INDIAN NATIVE STATES
a
Hastināpura, had been destroyed by an inundation of the Ganges?
a
Hastināpura, had been destroyed by an inundation of the Ganges?
Cambridge History of India - v1
Mr.
Jayaswal has given good reasons
for supposing that the original form from which all these varieties
are derived was Odraka, and he has shown further that this name is
most probably to be restored in the Pabhosā inscr. no. 904, which should
therefore be regarded as dated 'in the tenth year of Odraka. ' If these acute
and plausible suggestions may be accepted, we must conclude that the
region of Pabhosā -- the ancient kingdom of Kauçāmbi, as seems most
likely (p. 472) - was included at this period in the sovereignty of the
1 Bhandarkar, Ind. Ant. , 1872, p. 300.
2 Trans. Cowell and Thomas, p. 192.
## p. 470 (#508) ############################################
470
(CH.
INDIAN NATIVE STATES
Çungas ; but at the same time we must recognise that an error has crept
into the text of the Purāņas, which, as they stand, assign either two or
seven years to this king.
There appears to be no reason for doubting that the last king but ore,
the Bhāga or Bhāgavata of the Purāṇas, is the Bhāgabhadra, in the
fourteenth year of whose reign the Besnagar column was erected by
Heliodrous, son of Dion, the Yavana ambassador who had come to
the court of Vidică from Antialcidas, king of Takshaçilā (p. 503). This
identification enables us to bring the histories of the Çungas and the
Yavanas into relation with each other, and to determine, naturally within
limits of possible error, a fixed point in their chronology. If the duration
of reigns as given in the Purāņas, confused though it is by textual corrup-
tions, be approximately correct, the fourteenth year of king Bhāgabhadra
(within a few years of 90 B. C. , whether earlier or later) may well hare
fallen within the reign of Antialcidas, if, as seems not unlikely, he was the
successor of Heliocles and came to the throne c. 120 B. C. 2
The name of this Çunga king appears as Bhagavata on a fragment of
another column which was found at Bhilsa, but which is supposed to bave
been taken there from Besnagar. The inscription was engraved when
the king was reigning in his twelfth years. Another king of the same
name is known from the Pabhosā inscr. no. 905 ; but the two cannot
be identified as their metronymics are different : the king at Pabhosā is the
son of Tevani, while the king at Vidicā is the son of Kāç, i. e. a prin-
cess from Benares.
With the assassination of the dissolute Devabhūti the line of the
Çungas comes to a close. Of the deed the Harshacharita gives a fuller
account than the Purānas : In a frenzy of passion the over-libidinuous
Çurga was at the instance of his minister Vasudeva left of his life
by a daughter of Devabhuti's slave woman disguised as his queen'
(Trans. Cowel and Thomas, p. 193). This minister was a Kaņva Brāhman ;
and the Purāņas, in their present form, make him the founder of a
line of Kaņva kings, who were themselves succeeded by the Andhras. But,
as we have seen (pp. 283-84), this is history distorted. The Purāņas have
been edited, and, in the process, much of their value as records has been
destroyed. Certain incidental statements, however, have escaped the editor;
and these seem to show that the Kanvas and the Çungas were contem-
porary. The Kaņvas, who are expressly called 'ministers of the Çungas,
are, in some versions, said to have become kings among the Çurgas't :
1 Cf. Jayaswal, Jour. of the Bihar and Orissa Research Soc. , Dec. 1917, pp.
473. 5, with Führer, Ep. Ind. II pp. 240-3, and Pargiter, Kali 4ge, p. 31.
2 See Chapters XVII, p. 414 and XXII, s. 504.
3 R. D. Bhandarkar, Arch. Sur. of Ind. , Annual Report, 1913-4, 190 ;Ramaprasad
Chanda, J. R. A. S. 1919, p. 396, Memoirs of the Arch. . Sur. Ind. , 1920 (no. 5), p. 152.
4 Kali Age, pp. 34, 71.
## p. 471 (#509) ############################################
xx)
FEUDATORIES OF THE ÇUNG AS
471
and, as has been observed already, the Andhras are credited with sweeping
away not only the Kanvas, but also 'what was left of the Çungas' power'
(ibid). With regard to the Andhras, the more certain evidence of
inscriptions assigns them to a period which is in flagrant contradiction to
the position which they occupy in the Purāņas (p. 477).
We may conclude, then, that the Çungas were a military power, and
that they become puppets in the hands of their Brāhman counsellors. They
ruled originally as feudatories of the Mauryas at Vidiçā, the modern
Besnagar, on the Vetravati (Betwa), near Bhilsa and about 120 miles east
of Ujjain. In the letter, which is read in the last Act of the Malavikāgni-
mitra, both Pushyamitra and Agnimitra are 'of Vidiçā ; and Vidicā
remained their western capital after no small portion of the Maurya
empire had fallen into their hands, and many, perhaps most, of the kings
of Northern and Central India had become their feudatories.
