Political History of Ancient India, from the Accession of Parikshit to the Extinction of the Gupta Dynasty c17.s1.5

c17.s1.5

Now, the Purāṇic evidence only proves that certain princes belonging to the Śuṅga stock continued to rule till the so-called "Andhra-bhṛitya" conquest and were the contemporaries of the Kāṇvas. But there is nothing to show that these *rois faineants* of the "Śuṅga" stock were identical with any of the ten "Śuṅga" kings mentioned by name in the Purāṇic lists, who reigned 112 years. On the contrary, the distinct testimony of the *Purāṇas* that Devabhūti, the tenth and last "Śuṅga" of the Purāṇic lists, was the person slain by Vasudeva, the first Kāṇva, probably shows that the *rois faineants*, who ruled contemporaneously with Vasudeva and his successors, were later than Devabhūti, and were not considered to be important enough to be mentioned by name. Consequently the 112 years that tradition assigns to the ten "Śuṅga" kings from Pushyamitra to Devabhūti do not include the 45 assigned to the Kāṇvas. It is, therefore, not unreasonable to accept with slight modifications the views of Dr. Smith regarding the date of the family. According to the system of chronology adopted in these pages, the period of Kāṇva rule extended from *cir.* B.C. 75 to *cir.* B.C. 30.