History of India, c. 150 A.D. to 350 A.D.: Naga–Vakataka Imperial Period c16.s1.1

c16.s1.1

109. Magadha, after the fall of the Kāṇvas, according to the Purāṇas, passed on to the Āndhras and Lichchhavis at Pāṭaliputra. This statement is corroborated by the find of Sātavāhana coins in the excavation of Bhiṭā [Allahabad District]. I read one Sātavāhana coin excavated in my presence by Dr. Spooner at Kumhrār [Patna]. The Sātavāhanas, however, could not have been for more than fifty years at Pāṭaliputra and in Magadha after the fall of the Kāṇvas (31 B.C.). The Nepal inscription of Jayadeva II of the Lichchhavi dynasty, dated in Śrī-Harsha Saṃvat 153 (=758 A.D.),¹ states that 23 successions before Jayadeva I, his ancestor Supushpa Lichchhavi was born at the city of Pushpapura. The date of Jayadeva I is about 330 A.D. to 355 A.D. as worked out by Dr. Fleet.² Now, giving an average of about 15 years to this long list of 23 kings we may place Supushpa in the beginning of the Christian Era. The Lichchhavis in occupying Pāṭaliputra might have taken a mandate for doing so from the Sātavāhana Emperor, or they might have independently captured the capital, which they had aspired to do for centuries. The disturbance caused to the Sātavāhana Emperor by the appearance of Kadphises and Wema Kadphises in Northern India afforded an ample opportunity to the Lichchhavis to fill up the vacuum at Pāṭaliputra. We may also take it that their occupation of Pāṭaliputra would have ended with the advance of Vanaspara, viceroy of Kanishka, to Magadha about the close of the century.¹