The Early History of the Deccan (Parts I–XI) v1.c7.s6.55

v1.c7.s6.55

From the close of Apilaka’s reign to the accession of Puḷumāvi (I) in 43 B.C., there were six Sātavāhana rulers. Within that period of fifty-five years they did nothing worthy of record or even anything to make their names worthy of mention by the compiler of the Vāyu Purāṇa. Yet their empire in the Deccan appears to have remained intact till the reign of Kuntala Sātakarṇi, the thirteenth king of the line. He is mentioned in Vātsyāyana’s Kāmasūtra,² and if his name has any significance at all he must have ruled over the country of Kuntala. Prof. Kane describes it as ‘the country from the Bhīmā and the Kṛṣṇā to some distance beyond the Tuṅgabhadrā, which also included Kolhāpur and other Southern Marāṭhā States such as Miraj, Belgaum, and the Dhārwār districts, a portion of the Nizām’s dominions and of the Mysore State and the North Kanārā’.³ If this be accepted and in view also of Puḷumāvi I’s great success in arms in the third quarter of the first century B.C., we may assume that the inherent strength of the Sātavāhana power was well preserved during those difficult years by the successors of Sātakarṇi (II). This success may have been partly due to the waning fortunes of the Bactrian Greeks in India and elsewhere.