The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c30.87

v1.c30.87

Pratishṭhāna, the modern Paithan on the north bank of the Godāvari in the Auraṅgābād District of Hyderābād, is famous in literature as the capital of king Çātakarṇi (Çātavāhana or Sālivāhana) and his son Çakti-kumāra; and there can be little doubt that these are to be identified with the king Çātakarṇi and the prince Çakti-çrī of the Nānāghāt inscriptions. The Andhras in this region were separated by the rivers Tāptī and Narbadā from the kingdoms of Ujjayinī and Vidiçā, which lay along the central route from the coast to Pāṭaliputra; and the lines of communication between Pratishṭhāna and these kingdoms passed through the city of Māhishmatī (Mandhātā on the Narbadā in the Nimār District of the Central Provinces). Numismatic testimony, if it has been rightly interpreted, shows that at this period the Andhras had traversed the intervening territories and conquered the kingdom of Ujjayinī. Their earliest known coins bear the name of a king Sāta, who is probably to be identified with Çātakarṇi; and they are of what numismatists call the ‘Mālwā fabric’ and of that particular variety which is characteristic of the coins of W. Mālwā (Avanti), the capital of which was Ujjayinī¹. If we may suppose, then, that Çātakarṇi was the actual conqueror, his performance of the horse-sacrifice is evidently explained; for Ujjayinī was one of the most famous of all the cities of India, and its conquest may well have entitled the Andhra kings to a place in the imperial records preserved by the Purāṇas. It was, and still is, one of the seven holy places of Hinduism². Such fragments of its ancient