The importance of Vidicā, the chief city of Ākara or Daçārņa (E.
Mālwā), was due to its central position on the lines of communication
between the seaports of the western coast and Pātaliputra, and be-
ween Pratishthāna (Paithan), the western capital of the Andhras on
the S. W. , and Crāvasti (Set Mahet) on the N. E. The ancient monuments
in its neighbourhood are among the most remarkable and extensive to
be found in India. At various villages within a radius of about twelve
miles of the present town of Bhilsa there are groups of Buddhist stūpas,
numbering some sixty in all, which are known collectively as the Bhilsa
Topes, and of which the most celebrated are those of Sānchi. The inscrip-
tions as well as the style of the achitecture and sculpture of these monu-
ments show that they belong to the three successive periods of Maurya,
Çunga, and Andhra supremacy. But the importance of this region may
be traced back to a still earlier date; for at the ancient site of Eran, about
forty miles N. E. of Bhilsa, are found the finest specimens of the early
punch-marked coinage, and here too was discovered the earliest known
example of an Indian inscribed coin, which records the name of a king
Dharmapāla (P1, V, I). Its Brāhmi legend runs, like Kharosthi, from right
to left, and was supposed by Bühler to represent an earlier stage in the
history of this alphabet than that which appears in the edicts of Açoka. 1
Some of the feudatories of the Çungas are known from their inscrip-
tions and coins. The only ancient monuments, on which the tribal name of
the imperial dynasty has yet been found, came from the Buddhist stūpa
at Bhārhut, in the Nāgod State of Central India, about 185 miles N. E.
of Vidiçã? Here two gateways were dated ‘in the sovereignty of the
Çungas. ' One of these inscr. no. 687) was erected by Dhanabhūti
*Vācchiputa,' i. e. 'son of a princess of Vatsa (Kauçāmbi)', and the
1 Indische Palaeographie, p. 8.
2 Chapter XXVI.
9
## p. 472 (#510) ############################################
472
(ch.
INDIAN NATIVE STATES
other (inscr. no. 688) by some member of the same family. The
name Dhanabhūti occurs also in an inscription at Mathurā (no. 125) and
may be restored with certainty in the record of a donation made by his
queen, Nāgarakhitā, at Bhārhut (no. 882). From these sources combined
we may reconstruct the family tree of this king from his grandfather, king
Visadeva, to his son, prince Vādha pāla ; and we may conclude that this
family ruled at Bhārhut, and that it was connected in some way with the
royal family at Mathurā, more than 250 miles to the N. W. As none of the
four names is found in the list of Çungas given by the Purāņas, it is most
probable that the kings of this line were feudatories, though they may
have been related to the imperial house by family ties.
Acting on Mr. Jayaswal's illuminating suggestion (p. 469), we
may perhaps venture to trace the feudatory kings of this dynasty to
Kauçāmbi, 30 miles N. E. of Bhārhut, and to Ahicchatra, 250 miles N. W.
of Kauçāmbī. The question of the site of Kauçāmbi has been much de-
bated, chiefly because of the impossibility of reconciling Cunningham's iden-
tification (Kosam on the Jumna in the Allahābad District of the
United Provinces) with the descriptions of Chinese Buddhist pilgrims. But
in all this controversy it seems to have been forgotten that such descriptions
may either have been incorrect originally or may have been misinterpreted
subsequently. The tangible facts seem undoubtedly to support the identifi-
cation of Kosam with Kauçāmbi. It must have been a city of a great milit-
ary strength. The remains at Kosam include those of a vast fortress
with earthern ramparts and bastions, four miles in circuit, with an average
height of 30 to 35 ft. above the general level of the country' (Imp. Gaz. xv,
p. 407). It was also an important commercial centre, as is indicated by the
extraordinary variety of the coins found there ; and at a later date
the name of the place was unquestionably Kauçāmbi, as is proved
by at least two inscriptions which have been actually discovered on the sitel.
At a distance of two or three miles to the north-west of Kosam stands the
sacred hill of Pabhosā (Prabhāsa), the solitary rock in this region of
the doab between the Jumna and the Ganges ; and on its scrap, in
a position wellnigh inaccessible, there is a hermit's cave 'cut into the verti-
cal face of a precipice 50 feet high' (J. A. S. B. Lvi, p. 31). In the seventh
century a. d. it was believed to be the abode of a venomous dragon which
was subdued by the Buddha, who left his shadow in the cave. Hinen Tsiang,
who tells the story, adds that the shadow was no longer visible in his day ;
