Indian Antiquary Vol 49

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 34

THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[ FEBRUARY, 1920
DEKKAN OF THE SATAVAHANA PERIOD. BY PROF. DR. BHANDARKAR, M.A.; CALCUTTA. (Continued from Vol. XLVIII, p. 83.)
APPENDIX A. The approximate, dato of the rise of the Batavahana Power. No account of the Dekkan of the Satavahana period is complete without a consideration of the most probable date of the rise of the Satavahana power, regarding which two theories have been propounded. The one accepted by me in this article agrees with that of Sir Ramkrishna Bhandarkar, and is based upon certain chronological statements of the Purâņas. These I intend to consider here with a view to show how far they agree with facts taken as established.
The duration assigned by the Purâņas to the Maurya dynasty is 137 years, and if we take 322 B.C. as the date of its foundation, its overthrow and the foundation of the Sunga family must have occurred in 185 B.C. The Suigas are generally stated in the Puranas to have reigned for 112 years, and the Kanvas 45. But as both ruled simultaneously, we have to deduct only 112 from 185 to get 73 B.C. as the date when the Andhras came to power. This is the view of Sir Ramkrishna, and no argument of any importance has yet been adduced to contradict it. I am not unaware that the inscription of Khâravela, king of Kalinga, in the Hâthigumphâ in the Udaygiri Hills near Cuttack in Orissa speaks of a king called Satakarni, protector of the West, who has been identified with the third king of the Satavahana dynasty described above. Its date is 165th year of the Maurya era corresponding to c. 157 B.C., and it may, therefore, be argued that the date 73 B.C. assigned to the foundation of the Satavihana dynasty is impossible when the third ruler of that family, viz. Satakarņi, has to be placed about 157 B.C. But then it must be borne in mind that it is now-a-days being questioned whether Khâravela's inscription contains any date at all, and that Prof. Lüders, who has recently carefully read the record with the help of excellent estam pages prepared by the Archæological Department, emphatically declares that it contains no date at all.2 So the opposition to our theory based upon the date of the Khâravela epigraph has no solid grounds to stand upon. I am also aware of the palæographic difficulty that has been urged against the date 73 B.C. for the rise of the Satavahana power. But then if the question is properly considered, it will be seen that the difficulty does not arise at all. Such an illustrious palæographist as Bühler has told us that the Nânâghât and Sânchi inscriptions of the Satakarni and the Hathigumph& inscription of Khåravela are exactly of the same period. He has also told us that “the differences between the characters of Gotamiputa Satakarni's and those of the Nanaghat documents are such that it is not possible to place them, as Pandit Bhagwanlal has also seen, at a distance of more than about 100 years." This quotation is from Bühler's article on the Nânåghât inscriptions ; but when he wrote it, Bühler was of opinion that Gautamiputra Satakarņi lived shortly before the middle of the first century B.C., and accordingly he assigned these records to
1 JRAS., 1910, 242 ff. and 824 ft.
List of Brahmi Inscriptions, No. 1345. An attempt has recently Loon made by Mr. K. P. Jayawal and Mr. R. D. Banerji to revive the theory that the inscription contains a date (JBORS.. 1917, 449 ft. and 488 ff.) But see also Dr. R. C. Majumdar's criticism on it, Ante, 1918, 223-4.
3 ASWI., V, 73.