Political History of Ancient India, from the Accession of Parikshit to the Extinction of the Gupta Dynasty c17.s1.6

c17.s1.6

Very little is known about the history of Magadha proper after the Kāṇvas. To reconstruct the history of the province from the fall of the Kāṇvas to the rise of the Gupta dynasty is a difficult task. The so-called Andhras or Sātavāhanas who are represented as destroying the Kāṇva sovereignty, apparently in Eastern Mālwa, do not appear to have ruled in Magadha proper.¹ The greatest among them are called ‘Sovereigns of the Deccan’ (*Dakshiṇāpathapati*) and an accurate idea of the field of their political and military activities may be obtained from the epithets ‘*tisamuda-toyapītavāhana*,’ ‘whose chargers had drunk the water of the *three* oceans,’ and ‘*trisamudrādhipati*,’ ‘overlord of the *three* seas’ occurring in epigraphic and literary records. The sway of rulers like the Guptas, on the other hand, is said to have extended as far as the *four* seas.