The Early History of the Deccan (Parts I–XI) v2.c17.s2.3

v2.c17.s2.3

The Sātavāhana coinage occurs in great quantity and usually it shows no foreign influence. But it also shows hardly any artistic merit or originality. Busts of the issuers do not appear on copper and lead coins. Silver coins were issued only by four rulers, Gautamīputra Sātakarṇi, Vāsisṭhiputra Sātakarṇi, Vāsisṭhiputra Puḷumāvi, and Gautamīputra Yajña-śrī-Sātakarṇi, and only eight specimens of these have been found so far. Some of them show good portraits and are not without some skill in design. The representations of the lion, the horse, the bow and arrow, the elephant, the homo sign, &c., which figure among Sātavāhana motifs, are usually very crude and inartistic. Some of the coins bear legends, but usually they are either too fragmentary or too short to help in the reconstruction of history. The Sātavāhanas did not borrow the practice of their northern neighbours, the Western Kshatrapas, of introducing the name of the father of the issuer. Thus it is often difficult to identify the ruler concerned, since there were in many cases several kings of the same name, such as Kaṇha, Sātakarṇi, Pulomā, Svātikarṇa, &c. There are also various kings of the dynasty, for example Simuka, Pūrṇotsaṅga Lambodara, Hāla, and Maṇḍalaka, who are not represented in the coinage; on the other hand there are some kings like Kumbha Sātakarṇi, Śaka Sātakarṇi, and Karṇa Sātakarṇi, who are known from the coinage alone and are unknown to the Purāṇas and the inscriptions. It is no doubt often true that the Purāṇas, inscriptions, and coins help to some extent in reconstructing the history of the dynasty, but sometimes the data which they afford merely serve to introduce uncertainty, since in several cases there is no mutual agreement.