The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c24.s2.1

c24.s2.1

The plot which cost the royal debauchee, Devabhūti, his throne and life was contrived by his Brahman minister Vasudeva, who seems to have controlled the state even during the lifetime of his nominal master.² Mitradeva, the slayer of Prince Sumitra, probably belonged to the same powerful family, which is known to history as that of the Kāṇvas, or Kāṇvāyanas. The distinct testimony of both the Purāṇas and Bāṇa that Devabhūti, the tenth and last Śuṅga, was the person slain by Vasudeva, the first Kāṇva, forbids the acceptance of Professor Bhandarkar's theory that the Kāṇva dynasty should be regarded as contemporary with the Śuṅga.³