The Early History of the Deccan (Parts I–XI) v1.c7.s2.31

v1.c7.s2.31

But these arguments are based upon inadequate appreciation of the available records. If the discovery of records is to be taken as the *only* criterion for determining territorial possessions of a power, then the early Sātavāhanas will lose their title even to the Central and Southern Deccan. It is true that their earliest records have been found in the Western Deccan; but they are only two in number for twenty predecessors of Gautamīputra Sātakarṇi. Apart from this the inference drawn from them is not quite independent. It is derived from the preconceived notion that the Sātavāhanas had nothing to do with Andhradeśa until the reign of Puḷumāvi. It is forgotten that the earliest great Sātavāhana king Sātakarṇi (II), of the Nānāghāṭ record, who performed two *Aśvamedha*, one *Rājasūya*, and other sacrifices, bore the title *Dakṣiṇāpathapati*. The author of the *Periplus* distinguishes the market-towns of ‘Dachinabades’ from those of ‘Limyrika’, i.e. the Tamil lands. In this context Dakṣiṇāpatha, whether as mentioned in inscriptions or as noticed by the Greek writer, appears to cover the whole of the Deccan in contrast to the Tamil lands of the south. If it is conceded that the Sātavāhanas were Andhras, and that they were masters of the Deccan, then the sentence ‘heedless of Sātakarṇi, he sent his forces to the west' in Khāravela's inscription does not mean that Sātakarṇi's dominions were confined *only* to the west of Kaliṅga and had no connexion with the Andhra area. That the earlier Sātavāhana rulers included the latter in the countries over which they ruled is proved by one of the *Gāthas* in Hāla's *Sattasai*, which states that there was no royal house equal in prowess and nobility to that of the Sātavāhanas in all the country wherein the Godāvarī rises, flows, and falls into the sea. Another Prākṛt work, *Līlāvatīpariṇiya*, contains a tradition of Hāla's marriage on the banks of Saptagodāvarī, identified with the tank at Dakṣārām in the East Godāvarī District.¹ Gotamī Balaśrī's inscription cannot be said to have completely ignored the Andhra area: it refers to Siritana, Mahendra, and ‘Assaka’, as within her son's dominions. The first is the Śrīśaila hill in the Kurnool District; the second refers to the Eastern Ghats; and the last, even according to Bakhle, comprised the south-east province of the Hyderabad state and the Godāvarī District. The same record also notices that her son restored the glory of the Sātavāhanas by uprooting the Śakas, Yāvanas, and Pahlavas. Surely it cannot be maintained that the Śakas were masters of the area comprising Siritana, Mahendra, and ‘Assaka’. A more probable sequence of events would be that the Sātavāhanas had been masters of both Andhra and Mahārāṣṭra since at least the downfall of the Mauryan empire. When Nahapāṇa ousted them from the west coast they retained their hold over the rest of the empire including Andhra, and when Gautamīputra Sātakarṇi put an end to the alien rule, the Sātavāhana power was restored over the entire Deccan. It is this event which enabled his son Puḷumāvi to resume the title of (*Dakṣiṇa*)patheśvara which is reminiscent of the title of the earlier Sātavāhana ruler Sātakarṇi (II) of the Nānāghāṭ record. When the Sātavāhanas were finally driven out of Mahārāṣṭra by Rudradāman they retired to their homelands in the Andhra area.