions appears to have been king of this part of the country and to have reigned contemporaneously with his father, must have begun to reign at Paiṭhan about 130 A D The father and the son drove the foreigners from the Dekkan, and the son was established as the ruler of the regained provinces, Gotamîputra expecting to succeed to the throne at the original seat of the family Gotamîputra reigned for twenty-one years according to the Purânas, wherefore he must have died in 154 A D He was alive, as stated before, in the eighteenth year of Puḷumâyi, *i. e.* in 148, and also in the nineteenth when the cave temple was dedicated, and not alive in the twenty-fourth, *i. e.* in 154, according to the two inscriptions [34] mentioned before. Ptolemy's mention of Puḷumâyi I have already referred to about the year 132, so that, the date deduced from this source, and those derived from Gotamîputra's and Puḷumâyi's inscriptions at Nâsık and Rudradâman's at Junâgaḍ on the supposition that the era used in this last is the Śaka, as well as those derived from the Purâṇas may thus be shown to be consistent with each other. The dates of all the princes whose names we find in the inscriptions may therefore be thus arranged

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¹³ By adding up the numbers in the table

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Simuka began to reign in B. C. 73 and ceased in B. C. 50
Kṛishṇa began in B. C. 50 and ceased in B. C. 40
Śâtakarṇi (third in the Vâyu P.) began in B. C. 40 and ceased in A. D. 16
Nahapâna Kshaharâta
Gotamîputra began in A. D. 133 and ceased in A. D. 154

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If the twenty-eight years assigned to Puḷumâyi in the Mâtsya Purâna are to be reckoned from the year of Gotamîputra's death, he must be considered to have begun to reign at Dhanakaṭaka in A. D. 154, and to have ceased in A. D. 182. He reigned at Paiṭhan from A. D. 130 to A. D. 154, that is, for about twenty-four years, and we have seen that the latest year of his reign recorded in the inscriptions at Nâsık and Kârlı is the twenty-fourth. Altogether then his reign lasted for fifty-two years. But if the twenty-eight include the twenty-four for which he ruled at Paiṭhaṇ, he must have died in 158. This supposition looks very probable. He was succeeded by Śıvasrî, whose coin found in the Tailangana districts has been described by Mr. Thomas in the *Indian Antiquary*, Vol. IX., p. 64.

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He appears to have been Puḷumâyi's brother, since he also is styled on the coin Vâsiṭhî-puta, *i.e.*, Vâsishṭhîputra, or the son of Vâsishṭhî He had a reign of seven years and must have died in A D 165 Śivaskanda was the next king, to whom also seven years have been assigned There is no trace of these two princes on this side of the country, while the name of the next, Yajña Śrî, occurs frequently as we have seen in inscriptions and coins He appears to have been Puḷumâyi's immediate successor at Paiṭhaṇ His full name was Gotamîputra Yajña Śrî Śâtakarṇi, and he is, as observed before, the Gotamîputra of the Kolhâpur coins Some copies of the Mâtsya assign him twenty-nine years, others nine, and twenty, and the Vâyu, twenty-nine, while the Brahmâṇḍa allows him nineteen Probably he reigned in Mahârâshṭra for eighteen or nineteen years, since the sixteenth year of his reign is his latest recorded date, and for twenty-nine years at Dhanakaṭaka since, according to our supposition, the Vâyu Purâna gives an account of the Dhanakaṭaka branch and his coins are found in Tailangaṇa And this is confirmed by what we have already said Puḷumâyi reigned at Dhanakaṭaka for four years and his two successors for fourteen All this while, *i.e.*, for eighteen years, Yajña Śrî was ruler of Mahârâshṭra He must thus have ceased to reign in the last country in about A D 172 and died in about A D 202 The next three reigns lasted, according to the Vâyu, for sixteen years No trace of any of these has yet been found on this side of the country, but coins of Chandra Śrî are found near the original seat of government, and two of these are described by Mr Thomas in the paper mentioned above Thus the [35] latest Andhrabhṛitya date is A D 218 Maḍharî-puta Sakasena of the Kânheri inscription, the same as the Mâdharîputa of the Kolhâpur coins, has been identified with Śiva Śrî, the successor of Puḷumâyi, by Paṇḍit Bhagvânlâl, and I also at one time concurred with him.