but the most recent editor of the inscriptions, which are engraved inside and
outside the cave, informs us that the country folk still believe in the
dragon”. One of these inscriptsons (no. 901) records - if Mr. Jayaswal's
J. R. A. S. 1898. 504 ; Ep. Ind. II, p. 244.
2 Watters, On Yuan Chwang. I, p. 371 ; Führer , Ep Ind. II, p. 241.
## p. 473 (#511) ############################################
XXI]
KINGS OF AHICCH ATRA
473
-
>
;
reading is correct - that the cave was excavated in the tenth year of
the reign of Odraka, the fifth of the Çunga kings. The donor was
Āshādhasena, the maternal uncle of Bahasatimitra, who was presumably the
feudatory king then ruling at Kauçāmbi and whose coins (Pl. V, 2) are
found at Kosam. Bahasatimitra was thus, it seems, contemporary with
Odraka, whose reign, according to the Purāņas, began 61 years after the
accession of the first Çunga king, i. e. c. 123 B. C. ; and this date is in
agreement with the period to which numismatists have, from entirely
different considerations, assigned the coins of Bahasatimitra. The coinage
of kings of Kauçāmbi seems to begin in the third century B. C. and to
extend over a period of about three hundred years.
The donor of the cave at Pabhosā traces his descent from the kings
of Ahicchatra, the northern capital of the Pañchālas in the Bareilly District;
and the inscriptions give the genealogy of his family for five generations
beginning with his great-grandfather, Conakāyana, and ending with his
nephew, Bahasatimitra. The line is carried two stages farther by the Morā
inscription which describes the daughter of Bahasatimitra (Bțihāsvātimitra)
as the wife of the king (of Matburā) and 'the mother of living sons'
(J. R. A. S. 1912, p. 120). In the patronymic, Çonakāyana, 'the scion of the
house of Conaka,' we may perhaps see an allusion to the glories of Pañ-
chāla in the heroic age, when, as is recounted in one of the ancient verses
preserved by the Çatapatha Brāhmana, king Çoņa Sātrāsāha celebrated
his triumphs by the performance of the horse-sacrifice? No detailed list
of the earlier historical kings of Pañchāla occurs in the Parāṇas ; but coins
found in the neighbourbood of Ahicchatra-now a vast mound three and a
half miles in circumference on the north of the village of Rāmnagar-- have
preserved the names of about a dozen of their successors in the Çunga
periods. Among the kings thus known there appears an Agnimitra (Pl. V, 3),
who has often been supposed to be identical with the second Çunga king.
There seems to be no evidence at present either to prove or to disprove the
suggestion. The identity of name may well be accidental, or, perhaps more
probably, it may indicate that the royal families Vidicā and Ahicchatra
were related.
The name of another king of Ahicchatra, Indramitra, has
been recognised in an inscription at Buddh Gayā (p. 474 ; Pl. V, 4).
We may infer from the inscriptions at Pabhosā that, in the second
century B. C. , Panchāla (Ahicchatra) and Vatsa (Kauçāmbī) were governed
by branches of the same royal family, and that both kingdoms acknowledged
the suzerainty of the Çungas. The history of Kauçãmbi may be traced
back to the time when the Pūrus (Kurus) removed thither after their capital,
1 Cunningham, Coins of Ancient Indià, p. 73, PI. V, 7-18; Rapson, Indian Coins,
pp. 12, 13.
2 Vedic Index, II, p. 395
3 Cunningham, Coins of Ancient India, p. 79, Pl. VII ; Indian Coins, p. 13.
## p. 474 (#512) ############################################
474
(CH.
INDIAN NATIVE STATES
a
Hastināpura, had been destroyed by an inundation of the Ganges? We
now find this city under the rule of a house in which Kurus and Pañchālas
had no doubt long been merged.
Mathurā (Muttra) on the upper Jumna, about 270 miles in a straight
line N. W. of Kauçāmbi, may perhaps have been another of the feudatory
kingdoms. This sacred city,the Mósoupa ni tou sou of Ptolemy (VII,1,50),
was a stronghold both of the worship of Kộisbņa and of Jainism ; and it
;
was the capital of the Çūrasenas, one of the leading peoples of the Midland
Country. Its earlier rulers find a place in the Purāņas, but only in the
general summary of those dynasties which were contemporary with the
Pūrus (p. 282); and coins have preserved the names of at least twelve later
kings who reigned during the Çunga perioda. One of these, Balabhūti.
is associated by the style and type of his coinage with Bahasatimitra of
Kauçāmbi, whose daughter was married to a king of Mothurā (p. 473).
The two kings were almost certainly ruling at about the same time ; and it
seems reasonable to assume, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary
that they were both feudatories of the Çungas. Another king of Mathurā.
Brahmamitra (Pl. V, 6) was probably contemporary with king Indramitra of
Ahicchatra (Pl. V, 4); for both names are found in the dedicatory inscrip-
tions of queens on pillars of the railing at Buddh Gayā, which is assigned
by archaeologists to the earlier part of the first century B. c.
