History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v1.c8.s1.10

v1.c8.s1.10

The date of this settlement of the Aryans in the Deccan is placed by Sir R. Bhandarkar in about the 7th Century B. C. on incontrovertible grounds, especially on the fact that while places to the south of the Vindhya are not mentioned by Pāṇini they are added by Kātyāyana in his Vārtikas. We come to still firmer ground when we come to the inscriptions of Aśoka of the 3rd century B.C. as they distinctly mention the Rāstikas the Pettanikas and the Aparantas. The last is Northern Konkan and its then capital was Śūrpāraka. (It may be added that Buddhistic sacred books speak of Śūrpāraka and Paithana even before this time). Pettanikas are the people of Paithana or Pratiṣṭhāna and Rāstikas are the Rāṣṭrikas, who are clearly the ancestors of the modern Marathas. Aśoka's inscriptions also speak of the Bhojas. Now as the Kuden inscription speaks of Mahābhojas also, in the same way the Rāshtrikas must have spoken of themselves as Mahārāshtrikas and the country in which they lived came to be called Mahārāshtra. "Thus a hundred years before Patanjali, the whole of the southern peninsula was in direct communication with the north. Mahārāshtra or Deccan had kingdoms governed by Rattas and Bhojas."