History of India, c. 150 A.D. to 350 A.D.: Naga–Vakataka Imperial Period c17.s1.t1.10

c17.s1.t1.10

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.