c13.29.3

But the identification is not, I think, tenable. He was probably led to it by his reading Sirisena for Sakasena, but I have shown that the reading is incorrect. Mr. Thomas has described a specimen of eleven coins found at Amrâvatî near Dharaṇikoṭ, the legend on which he reads as *Sakasakasa*, but it is not unlikely *Sakasenasa*, "of Sakasena." Besides, Mâḍharîputra Sakasena could not have been the immediate successor of Puḷmâyi for a reason which I have already given. One of the Kolhâpur coins figured by Paṇḍit Bhagvânlâl Indrajı bears the names of both Gotamîputa and Mâḍharîputa, showing that the piece originally bearing the name of one of them was re-stamped with the name of the other. Mr. Thomas thinks that it was originally Mâḍharîputa's coin. I think it was Gotamîputa's, for, if we see the other figured coins we shall find that they are so stamped as to leave some space between the rim and the legend. This in the present case is utilized and the name of Mâḍharîputa stamped close to the rim, which shows that the thing was done later. Mâḍharîputra Sakasena, therefore, must have been a successor of Gotamîputra Yajña Śrî Śâtakarṇi. But, as we have seen, none of his three Purâṇic successors bore the name, and the name Sakasena is one which has nothing like it on the long list of the Andhrabhṛityas. Still that king must have reigned at Dhanakaṭaka also if my surmise that Mr. Thomas' Sakasaka is the same as Sakasena is correct.

c13.29.4

In the same manner, as observed before, Chatushparṇa Śâtakarṇi's name does not appear in the Purâṇas. But the Puraṇâs cannot be expected to give accurate information on these points. In the Mâtsya Purâṇa another Andhra dynasty of "seven princes sprung from the servants of the original Andhrabhṛitya family will," it is said, "come into power after that family becomes extinct."¹⁴ The Vâyu has got a similar verse the reading of which, however, is corrupt, but it appears that this new dynasty is there meant to be spoken of as having sprung from the Andhrabhṛitya family itself and must have constituted a separate branch cut off from the main line. And we can very well understand from the points already made out how such a branch could have constituted itself after Yajña Śrî's ceasing to reign. Vâsishṭhîputra Śâtakarṇi whom I have identified with Chaturapana married a Kshatrapa lady. The Kshatrapas, as I have before observed, were foreigners, most probably Sakas who had become Hindus. Mâdharîputra was not unlikely the son of that lady. And thus he and his father Chaturapana formed, from the very fact of this marriage, a distinct line of princes. Chaturapana appears to have succeeded Yajña Śrî, and Mâdharîputra to have reigned after Chaturapana. The durations of these reigns cannot be made out, but the latest date of the former is the thirteenth year of his reign, which probably corresponds [36] to 185 A.D. and of the latter the eighth.

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The dates of the later Sâtavâhanas are therefore these:

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¹⁴ आन्ध्राणां संस्थिता (ते ?) राज्ये तेषां भृत्यान्वये नृपाः । सप्तैवान्ध्रा भविष्यन्ति

c13.31

*In Mahârâshṭra.*

c13.32

c13.33

*In Tailangana*

c13.34

c13.35

Thus then, the Andhrabhṛityas or Sâtavâhanas ruled over the Dekkan from B C 73 to about A D 218, *i c*, for about three centuries For some time, how-ever, they were dispossessed of the country by foreigners who belonged to the Śaka tribe How long these were in power it is difficult to determine If the Śaka era was established by the foreign conqueror after his subjugation of the country, and if his Satrap Nahapâna or his successor was overthrown by Gotamîputra or Puḷumâyi, six or seven years after Nahapâna's latest date, *viz* 46, the foreigners held possession of this country only for about fifty-three years

Linked texts (12)

Bhāgavatapurāṇa — Vyāsa, Sanskrit
Vāyupurāṇa — Vyāsa, Sanskrit
Matsyapurāṇa — Vyāsa, Sanskrit
تحقيق ما للهند من مقولة مقبولة في العقل أو مرذولة — Arabic
Indian Antiquary
Viṣṇupurāṇa — Vyāsa, Sanskrit
Anarta
Junnar
Karad
Kanheri Inscription (No. 15) — Sanskrit
Aihoḷe memorial stone inscription of Rāmiseṭṭi (No. LVI) — Kannada
Nasik cave inscription (No. 16, N. 5) (ed. Hultzsch 1906) — Prakrit

Early History of the Dekkan down to the Mahomedan Conquest c13: Section VI. Chronology of the Andhrabhṛityas or Sâtavâhanas

Contents

Section VI. Chronology of the Andhrabhṛityas or Sâtavâhanas

Linked texts (12)