History of India, c. 150 A.D. to 350 A.D.: Naga–Vakataka Imperial Period c17.s1.t1: Identification and History of the Subordinate Andhras
History of India, c. 150 A.D. to 350 A.D.: Nāga–Vākāṭaka Imperial Period c17.s1.t1
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Identification and History of the Subordinate Andhras
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157. The Subordinate Andhras are the well-known feudatory Sātavāhanas or Andhras in whose line flourished the two Hāritiputras of the Chuṭu Dynasty, who have left their inscriptions at Kanheri (Aparānta), Kanara (Banavasi) and Mysore (Maḷavalli).¹ These inscriptions cannot be dated earlier than 200 A.D. on the evidence of their scripts.² Although the Banavasi record has an archaic script, the Maḷavalli inscription of the same reign has characters of 200 A.D. The latter record is in line with the Kodavali inscription of King Chaṃdaśāti—the last but one king of the Sātavāhana line (E.I., XVIII. 318), whose date, as given in the record, has been calculated by Mr. Krishna Śastri as corresponding to December, 210 A.D., which is very near the Purāṇic date for that king (228 A.D., J.B.O.R.S., 1930, 279). The genealogy of the two kings—Rājā Hāritiputra Viṣṇu Skanda Chuṭukulānanda Śātakarṇi and of his daughter’s son Hāritiputra Śiva Skanda-varman, ‘lord of Vaijayanti,’³ has been carefully reconstructed by Prof. Rapson on the basis of the three inscriptions of the family, together with one inscription of the first Kadamba king.⁴ I cannot do better than adopt that reconstruction, having personally gone into the materials thoroughly. I, however, give a name-value to ‘Viṇhu Kadda’ as Viṣṇu Skanda:
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¹ Rapson, C.A.D., LXXXI, XLIII, XLIX, LIII-LV, Kanheri: A.S.W.I., Vol. V, p. 86; Banavasi: I.A., XIV, 331. Maysore (Shimoga at Maḷavalli): E.C., VII, 251.
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² Rice, E. C., Vol. VII, plate facing p. 252; I.A., Vol. XIV, 1885, p. 331, plate facing p. 332. Dr. Bühler considered the Banavasi inscription to belong to the end of the first or the beginning of the second century, but Dr. Bhagwanlal Indraji considered it to be later. Prof. Rapson in C.A D., p. xxiii, would place King Hāritiputra scarcely before the beginning of the third century A.D.
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³ E.C., Vol. VII, p. 252.
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⁴ C.A.D., pp. liii to lv.
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King Hāritiputra Viṣṇu Skanda (Viṇhu Kadda) Chuṭukulānanda Śātakarṇi=Mahābhoji°-
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Mahārathi=Nāgamulanikā
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Hāritiputra Śivaskanda varman [Vaijayanti-pati].
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158. There is no doubt that the dynastic name is Chuṭu-[Kula]. The term Chuṭu has not yet been explained. It is the same word as the Sanskrit chuṇṭ—'to become small'. It survives in the word 'Chuṭia Nagpur' which means 'the minor' or 'smaller' Nagpur as compared with the bigger Nagpur in the Central Provinces. It is, very likely, a Dravidian word which was accepted by the Aryans. Chhoṭū=a 'younger member', is its modern Hindi equivalent which in Chuṭia Nagpur is still 'Chuṭu,' meaning a younger brother. Chuṭu and Chuṭu-kula should be translated as 'the Younger Branch' i.e., the younger branch of the imperial Sātavāhanas.
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159. According to the Purāṇas their family came to an end in the Vākāṭaka period, i.e., about 250 A.D., and that they had existed for 100 or 105 years. This will take them back to about 150 A.D. which was the most trialsome time for the Sātavāhanas owing to the rise of Rudradāman to power. Rudradāman's constitutional position has not been appreciated by Indian historians. His great strength lay in his legal status which no Śaka ruler, before or after, ever acquired in this country. His father had been fully thrown out. But he was elected king by the whole Hindu community of Kathiawar (Surāṣṭra) and the neighbourhood [sarva-varnair-abhigamya rakṣanārtha (ṁ) patitve vritena]. The S a u r ā ṣ ṭ r a s who elected him king had been a republican community according to the Arthaśāstra.¹ On his election, Rudradāman took an oath by which he gave an engagement which he reiterates and proclaims in his inscription at Junagarh, promising to remain true to his *pratijñā*, i.e., to his coronation oath.¹ Rudradāman’s oath and the whole tenor of his public declaration in his Junagarh inscription mean that he would behave up to his last breath like a true Hindu sovereign, and he illustrated it by saying that when his ministers opposed his decision to rebuild the Sudarśana lake on account of its heavy cost, he accepted their decision but rebuilt it from his private purse. We may take it that this elected king, behaving, as he did, like a Hindu of Hindus, must have become a very popular leader. He was learned in Sanskrit and the Śāstras, and adopted Sanskrit as his official language. He became a great menace to the Sātavāhana sovereign and he actually defeated that ‘Lord of Dakṣiṇāpatha’ twice, but followed the Hindu law of restoring a *bhraṣṭa-rāja*—a fallen enemy. His reign led to a new organisation in the Sātavāhana empire.
