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352 POLITICAL HISTORY OF ANCIENT INDIA
Dr. Smith shows good grounds for believing that the dominions of Samprati included Avanti and Western India.? In his Asoka? he admits that the hypothesis that Asoka left two grandsons, of whom one-(Dasaratha) succeeded him in his eastern and the other (Samprati) in his western dominions, is little more than a guess.3 The Jaina writers represent Samprati as ruling over Pāțaliputra as well as Ujjayini. His name is mentioned in the Purāņic list of Aśoka's Magadhan successors.
The existence of Śāliśūka is proved not only by the testimony of the Vishnu Purūna but also by that of the Gārgi Saṁhitā4 and the e Vāyu'manuscript referred to by Pargiter. He may have been identical with Vșihaspati, son of Samprati, according to the Divyāvadāna, unless Vrihaspati represented a different branch of the imperial family.
Devavarman and Somašarman are variant readings of the same name. The same is the case with Satadhanus 5 and Satadhanvan. It is not easy to identify Vrishasena and Pushyadharman ; they may be merely birudas or secondary names of Devavarman and Satadhanvan. But the possibility that they represent a distinct branch of the Maurya line is not entirely excluded.
1 Pariśishtaparvan, xi. 23. itaścha Samprati nipo yayāvUjjayini purim.
2 Third ed. p. 70.
3 Curiously enough, Prof. Dhruva maintains in spite of this and the clear evidence of Jaina literature that "historians say that on the death of Kunāla there was a partition of the Maurya Empire between his two sons Dasaratha and Samprati (JBORS, 1930,30)." Prof. Dhruva's emendations of the text of the Yugapurāna are largely conjectural and of little probative value.
4 Kern's Brihatsamhitā, p. 37. The Gārgi Samhitā says, "There will be Saliśūka, a wicked quarrelsome king. Unrighteous, although theorising on righteousness, dharmavādi adhārmikah (sic) he cruelly oppresses his country".
5 For an interesting account of a King named Satadhanu see Vishnu Purāna III. 18. 51 ; Bhāg II. 8. 44. His identity is, however, uncertain.
