Political History Of Ancient India

SR No.: 032292
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Hemchandra Raychaudhari
Publisher: University of Calcutta
Publication Year: 1950
Total Pages: 714
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 17 MB

Page 478

KHARAOSTA
449
that of Sam 78 are dated in the same era, and yet the two Patikas are identical. If Sten Konow and Sir John Marshall are right in reading the name of Aja-Aya (Azes) in the Kalawān Copper-plate Inscription of the year 134 and the Taxila Inscription of 136, we have additional instances of a ruler of this age being mentioned without any title indicative of his rank.
Kharaosta was, according to Konow, the father-in-law, and according to Fleet, a grandson (daughter's son), of Rājuvula and consequently a nephew of Sodāsa. The inscriptions A and E on the Mathurā Lion Capital mention him as the Yuvaraya Kharaosta. Sten Konow thinks 3 that he was the inheritor to the position as “king of kings” after Moga. His known coins are of two types, presenting legends in Greek characters on the obverse and in Kharoshthi on the reverse. The Kharoshthi legend runs thus : Kshatrapasa pra Kharaostasa Artasa putrasa. 'Pra' according to Sten Konow, may be a reflex of Prachakshasa.
The coins of the family of Rājuvula are imitated from those of the Stratos and also of a line of Hindu princes who ruled at Mathurā. This shows that in the Jumna valley Scythian rule superseded that of both Greek and Hindu princes.
1 The Rājatarangini furnishes an instance of a son being replaced by his father as king (cf. the case of Pārtha), and of a king abdicating in favour of his son and again resuming control over the kingdom ; cf. the case of Kalasa who continued to be a co-ruler after the resumption of control by his father, and that of Rājā Mānsingh of Jodhpur (1804-43). The cases of Vijayāditya VII (Eastern Chalukya, D. C. Ganguli, p. 104) and of Zafar Khān of Gujarāt may also be cited in this connection (Camb. Hist. Ind., III, 295).
2 JRAS., 1913. 919, 1009. 3 Corpus, 36.
4 Corpus, xxxv. 'þrachakshasa' (= epiphanous, "of the gloriously manifest one"), occurs on coins of Strato I and Polyxanos. It is, however, possible that the Sanskrit equivalent of the name of the Satrap is prakhara-ojas, "of burning effulgence". 0. P. 90-57.