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¹ Bk. XI, [c. 125].
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¹ ‘satyapratijñena’; *pratijñā* is a constitutional term denoting ‘coronation oath’. See Jayaswal, *Hindu Polity*, ii, p 50.
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160. Under these conditions the Junior Dynasty—the Chuṭu Kula—along with a few other subordinate dynasties came into existence. To this period probably the ‘Chuṭu-kulānanda’ coins are to be assigned. The Junior Dynasty guarded the sea-coast on the west. Their capital was Vaijayantī in the Province of Vanavāsī (Kanara). We find their inscription at Kanheri in the North, and we find their coins in the South at Karwar on the sea-coast in the province of Vanavāsī. On the coins, read as of *Chuṭu-kuḍānanda* (No. G.P. 2),² although the letters look earlier than those of 150 A.D., the form of ‘*ku*’ with a thickened head, and the treatment of *anusvāra* placed just on the top of ‘*na*’ and the form of ‘*sa*’ are later. It seems that archaic forms lingered on the coins, which amongst themselves show a period of hundred years as covered by them. It is to be noticed that the coins were not struck in the personal name of any member of the Chuṭu family but their official title—the Chuṭu Kula [*Raṇo Chuṭukuḍānamdasa* ‘(coin of) the Pleaser of the Chuṭu Dynasty’]. And we find the same characteristics on the coins issued by the governor [of the Muṇḍaraṣṭra] Muṇḍānanda. Muṇḍarāṣṭra was a province in Andradeśa according to the Pallava inscriptions.¹
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² C.A.D., p. xxii, Plate VIII, G.P. 2, G.P. 3, 235
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¹ Coin No. 236 of the Muṇḍananda belongs to the same series. It was evidently connected with Muṇḍa-raṣṭra which occurs in the Pallava inscriptions [EI. VIII, 159]. [Muṇḍā in the Muṇḍārī language of Chuṭia Nagpur means a rājā.]
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161. These Chuṭu kings, the Subordinate Āndhras of the Purāṇas, being only a branch of the imperial dynasty, throw light on the caste of the Sātavāhanas. I have shown elsewhere² that the imperial Āndhras were Brahmins by caste. The description of the branch family confirms that view. Their gotra [stock] was ‘Mānavya’, essentially a Brahmin gotra and it was so recognised even after their time. In Mysore, Shimoga district, at Maḷavaḷḷi there was a Śiva shrine presided over by Maṭṭapaṭṭi-Deva to whom a Chuṭu king dedicated an estate and placed it as a Brahma-deya grant in the hands of a Brahmin called the Hāritiputra Koṇḍamāna of the Kauṇḍinya gotra. This gift is recorded on a six-sided pillar which was lying on the ground at Maḷavaḷḷi.³ The name and description of the Chuṭu king are: Vaijayantipura-rājā Mānavya-sagotto Hāritiputto Viṇhu Kadda-Chuṭu-kulānanda-Sātakaṇṇi, who had issued his order to his Mahāvallabha Rajjuka. This gift was evidently resumed by a subsequent government. A Kadamba king subsequently renewed the grant—‘with a very glad mind’⁴ (parituṭṭheṇa)’—‘for the second time’ giving to a descendant of Koṇḍamāna, a maternal uncle of the king and a Kauśikiputra. The grant covered the old property and an addition of twelve new villages, all specified by name, and the gift was publicly registered on the same pillar. The gift by the previous donor is described in this as ‘Śiva[Khada]vammaṇā Mānavya-sagotteṇa Hāritiputteṇa Vaijayanti-patinā puvva-dattitti’. Śiva Khada v a m m a n here which is put in the instrumental (as opposed to the Kadamba king who is placed in the prathamā), is the former king who had made the gift (puvvadatta). He is described with the same titles as in the inscription of Vishnu Skanda Śātakarṇi. It was a common practice in those days to add the word Śiva as a mere honorific before names. The king's name, according to his mother's inscription at Banavasi, was Śiva-Khada-Nāga-Siri, which at Kanheri, according to the same authority, is Khamda Nāga Sātaka. The word Śiva, therefore, was only honorific. Sāta and Sāti stand for Svāti which the Purāṇas give with several names of the Andhras. Svāti means 'sword'. His mother was the daughter of Vishnu-Skanda, spelt as Viṇhu-Kada (or, Kada) and Viṇhu Kadda, of the Chuṭu dynasty, who is also given the name Sātakaṇṇi in the Banavasi inscription. The former gift was actually made and recorded not by the Hāritiputra Śiva Skanda varman,¹ the lord of Vaijayantī, but by his grandfather Vishnu Skanda (Viṇhu Kadda²) Sātakarṇi. And when the second inscription mentions that the Kadamba king having heard that a gift had been made by Śiva Skanda-varman, 'with a glad heart' makes the gift a second time, it means that a confusion was made between the names of the grandfather and grandson; instead of writing the grandfather's name the grandson's name was written by mistake.³
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² J.B.O.R.S., XVI, 265-266.
