History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v1.c14.s6.26

v1.c14.s6.26

They were, as we have said, originally of the Nāga race but they appear to have married Kshatriya wives. The Śakas of Ujjain a foreign people, yet perfectly Hinduised, were predominant beyond the Nerbudda, and it appears from inscriptions that Rudradāman’s daughter was married to a Śātavāhana king. That is not strange. For Chandragupta married a daughter of a Yavana king. Śūdra, nay even Kshatriya kings may take Mlechha girls in marriage. But it is strange that the Śātavāhana Nāga kings were given Kshatriya daughters, as appears quite clear. For what is the significance of the name Gautamīputra and Vaisthīputra which appear so conspicuously in their inscriptions? The epithets admittedly mean son of a queen born of the Gotama or Vasistha gotra. Was the name of the gotra of the queen mother of importance? They were certainly not Brahmin women for their mention would not be of importance. It therefore seems that they were daughters of well-known Kshatriya kingly families in the Deccan. And the Sātavāhanas lower as they themselves were in the social scale deemed it honourable to mention the gotra of their Kshatriya mothers. The mention of the gotra of the mother was not a new thing to Aryans. We find in the Br̥hadāraṇya Upanishad in the Vamśas so many names given by the gotra of the mother e. g. सांजीवीपुत्र, गौतमीपुत्र, पाराशरीपुत्र and so on. (See बृहदारण्य वंश VIII 5) And even in modern times Rajput kings call their queens by their honoured father's families such as Rāthodani, Chohāni and so on. A queen born of a royal family would insist on her gotra being mentioned and hence we surmise that these Sātavāhanas married Maratha Kshatriya daughters, and honourably mentioned their gotras. It also follows that these Maratha Kshatriya royal families had particular gotras which they then carefully remembered and proclaimed. The Sātavāhana marriage relations thus give a historical basis of very old standing to the generally accepted three Vamśas among the Maratha Kshatriyas viz: Sūrya, Soma and Nāga. There were Nāgavamsī Maratha Kshatriyas in later history of the seventh century also as we shall notice hereafter.