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Prakrit and Apabhramsa Studies
3. Adhyarāja
19. The tradition that identifies Sātavāhana with Hāla is old. persistent and vigorous. The same cannot be said of the tradition which idectifies Sātavāhana with Ādhyarāja. Rājasekhara and Bhoja have noted that tradition. As pointed out by Raghavan,38 Rājasekhara has recorded in his Kārpamimāṁsā (p. 50) a legend according to which Sātavāhana, the king of Kuntala, had ordered his harem to make exclusive use of Prakrit, and similarly Sāhasāňka, the king of Ujjayinī had prescribed exclusive use of Sanskrit. 39 Bhoja, in Sarasvatikanthābharana, II. 15 refers to the same traditional legend when he says that everybody used Prakrit under the regime of Adhyarāja, while under the regime of Sāhasāňka everybody used Sanskrit.40 Here we see that Bhoja's Adhyarāja corresponds to Rājasekhara's Sātavāhana of Kuntala. And Ratneśvara's commentary too on the Sarasvatikanthābharana identifies Adhyarāja with Sālivāhana, and Sāhasānka with Vikramāditya. So the fact that there was such a tradition cannot be denied.
20. In this connection Mirashi and Raghavan have drawn our attention to Bāņa's reference to Adhyarāja in his Harșacarita. In the introductory verses of the Harşacaritu Bāņa, in the course of eulogising eminent poets that preceded him, says that with the excellence of Ādhyarāja's Utsāha compositions before them, other poets found no heart to write poetry :
Ādhyarāja-kstot sāhaih hşdayasthaih smȚtair api / jihväntah kȚsyamāņeva na kavitve pravartate //41
Now it looks certain that according to Bāņa this Ādhyarāja on one hand and Sātavāhana, the compiler of Gäthā-kośa on the other, were different persons, because each of the eight introductory verses of the Har.şacarita, beginning from the 11th and ending with the 18th, pays tribute to someone famous poet or work in the following order : Vāsaradattā (11), Bhattāra Haricandra (12) Sātavāhana (13), Pravarasena (14), Bhāsa (15), Kālidāsa (16), BȚhatkathā "(17) and Ādhyarāja (18). So the tradition that identified Adhyarāja with Hāla-Sātavāhana was a later development.
