The Early History of the Deccan (Parts I–XI) v1.c6.s8.15

v1.c6.s8.15

Unfortunately Khāravela’s inscription has no reference to the capital city of king ‘Śātakarṇi’, the great western contemporary of the Kaliṅga monarch. For the great cities of the empire of Śātakarṇi and his successors belonging to the imperial house of the Sātavāhanas we must turn to comparatively later records. In several cave inscriptions of western India we have references to places which are specially associated with rulers of this line, namely, Benākaṭaka and Navanara, besides headquarters of amātyas, or district officers, like Govardhana (in Nāsik) and Māmāla (in Māval tāluk, Poona District). The word Kaṭaka has the sense of ‘camp’ or ‘royal metropolis’. Benākaṭaka, therefore, possibly signifies the camp or metropolis on the river Benā. As the place in question is definitely connected with Govardhana in the Nāsik District, the river is very probably to be identified with the Karabenā of inscriptions, represented by a tributary of the Ambikā which rises in the Bānsda Hills and falls into the sea between Surat and Daman. Navanara is possibly the same as Navā-nagara, an old name of Kalyāṇa in the Ṭhāṇa District.¹ The principal ‘royal seat’ of the Sātavāhanas at this period was Paiṭhaṇ on the banks of the Godāvarī. Two other great cities of the Sātavāhana empire were Vaijayantī-Vanavāsi (Banavāsi) in North Kanara and Dhānyakaṭaka-Amarāvatī in the Guṇtūr District of Madras. Other cities that probably existed in this age, but were specially associated with families that rose to power on the ruins of the empire of the Śātakarṇis, were Kudūra and Veṅgipura.