Mysore and Coorg from the Inscriptions c8.s2: 2. Śātavāhanas

Mysore and Coorg from the Inscriptions c8.s2

Language: English

2. Śātavāhanas

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Next to our Edicts of Aśōka, whose discovery formed—as has been said by the eminent French authority—an epoch in Indian archæology, the oldest inscriptions that have been found in Mysore are those in Prākrit on a pillar at Malavalli in Shikarpur tāluq. The first of these (Sk 263) is a grant by Hāritiputta-Sātakanni, of the Mānavya-gotra and Vinhukaḍḍa-chuṭu family, king of Vaijayanti, that is Banavāsi, engraved in what are called Cave characters. He commands the *mahā-valabham rajjukam*² that the village Sahalāṭavi has been given for the enjoyment of the Maṭṭapaṭṭi (that is Malavalli) god, as a Brāhman endowment, to Koṇḍamāna, a Hāritīputta of the Koḍinya-gōtra. It is dated in the second fortnight of the hot season, the first day of the first year. In Banavāsi is also an inscription (*IA*. xiv. 333) of apparently the same king, dated in the twelfth regnal year, in the seventh fortnight of the winter, the first day. In this the Mahārāja’s daughter, the Mahābhōji Sivakhada-Nāgasiri (Sivaskanda-Nāgaśrī) makes the grant of a *nāga* (the cobra in the middle of the slab on the margin of which the inscription is engraved), a tank, and a *vihāra*. Moreover, in the Tālgunda pillar inscription (Sk 176) Sātakarṇṇi is named as one of the great kings who had worshipped at the temple there. Again, to the west of Chitaldroog, on the site of an ancient city whose name is said to have been Chandrāvali, were found¹ in 1888 a number of leaden coins, among which were some bearing the legend “Sadakana-Kaḷalāya-Mahārathisa,”—that is, Sātakarṇṇi-Kaḷalāya-Mahārathi—surrounding a humped bull, and having on the reverse the Buddhist symbols of a *bōdhi* tree and a *chaitya*.

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² The *rajjukas* were first appointed in the time of Aśōka, but perhaps for other purposes. They were, however, properly Revenue and Settlement officers. For, as

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¹ See *EI*. vii. 51. Others have since been found there of the same series, together with Roman coins of Augustus; and a clay seal, bearing the figures of an elephant and what looks like a sentry standing facing it. Some letters at top, said to be Brāhmī, have not been deciphered.

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These are all evidence that the north-west of Mysore was at that period in possession of the kings who bore the general name of Sātakarṇṇi. They are often spoken of as the Āndhras, and identified with the Andaræ described by Ptolemy as a powerful nation, and also mentioned by Pliny. The Purāṇas, however, seem to call them Āndhrabhṛityas, or servants of the Āndhras. But from inscriptions in the western caves it appears more correct to call them Śātavāhanas,² a name from which has arisen the form Śālivāhana. The Indian era named after Śālivāhana, reckoned from A.D. 78, is in general use. For many centuries it was called the Śaka-kāla

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² Bhāndārkar’s *EHD*. 24.

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Dr. Bühler has pointed out (*ZDMG*. xlvii. 466), the name literally means “holder of the rope,” that is, their duty was concerned with the survey of the land. In name they are represented by the modern *sheristadār*, a corruption of the Persian *sar-i rishta dār*, he who holds the end of the rope.

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or Śaka-nṛipa-kāla—the time of the Śakas or of the Śaka kings. But eventually the word śaka came to be misunderstood as itself meaning era, and to distinguish it, was then called the Śālivāhana-śaka. A reminiscence of its origin is, however, contained in Sk 281, of 1368, which is dated in the Śātavāhana-śaka instead of the Śālivāhana-śaka. So far as I have observed, the decided use of the latter term came in with the foundation of the Vijayanagar empire in the fourteenth century. The Mysore State is spoken of in 1717 as in the Śālivāhana country (Cm 109).

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The territory of the Śātavāhanas extended over the whole of the Dekhan, and Sātakarṇi is called the lord of Dakshiṇāpatha in the Kshatrapa Rudradāman's inscription. Their chief capital appears to have been at Dhanakaṭaka in the east (Dhāraṇikoṭṭa on the Krishṇā), but their chief city in the west was Paithan on the Gōdāvari. The Hathigumpha inscription of Kharavela in Kalinga tells us of a Sātakani in the second century B.C., but the Sātakarṇi of our inscriptions may be referred to the first or second century A.D. A peculiarity of these kings is that the name of his mother always appears with that of the king. Thus we have Gautamīputra Sātakarṇi, Vasisṭhīputra Puḷumāyi, and here, Hāritīputra Sātakarṇi. This is a Rajput custom due to polygamy. The actual names of the mothers are not given, but they are called after the gōtra of their family priest.¹ The two branches of the Gōdāvari which form the Delta are still named after the two great queens—the northern is the Gautamī, and the southern the Vasisṭhī.² With regard to the Kaḷalāya of the coins, he was doubtless a viceroy under Sātakarṇi.

Linked texts (1)

Naturalis historia — C. Plinius Secundus, Latin