Inscriptions show that in the second half of the first century B. C. the
region of Mathurā had passed from native Indian to foreign (Çaka) rule”;
and their evidence is confirmed and amplified by that of the coins. The
characteristic type of the kings of Mathură is a standing figure, which has
been supposed to represent the god Kộishna (Pl. V, 5, Gomitra); and this
type is continued by their conquerors and successors, the satraps of the
Çaka King of Kings. Rañjubula (Rājuvula) and his son Çodāsa (Pl V. 9,
10) are known also from inscriptions; and the date on the Āmobini votive
tablet, if it has been rightly interpreted, shows that the latter was ruling
as great satrap in 17-6 B. c. (pp. 518-20). Çodāsa was preceded by his father,
Ranjubila, who ruled first as satrap and afterwards as great satrap ; and
Ranjubula appears to have been the successor of satraps who are known
only from their coins – Hagāmasha (Pl. V, 7). and Hagāna ruling conjointly
with Hagāmasha (Pl. V, 8). These numismatic indications all tend to
support the conclusion that by about the middle of the first century B. C.
Çaka dominion was fully established in that region of the Jumna river
which lies beyond the south-eastern limits of the Punjab.
By c. 72 B. C. , according to the chronology of the Purāņas, the
1 Chapter XIII, p. 275.
2 Cunningham, Coins of Ancient India, pp. 85. 90, PI. VIII, Rapson, Indian Coins,
p. 13: J. R. A. S. , 1900, pp. 1( 9. 11.
3 See Chapter XXIII, pp. 518-20.
## p. 475 (#513) ############################################
XXI]
KOSALA AND MAGADHA
475
dynasty of the Çuņgas had come to an end. In the present state of Indian
archaeology it seems impossible to trace the extension of the rule of those
kings of Vidicā who reigned after Pusyamitra beyond the region in which
the Jumna and the Ganges meet, i. e. the ancient kingdom of the Vatsas
(Kauçambi) and the present district of Allahābād. The investigation of
ancient sites may no doubt some day throw light on the contemporary
history of the countries which lay to the north and east of Kauçāmbi-
Kosala (Oudh), Videha (N. Bihār), Kāçi (Benares), Magadba (S. Bihār),
and Anga (Monghyr and Bhāgalpur) ; but the available evidence is not
sufficient to enable us to determine whether the kingdoms in these countries
still united under the sovereignty, as in the time of Açoka, or
whether they had become independent. Kosala is represented by coins
of this period which are found on the site of Ayodhya , but from these
little information can be gleaned at present. They represent a line of
about ten kings, of whom nothing is known but their names (Pl. V, 11,
Aryamitra ; 12, Mūladeva)'. A king of Magadha and a king of Rājagộiha
are also mentioned in the inscription of Khāravela ; but whether the
former was still a powerful suzerain at this time, and whether the latter
was anything more than a local prince ruling over the old capital of
Magadha must remain doubtful until more definite evidence can be dis-
covered (p. 484). The history of the famous kingdom of Magadha, once
the centre of the empire, becomes utterly obscure. That for some time
Pushyamitra continued to occupy the imperial throne which he had
seized is a natural inference from those passages of the literature in which
he is mentioned in connexion with the Pātaliputra ; but that he was able
to hold it to the end, and to hand it down to his successors is at present
not capable of proof. No certain traces of the later Çungas or of their
feudatories have yet been found in the region of Magadha.
But in addition to the powers which dominated the kingdoms on
the great highways of communication, there were in less accessible regions
numerous independent states ; and of some of these the coins of this period
have preserved a record. These communities were military clans or groups
of clans ; and they were governed sometimes by kings, but more often by
tribal oligarchies. They were Kshatriyas ; and by this name, the common
designation of them all, they are known to the historians of Alexander the
Great in two districts - in the north of the Punjab to the east of the Rāvi
(p. 332), and the south-west where the Indus and the Sutlej meet (Xathri,
p. 357). They were the ancestors of the Rajputs who played a most
important part in the history of Northern India at a later date, and their
coins are found throughout the regions to which modern
which modern ethnologists
trace the origin of the Rajputs :
i Cunningham, Coins of Ancient India, p. 90, Pl. IX ; Rapson, Indian Coins,
p. 11; J. R. A. S. , 1903, p. 287.
## p. 476 (#514) ############################################
476
[ch.
