The Dynasties of the Kanarese Districts of the Bombay Presidency from the Earliest Historical Times to the Musalman Conquest c8.s3.88

c8.s3.88

No clue to the political history of Mahârâshtra in the centuries immediately preceding the Christian era is now available. The Purânas 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 Kâthiâvâd, and his grandson Asoka, who reigned from B.C. 263 to B.C. 229, retained possession of the province.¹ The rock-inscriptions of the latter, which were evidently planted in the countries which owned his sway, show that his empire extended to Kalinga or the Northern Circars in the east and Kâthiâvâd 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 Mysor. In the second rock-edict he speaks of his own dominions as "the conquered countries" and mentions Chola, Pândya, Ketalaputta, and Saliyaputta down to Tambapanni or Ceylon as outlying provinces. These therefore did not own his sway. But in the fifth edict he mentions the Râstikas, 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, Pândya and others, and the territories ruled over by Antiochus and four other Greek princes. It would thus appear that though the countries of the Râstikas, Bhojas, Petenikas, and Aparântas were not outlying provinces like those of the Cholas, the Pândyas, 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 Râstikas, the Bhojas, and Petenikas, and the southern coast in a state of semi-independence. And there is some 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 Sunga dynasty, who reigned in 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 Vidiśâ, the general of Yajñasena, 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 Pushyamitra, 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.