The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c31.s4.6

v1.c31.s4.6

After the death of Açoka the Maurya empire rapidly decayed, and neighbouring rulers were left free to indulge their ambitions and enlarge their boundaries. Among these was a certain Simuka, who in the last quarter of the third century b.c. established the powerful Sātavāhana or Çātakarṇi dynasty, which ruled the Telugu country for nearly five centuries³. In his reign or in the reign of his immediate successor, his younger brother Kṛishṇa (vernacularly Kaṇha), the Andhra empire spread westward to at least 74′ long., and possibly even to the Arabian Sea¹. Under these early Sātavāhana kings the boundaries of the Andhra dominions were enlarged so as to include a great part, if not the whole, of Vidarbha (Berār), the Central Provinces, and Hyderābād. A conflict between this formidable power and the declining Çuṅga empire of Magadha was inevitable; and about 170 B.C. war broke out between Agnimitra, ruling as viceroy of his father Pushyamitra at Vidiçā (Bhīlsa), and the king of Vidarbha, who at this period must almost certainly have been a feudatory of the Andhras². The campaign against Vidarbha is the only event in the struggle which is mentioned in literature; and in this the Çuṅgas were successful. There can, however, be no doubt that the Andhras were ultimately victorious. Although no detailed records have been preserved, coins seem to show that the Andhras were in possession of Ujjain (W. Mālwā̄) in about the middle of the second century B.C., and an inscription bearing the name of a king Çātakarṇi proves that they had superseded the Çuṅgas in the kingdom of Vidiçā (E. Mālwā̄) about a hundred years later (*v. sup.* pp. 531 ff.).