INDIAN NATIVE STATES
The cradle of the Rājput is the tract named after him (Rājaputāna) not, how-
ever, as it is lirnited in the present day, but extending from the Jamna to the Narbadā
and Satlaj, including, therefore the whole of Mālvā, Bundelkhand, and parts of Agra
and the Panjāb. From the northern part of this tract there seems to have been an
early movement of conquest up the western rivers of the Punjab, as far as the Himāla.
yas and Kashmir, whereby was laid the foundation of the predominance of the tribes
still in possession (Baines, Ethnography, p. 29. )
Examples of such early Rājput states are the Yaudheya confederation
in the southern portion of the Punjab . . and the northern parts of Rājpu-
tāna' (J. R. A. S. 1897. p. 887), and the Arjunāyanas in the Bhartpur and
Alwar States of Rājputāna (ibid. p. 886). Both the Yaudheyas, 'Warriors. '
and the Arjunāyanas, 'Descendants of Arjuna,' are mentioned by Pāņini
in the fourth century B. C. ; both issued coins as early as the first century
B. C. ; and both appear among the peoples on the frontiers of the Gupta
empire in the Allahābād inscription of Samudragupta c. 380 A. D. Other
states struck coins with the bare legend. 'Of the Rājanya (Kshatriya)
Country. It is impossible at present to determine with much precision
the localities in which these coins were issued ; but similarity of type
suggests that one variety may belong to the same region as the coins of
the Arjunāyanas and the kings of Mathurā (Pl. V, 13).
The mountainous fringe of country of the north of the Punjab
and the United Provinces was also accupied at this period by independent
native Indian states ; and the names of some of them have similarly been
preserved by the coins, which were no doubt the result of commerce
between these peoples of the hills and the low-landers. In the Gurdāspur
District of the Punjab there lived the Udumbaras, who claimed to
be descended from Viçvāmitra, the rishi of the third book of the Rigveda.
His figure appears on the coins of their king, Dharāghosha, whose
reign must probably be assigned to the latter half of the first century
B. C. , since his coinage is evidently imitated from that of the Çaka
king Azilises (Pl. V, 14, Dharāghosha ; 15, Azilises). Of a somewhat
later date, perhaps of the first or second century A. D. , are the coins of the
Kulūtas, the eastern neighbours of the Udum baras, in the Kulū valley of
the Kangra District; and to the same period as the coins of the Udumbaras
belong the earlier issues of the Kuņindas who inhabited the country of the
Sutlej in the Simla Hill States (Pl. V, 16, Amoghabhūti). These
three peoples, the Udumbaras, the Kulūtas, and the Kuņindas, lived on the
border between the regions in which the two ancient alphabets. Brāhmi and
Kharoshthi, prevailed : they accordingly used both of them in their
coin-legends. To a branch of the Kunindas (or Kulindas, as they are called
1 Rapson, Indian Coins, pp. 11-13, and PII, III, 20 and IV, 1.
2 Cf. Pargiter , Márk Pur. p. 355. For the connexion between Viçvamitra
and the country of the Beas, See l'edic Index, II, p. 310.
>
## p. 477 (#515) ############################################
XXI)
RISE OF THE ANDHRAS
477
in the Purāņas), whose territories 'extended further east along the southern
slopes of the Himalayas as far as Nepal' (Pargiter, Mārk. Pur. p. 316), are
probably also to be attributed the coins of two kings which have been found
in the Almora District (Pl. V, 17, Çivadatta)'.
The 'unsubdued' peoples on the southern borders of the Maurya do-
minions were, during the Çunga period, united under the suzerainty of the
most powerful among them, the Andhras, whose home was in the coastal
region of the Madras Presidency between the rivers Godāvari and Kistna.
The dynasty, which is known by its tribal name in the Purāņas and by its
family name or title, Çātavāhana, in inscriptions, is traced back to
king Simuka, who was succeeded by his younger brother, Kțishņa.
At some date at the reign of Simuka or Krishņa the Andhra conquests had
extended up the valley of the river Godāvari for its whole length, a distance
of some nine hunderd miles, to the table-land of the Nasik District. This
is proved by the inscriptions ( no. 1144 ) in one of the Nasik caves
which was excavated when Kșishṇa was king. Already the Çātavāhanas had
justified their claim to the title, 'Lords of the Deccan (Dakshināpatha),'
which they bear in their later inscriptions. The third of the line and
the best known of the earlier kings was called Çatakarņi, a name which, to
the perplexity of modern students of Indian history, was borne by several
of his successors on the throne.
The exact date of the establishment of the Andhra suzerainty cannot
be determined from the discrepant accounts given by different Purāņas of
the kings and the duration of their reigns ; but it is clear that the most
complete of the extant lists can only be interpreted as indicating that he
founder, Simuka, began to reign before 200 B. 0. 3 To this extant the
evidence of Purāņas confirms the opinon of Bühler, who from empigra-
phical considerations assigned the Nāsik inscription of the second king,
Kirshņa, to 'the times of the last Mauryas or the earliest Çungas, in
the beginning of the second century B. C. '' It is therefore possible
that Kțishņa's immediate successor, the third Andhra king, Çātakarni, may
have been contemporary with the first Çunga king, Pushyamitra (c. 184-148
B. c. ). As we shall see (p. 482) this name Çātakarņi was probably also con-
temporary with Khāravela. king of Kalinga.
