The Dynasties of the Kanarese Districts of the Bombay Presidency from the Earliest Historical Times to the Musalman Conquest c8.s11.2

c8.s11.2

The earliest epigraphic records that bear in any way upon Southern India, are the inscriptions, belonging to the first half of the third century B. C., of the great Buddhist king Aśôka, the grandson of the Maurya king Chandragupta of Pâtaliputra who was known to the Greek historians as Sandrocottos. Aśôka's dominions proper seem not to have extended south of the Narmadâ (vulgo Nerbudda). But, in all directions, he exercised an active suzerainty over provinces which lay on the borders of his kingdom. And, among the tribes mentioned in this connection, we find,¹ in the south, the Pêtênikas or inhabitants of Pratisthâna, which is the modern Paiṭhan, on the Gôdâvarî, in the Nizâm's Dominions; the Bhôjas, nearer to the Narmadâ, or towards the coast of the Konkan; the Ristikas or Râstikas, who are supposed by some to be the Mahârâshtrîs or Marâṭhâs of the Dekkan; and the Andhras, who were the inhabitants of a tract of country which embraced the region towards the east coast lying between the rivers Krishna and Gôdâvarî, and part of which, under the name of the land of Vengî, came, in the early part of the seventh century A. D., into the hands of the eastern branch of the Chalukya dynasty. Among Aśôka's independent neighbours there are mentioned,² for Southern India, two kings named Saṭiyaputa and Kêralaputa, probably towards the west coast,—the Pândyas, whose country was the triangle at the south of the peninsula, including the present Madura and Tinnevelly Districts of the Madras Presidency, and perhaps the Travancore State,—and the Chôḍas, i. e. Chôḷas, whose territory lay on the east coast, from the northern boundary of the Pâṇḍya kingdom up to the river Pâḷâru.