The Dynasties of the Kanarese Districts of the Bombay Presidency from the Earliest Historical Times to the Musalman Conquest c8.s3.163

c8.s3.163

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, Chashtana, 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;¹ 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 Chashtana, 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 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 Puḷumâyi's reign, that is, after about A.D. 149. 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.