1 For the coins of Kulūta, see Bergny, J. R. A. S. , 1900, p. 415 ; for other coins
mentioned in this paragraph see the references in Rapson, Indian Coins, pp. 101-2.
2 See Chapter XXIV, pp. 542-43. The inscriptions from Bhattiprolu near
month of the Kistna in the Guntur District (c. 200 B. C. ) menti in a king Khubiraka or
Kubiraka (Kuvera) who is otherwise unknown ; see Bühler, Ep. Ind. II, pp. 323 ff.
3 The accession of the twenty-third king, Gautamīputra, çītakarni, must be dated
106 A. D. or a few years later ; see Rapson, B. M. Cat. , Coins of the Andhra Dynasty
& c. p, XXX. If a calculation be made from this fixed point, the maximum readings
of the Purāṇas would indicate c. 244 B. C. and the minimum readings c. 202 B. C. , as the
date of Simuka's accession ; cf. Kali Age, pp. 38-42, 71 with B. M. Cat. , pp. lxvi, lxvii.
4 Årch. Sur. West. Ind. IV, p. 98.
the
## p. 478 (#516) ############################################
478
[Ch.
INDIAN NATIVE STATES
For the history of this period the cave-inscriptions of Nānaghāt
(nos. 1112-20) are of the highest importance.
for supposing that the original form from which all these varieties
are derived was Odraka, and he has shown further that this name is
most probably to be restored in the Pabhosā inscr. no. 904, which should
therefore be regarded as dated 'in the tenth year of Odraka. ' If these acute
and plausible suggestions may be accepted, we must conclude that the
region of Pabhosā -- the ancient kingdom of Kauçāmbi, as seems most
likely (p. 472) - was included at this period in the sovereignty of the
1 Bhandarkar, Ind. Ant. , 1872, p. 300.
2 Trans. Cowell and Thomas, p. 192.
## p. 470 (#508) ############################################
470
(CH.
INDIAN NATIVE STATES
Çungas ; but at the same time we must recognise that an error has crept
into the text of the Purāņas, which, as they stand, assign either two or
seven years to this king.
There appears to be no reason for doubting that the last king but ore,
the Bhāga or Bhāgavata of the Purāṇas, is the Bhāgabhadra, in the
fourteenth year of whose reign the Besnagar column was erected by
Heliodrous, son of Dion, the Yavana ambassador who had come to
the court of Vidică from Antialcidas, king of Takshaçilā (p. 503). This
identification enables us to bring the histories of the Çungas and the
Yavanas into relation with each other, and to determine, naturally within
limits of possible error, a fixed point in their chronology. If the duration
of reigns as given in the Purāņas, confused though it is by textual corrup-
tions, be approximately correct, the fourteenth year of king Bhāgabhadra
(within a few years of 90 B. C. , whether earlier or later) may well hare
fallen within the reign of Antialcidas, if, as seems not unlikely, he was the
successor of Heliocles and came to the throne c. 120 B. C. 2
The name of this Çunga king appears as Bhagavata on a fragment of
another column which was found at Bhilsa, but which is supposed to bave
been taken there from Besnagar. The inscription was engraved when
the king was reigning in his twelfth years. Another king of the same
name is known from the Pabhosā inscr. no. 905 ; but the two cannot
be identified as their metronymics are different : the king at Pabhosā is the
son of Tevani, while the king at Vidicā is the son of Kāç, i. e. a prin-
cess from Benares.
With the assassination of the dissolute Devabhūti the line of the
Çungas comes to a close. Of the deed the Harshacharita gives a fuller
account than the Purānas : In a frenzy of passion the over-libidinuous
Çurga was at the instance of his minister Vasudeva left of his life
by a daughter of Devabhuti's slave woman disguised as his queen'
(Trans. Cowel and Thomas, p. 193). This minister was a Kaņva Brāhman ;
and the Purāņas, in their present form, make him the founder of a
line of Kaņva kings, who were themselves succeeded by the Andhras. But,
as we have seen (pp. 283-84), this is history distorted. The Purāņas have
been edited, and, in the process, much of their value as records has been
destroyed. Certain incidental statements, however, have escaped the editor;
and these seem to show that the Kanvas and the Çungas were contem-
porary. The Kaņvas, who are expressly called 'ministers of the Çungas,
are, in some versions, said to have become kings among the Çurgas't :
1 Cf. Jayaswal, Jour. of the Bihar and Orissa Research Soc. , Dec. 1917, pp.
473. 5, with Führer, Ep. Ind. II pp. 240-3, and Pargiter, Kali 4ge, p. 31.
2 See Chapters XVII, p. 414 and XXII, s. 504.
3 R. D. Bhandarkar, Arch. Sur. of Ind. , Annual Report, 1913-4, 190 ;Ramaprasad
Chanda, J. R. A. S. 1919, p. 396, Memoirs of the Arch. . Sur. Ind. , 1920 (no. 5), p. 152.
