A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c11.7

c11.7

The dynasty (*kula*) of the Sātavāhanas is doubtless identical with the Andhras or Andhrabhrityas in the purānic lists of kings. They were called Andhras because they were of Andhra origin (*jāti*) and their rule was probably confined to the Andhra country at the time the purānic lists were compiled. The other name, Andhrabhrityas (‘Andhra servants’), may imply that the ancestors of the royal Sātavāhanas were employed in the service of the Mauryan empire and thus moved into the western Deccan where they set up an independent state when that empire declined after Aśoka. Pliny mentions the Andhra territory in the eastern Deccan as including thirty walled towns, besides numerous villages, and as maintaining an army of 100,000 infantry, 2,000 cavalry, and 1,000 elephants. Though the Purāṇas list thirty kings of the dynasty ruling all together over 460 years, it is very difficult, in the present state of our knowledge, to narrate their history in a connected form. The names of the earliest kings in the purānic lists figure also in inscriptions and on coins found in the western Deccan at Nasik, Karle and Naneghat. There is no trace of these early monarchs in the Andhra country on the east coast. Again, Khāravela of Kalinga states clearly that the territory of the Sātavāhana king Śātakarni lay to the west of his kingdom. From these facts we may conclude that the Sātavāhanas rose to power in the western Deccan, in the region round about Paithan (Pratishthāna) traditionally associated with them, and thence spread their empire in all directions. In the first instance they conquered north and south Mahārāshtra, eastern and western Malwa, and what is now Madhya Pradesh. In this task they were helped by the Rathikas and Bhojas who were duly rewarded with offices, titles and matrimonial alliances.