The Early History of the Deccan (Parts I–XI) v1.c7.s6.85

v1.c7.s6.85

Gondopharnes was the last great king of the Śaka-Pahlava line. Coming to the throne in A.D. 19, he appears to have conquered some Parthian dominions in addition to his inherited possessions. The manner in which he styled himself ‘great king, supreme king of kings’ suggests that he claimed authority over others who also styled themselves ‘great king, king of kings’. As Rapson remarks, ‘such a style can only mean that, even in the reign of Gondopharnes, the allegiance of the governors to the suzerain was becoming merely nominal’.³ Gondopharnes died sometime after A.D. 45, and the reign of his successor Pacores marked the rapid extinction of the Śaka-Pahlava power. The Kushāṇa conquest of the Kābul valley and North-west India was complete by A.D. 78, when an inscription from Taxilā describes a ‘great king, supreme king of kings, son of the Gods, the Kushāṇa’, who was obviously Vima Kadphises.¹ Eleven more years passed before the Kushāṇa suzerainty came to be acknowledged in the lower Indus delta in A.D. 89.² The Śaka-Pahlava princes, however, still ruled their own provinces, though as Kushāṇa feudatories. But as the *Periplus* states, these 'Parthian' princes remained their old selves, turbulent, perpetually quarrelsome, and intent upon internecine quarrels for supremacy. This state of affairs offered a strong temptation to conquerors like Gautamīputra to interfere in the hope of appropriating the possessions of all the contesting parties.