4 Kali Age, pp. 34, 71.
## p. 471 (#509) ############################################
xx)
FEUDATORIES OF THE ÇUNG AS
471
and, as has been observed already, the Andhras are credited with sweeping
away not only the Kanvas, but also 'what was left of the Çungas' power'
(ibid). With regard to the Andhras, the more certain evidence of
inscriptions assigns them to a period which is in flagrant contradiction to
the position which they occupy in the Purāņas (p. 477).
We may conclude, then, that the Çungas were a military power, and
that they become puppets in the hands of their Brāhman counsellors. They
ruled originally as feudatories of the Mauryas at Vidiçā, the modern
Besnagar, on the Vetravati (Betwa), near Bhilsa and about 120 miles east
of Ujjain. In the letter, which is read in the last Act of the Malavikāgni-
mitra, both Pushyamitra and Agnimitra are 'of Vidiçā ; and Vidicā
remained their western capital after no small portion of the Maurya
empire had fallen into their hands, and many, perhaps most, of the kings
of Northern and Central India had become their feudatories.
The importance of Vidicā, the chief city of Ākara or Daçārņa (E.
Mālwā), was due to its central position on the lines of communication
between the seaports of the western coast and Pātaliputra, and be-
ween Pratishthāna (Paithan), the western capital of the Andhras on
the S. W. , and Crāvasti (Set Mahet) on the N. E. The ancient monuments
in its neighbourhood are among the most remarkable and extensive to
be found in India. At various villages within a radius of about twelve
miles of the present town of Bhilsa there are groups of Buddhist stūpas,
numbering some sixty in all, which are known collectively as the Bhilsa
Topes, and of which the most celebrated are those of Sānchi. The inscrip-
tions as well as the style of the achitecture and sculpture of these monu-
ments show that they belong to the three successive periods of Maurya,
Çunga, and Andhra supremacy. But the importance of this region may
be traced back to a still earlier date; for at the ancient site of Eran, about
forty miles N. E. of Bhilsa, are found the finest specimens of the early
punch-marked coinage, and here too was discovered the earliest known
example of an Indian inscribed coin, which records the name of a king
Dharmapāla (P1, V, I). Its Brāhmi legend runs, like Kharosthi, from right
to left, and was supposed by Bühler to represent an earlier stage in the
history of this alphabet than that which appears in the edicts of Açoka. 1
Some of the feudatories of the Çungas are known from their inscrip-
tions and coins. The only ancient monuments, on which the tribal name of
the imperial dynasty has yet been found, came from the Buddhist stūpa
at Bhārhut, in the Nāgod State of Central India, about 185 miles N. E.
of Vidiçã? Here two gateways were dated ‘in the sovereignty of the
Çungas. ' One of these inscr. no. 687) was erected by Dhanabhūti
*Vācchiputa,' i. e. 'son of a princess of Vatsa (Kauçāmbi)', and the
1 Indische Palaeographie, p. 8.
2 Chapter XXVI.
9
## p. 472 (#510) ############################################
472
(ch.
INDIAN NATIVE STATES
other (inscr. no. 688) by some member of the same family. The
name Dhanabhūti occurs also in an inscription at Mathurā (no. 125) and
may be restored with certainty in the record of a donation made by his
queen, Nāgarakhitā, at Bhārhut (no. 882). From these sources combined
we may reconstruct the family tree of this king from his grandfather, king
Visadeva, to his son, prince Vādha pāla ; and we may conclude that this
family ruled at Bhārhut, and that it was connected in some way with the
royal family at Mathurā, more than 250 miles to the N. W. As none of the
four names is found in the list of Çungas given by the Purāņas, it is most
probable that the kings of this line were feudatories, though they may
have been related to the imperial house by family ties.
Acting on Mr. Jayaswal's illuminating suggestion (p. 469), we
may perhaps venture to trace the feudatory kings of this dynasty to
Kauçāmbi, 30 miles N. E. of Bhārhut, and to Ahicchatra, 250 miles N. W.
of Kauçāmbī. The question of the site of Kauçāmbi has been much de-
bated, chiefly because of the impossibility of reconciling Cunningham's iden-
tification (Kosam on the Jumna in the Allahābad District of the
United Provinces) with the descriptions of Chinese Buddhist pilgrims. But
in all this controversy it seems to have been forgotten that such descriptions
may either have been incorrect originally or may have been misinterpreted
subsequently. The tangible facts seem undoubtedly to support the identifi-
cation of Kosam with Kauçāmbi. It must have been a city of a great milit-
ary strength. The remains at Kosam include those of a vast fortress
with earthern ramparts and bastions, four miles in circuit, with an average
height of 30 to 35 ft. above the general level of the country' (Imp. Gaz. xv,
p. 407). It was also an important commercial centre, as is indicated by the
extraordinary variety of the coins found there ; and at a later date
the name of the place was unquestionably Kauçāmbi, as is proved
by at least two inscriptions which have been actually discovered on the sitel.