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³ E.C., Vol. VII, Sk. 251-252, Nos. 263, 264.
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⁴ See correction by Fleet, J.R.A.S., 1905, p. 305, footnote 2. Dr. Fleet, however, has made a confusion in regarding Śiva Skandavarman as the name of the Kadamba king, while it is the name of the Chuṭu king, which has been made clear by Prof. Rapson, C.A.D., p. LIV.
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¹ The Kadamba king turns Sāta into varman, or adds it, which had become a style of royalty in his time, though it had not been so before.
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² I read Kadda, not Kaḍḍa. Compare 'da' in line 2 with da in 'Maṭṭapaṭṭideva', in 'nanda' in line 1 and in 'deyya' and in 'dinnam' in line 3.
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³ Or, that the gift had been last confirmed by Śiva Skanda, as in
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162. I have carefully studied the plate and I find it impossible to read Kadambānāṃ rājā before the word Śiva in line 4. I, however, find a reference to the prosperity of the Kadambas in the last line which shows that it is a Kadamba document and a Kadamba grant. The readable portion in line 4 which is the first line of the latter grant, is: Siva-Kha[da] vamaṇā Mānavya-sa[go]ttena Hāritiputtena Vaijayantī pati[na] (end of the line). Before Śiva there were two letters (raṇā), then a blank space. Before Śiva, Mr. Rice read Siddham jayati Maṭṭapaṭṭidevo Vaijayantī-dhamma-Mahārāje patikata-saujhāyichachchaparo Kadambānāṁ rājā, out of which I can read traces of jayati Mat.—Dha[m]mahā.jā . . . . . . After this what Mr. Rice read as dhirāje is not traceable but in its place I read ra[ś]ammā anpa.[ti] . . . ka . . . . Mr. Rice's pati kata, etc., gives no meaning. His dhi ra je pa ti ka ta corresponds to my 'ra[ś]ammā aṇapa-ti. I have no doubt that Dhammamahārājo followed (Mayū)raśammā āṇapa(ya)ti. A better rubbing and facsimile would disclose the true forms of the six blurred letters after pa and the four letters after ka and before raṇā. Mayūraśarmā was the first Kadamba king. He renewed the grant.
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It is, however, not a necessary corollary that the Kadambas came immediately after the Chuṭus. The Chuṭus and the Kadambas were connected, the latter being an offshoot of the former (§ 200). Some hostile power must have intervened and that was the Pallava. No room for speculation is left in view of the Talagunda inscription wherein Mayūraśarman is recorded to have carved out his fief at the cost of the Pallava territories, and was recognized as a chief in view of his lineage, of the Hārītiputra Mānavya.¹ The Chuṭus thus were superseded by the Pallavas in the latter half of the third century, and the Pallava king who effected it was the king before Śiva Skanda-varman the Pallava, i.e., his father who performed an aśvamedha. (§ 183).
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¹ E.I., VIII, 31-32 [insc. lines 2, 7].
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163. The Kauṇḍinyas who were on the scene as early as the second century A.D. were probably the same family who sent out a scion to Champā (Indo-China) to be the founder of the Kauṇḍinya kingdom there. They seem to have been imported from Northern India in the time of the imperial Sātavāhanas. The family was a very respected one. They are mentioned with respect in the two Malavaḷḷi inscriptions and were related to the royal family. We seem to the case of the Pallava grant published in E.I., I, p. 2, where the Pallava emperor confirmed the gift made by his father ('bappa' have a historical corroboration here of the Champā tradition of the Kauṇḍinyas. Champā received her colony from Southern India led by the Kauṇḍinyas. Another Kauṇḍinya, in the reign of Samudra Gupta, goes to Champā and reforms the society there. He was very likely connected with this family. The Kauṇḍinyas must have been in touch with their Champā branch, which would have been certainly to their advantage. In the second, third, and fourth centuries they were thus social leaders in the South and the Colonies.
Linked texts (3)
- Kauṭilīya Arthaśāstra — Kauṭilya, Sanskrit
- Purāṇa — Sanskrit
- Malavalli