Political History of Ancient India, from the Accession of Parikshit to the Extinction of the Gupta Dynasty c12.s8.5

c12.s8.5

² This interpretation of ‘*tivasasata*’ accords substantially with the Purāṇic tradition, regarding the interval between the Nandas and the dynasty to which Sātakarṇi, the contemporary of Khāravela in his second regnal year, belonged (137 years for the Mauryas + 112 for the ‘Śuṅgas’ + 45 for the Kāṇvas=294). If the expression is taken to mean 103 years (as is suggested by some scholars), Khāravela's accession must be placed 103-5=98 years after Nandarāja. His elevation to the position of Yuvarāja took place 9 years before that date i.e., 98-9=89 years after Nanda, i.e., not later than 324-89=235 B.C. Khāravela's senior partner in the royal office was on the throne at that time and he may have had his predecessor or predecessors. But we learn from Aśoka's inscriptions that Kaliṅga was actually governed at that time by a Maurya Kumāra, (and not by a Kaliṅga-*adhipati* or *Chakravarti*) under the suzerainty of Aśoka himself. Therefore, *tivasasata* should be understood to mean 300 and not 103 years. S. Konow (*Acta Orientalia*, I.22-26) takes the figure to express not the interval between Nanda and Khāravela, but a date during the reign of Nanda which was reckoned from some pre-existing era. But the use of any such era in the particular country and epoch is not proved. Khāravela himself, like Aśoka, uses regnal years. The agreement with Purāṇic tradition speaks in favour of the view adopted in these pages.