Early History of the Dekkan down to the Mahomedan Conquest c13.7

c13.7

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