Political History of Ancient India, from the Accession of Parikshit to the Extinction of the Gupta Dynasty c20.s3.74

c20.s3.74

The Madrakas had their capital at Sākala or Siālkoṭ in the Pañjab. The Ābhīras occupied the tract in the lower Indus valley and western Rājaputāna, near Vinaśana⁶ in the district called Abiria by the *Periplus*⁷ and the geography of Ptolemy. We have already seen that an Ābhīra possibly became *Mahākshatrapa* of Western India and probably supplanted the Sātavāhanas in a part of Mahārāshṭra before the middle of the third century A.D. A section of the tribe apparently settled in Central India and gave its name to the Āhīrwār country between Jhansi and Bhilsa.⁸ The territories of the Prārjunas, Sanakānīkas, Kākas and Kharaparikas lay probably in Mālwa and the Central Provinces. The Prārjunakas are mentioned in the *Arthaśāstra* attributed existence of a Muruṇḍa power in the Ganges valley a couple of centuries before Samudra Gupta is vouched for by Ptolemy.¹ The Jaina *Prabhāvaka-charita* testifies to the control that a Muruṇḍa family once exercised over the imperial city of Pāṭaliputra.²