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NANAGHAT INSCRIPTIONS.
aim is to bring the history of India into the frame of the Yuga theory. For this purpose their authors have to pile dynasty on dynasty in order to fill a space of many thousand years. Historical research has shown that they possessed some reliable information not only as to names, but even as to years. In the case of the Andhra dynasty, the coins and inscriptions prove that the order in which the corrupt forms of the names Gautamiputra Satakarni, Pulumâyi, Sakasenn (Sirisena) Mathariputra, and Gautamiputra Yajasri Satakarni are given, is perfectly correct, as well as that Simuka, Krishna, and Satakani reigned a considerable time before the former princes, and followed each other closely. But it by no means follows that all the other names or the order in which they are given are reliable. Nor is there any guarantee that the dynasty of Simuka-Sipraka ruled during about 450 years, much less that Simuka-Sipraka reigned 350 or 360 years before Gautamiputra Satakarni L All these points have to be proved. Though I think it right and necessary, therefore, to look to the Purias for the kings mentioned in the inscriptions, I deny the possibility of making up a chronological account of the Andhras with their help. It seems to me that the only means for approximatively fixing the age of the group of kings-1. Simuka, 2. Krishna, 3. Satakani-and of that containing 1. Gotamipata Satakarni, 2. Pulumâyi, 3. Sakasena Madharipata, 4. Gotamiputa Siriyaña Satakarni and 5. Chandasiri, are epigraphic evidence, and the synchronisms with the Western Kehatrapas. who date according to an era, not according to regnal years. The synchronisms which the inscriptions and ruins allow us to establish are: 1. Gotamiputa Satakarni was a contemporary of Nahapdns. 2. Pulumâyi was a contemporary of Chashtana. 3. Gotamiputa Siriyaňa Sâtakamni was a contemporary of Rudradâman,' whose reign fell between 72 and 101 of the era used by the Western Kshatrapas. The initial point of the latter era can be determined approximatively by the following process. The Kshatrapas ruled over Malava. Eastern Rajputânâ, and Gujarât. Their power was destroyed by their immediate successors the Guptas, whose first date in Mâlavâ is the Gupta year 83, while the latest date on the coins of the Kabatrapas is Sam 310. These two dates must, therefore, nearly correspond. The Gupta era began about 190 A.D., and the Gupta year 83 to circiter 273 A.D. Hence the beginning of the Kshatrapa era falls about the middle of the first century B.C., and the reign of Gotamipata Satakanini I, who destroyed Nahapana's power, a little earlier. In order to determine the date of the group Simuka, Kapha, Satakani, nothing but the epigraphic evidence is available. It seems to me that a comparison of the characters of Kanha's and of the Nâuaghat inscriptions with those on the coins of the earlier Sunga kings, as well as of Dhanabhûti's inscription on the Bharahut gateway, which, owing to its beginning suganam je, i.e. Sungandm rijye, "In the reign of the Sungas," must be counted among the documents of Pushyamitra's successors, incontestably proves that the Nanight and Kanha's Nasik inscriptions belong to the first half of the second century B.c., ie. were incised between 200-150 B.C. It agrees with this estimate that the differences between the characters of Gotamiputa Satakarni's and those of the Nânâghât documents are such that it is not possible to place them, as Pandit Bhagvânlâl has also seen, at a distance of more than about 100 years.
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1 The latter assertion becomes particularly probable by Campbell and Bhagvanlal's discovery of a coin of Sâtakamni designed on the model of the Kshatrapa coins.
General Cunningham's unpublished coin.
3 This date is now substantiated by Sir E. C. Bayley's discoveries of Gupta dates on the Kalul coins and other epigraphic evidence.
K