At a distance of two or three miles to the north-west of Kosam stands the
sacred hill of Pabhosā (Prabhāsa), the solitary rock in this region of
the doab between the Jumna and the Ganges ; and on its scrap, in
a position wellnigh inaccessible, there is a hermit's cave 'cut into the verti-
cal face of a precipice 50 feet high' (J. A. S. B. Lvi, p. 31). In the seventh
century a. d. it was believed to be the abode of a venomous dragon which
was subdued by the Buddha, who left his shadow in the cave. Hinen Tsiang,
who tells the story, adds that the shadow was no longer visible in his day ;
but the most recent editor of the inscriptions, which are engraved inside and
outside the cave, informs us that the country folk still believe in the
dragon”. One of these inscriptsons (no. 901) records - if Mr. Jayaswal's
J. R. A. S. 1898. 504 ; Ep. Ind. II, p. 244.
2 Watters, On Yuan Chwang. I, p. 371 ; Führer , Ep Ind. II, p. 241.
## p. 473 (#511) ############################################
XXI]
KINGS OF AHICCH ATRA
473
-
>
;
reading is correct - that the cave was excavated in the tenth year of
the reign of Odraka, the fifth of the Çunga kings. The donor was
Āshādhasena, the maternal uncle of Bahasatimitra, who was presumably the
feudatory king then ruling at Kauçāmbi and whose coins (Pl. V, 2) are
found at Kosam. Bahasatimitra was thus, it seems, contemporary with
Odraka, whose reign, according to the Purāņas, began 61 years after the
accession of the first Çunga king, i. e. c. 123 B. C. ; and this date is in
agreement with the period to which numismatists have, from entirely
different considerations, assigned the coins of Bahasatimitra. The coinage
of kings of Kauçāmbi seems to begin in the third century B. C. and to
extend over a period of about three hundred years.
The donor of the cave at Pabhosā traces his descent from the kings
of Ahicchatra, the northern capital of the Pañchālas in the Bareilly District;
and the inscriptions give the genealogy of his family for five generations
beginning with his great-grandfather, Conakāyana, and ending with his
nephew, Bahasatimitra. The line is carried two stages farther by the Morā
inscription which describes the daughter of Bahasatimitra (Bțihāsvātimitra)
as the wife of the king (of Matburā) and 'the mother of living sons'
(J. R. A. S. 1912, p. 120). In the patronymic, Çonakāyana, 'the scion of the
house of Conaka,' we may perhaps see an allusion to the glories of Pañ-
chāla in the heroic age, when, as is recounted in one of the ancient verses
preserved by the Çatapatha Brāhmana, king Çoņa Sātrāsāha celebrated
his triumphs by the performance of the horse-sacrifice? No detailed list
of the earlier historical kings of Pañchāla occurs in the Parāṇas ; but coins
found in the neighbourbood of Ahicchatra-now a vast mound three and a
half miles in circumference on the north of the village of Rāmnagar-- have
preserved the names of about a dozen of their successors in the Çunga
periods. Among the kings thus known there appears an Agnimitra (Pl. V, 3),
who has often been supposed to be identical with the second Çunga king.
There seems to be no evidence at present either to prove or to disprove the
suggestion. The identity of name may well be accidental, or, perhaps more
probably, it may indicate that the royal families Vidicā and Ahicchatra
were related.
The name of another king of Ahicchatra, Indramitra, has
been recognised in an inscription at Buddh Gayā (p. 474 ; Pl. V, 4).
We may infer from the inscriptions at Pabhosā that, in the second
century B. C. , Panchāla (Ahicchatra) and Vatsa (Kauçāmbī) were governed
by branches of the same royal family, and that both kingdoms acknowledged
the suzerainty of the Çungas. The history of Kauçãmbi may be traced
back to the time when the Pūrus (Kurus) removed thither after their capital,
1 Cunningham, Coins of Ancient Indià, p. 73, PI. V, 7-18; Rapson, Indian Coins,
pp. 12, 13.
2 Vedic Index, II, p. 395
3 Cunningham, Coins of Ancient India, p. 79, Pl. VII ; Indian Coins, p. 13.
## p. 474 (#512) ############################################
474
(CH.
INDIAN NATIVE STATES
a
Hastināpura, had been destroyed by an inundation of the Ganges? We
now find this city under the rule of a house in which Kurus and Pañchālas
had no doubt long been merged.
Mathurā (Muttra) on the upper Jumna, about 270 miles in a straight
line N. W. of Kauçāmbi, may perhaps have been another of the feudatory
kingdoms. This sacred city,the Mósoupa ni tou sou of Ptolemy (VII,1,50),
was a stronghold both of the worship of Kộisbņa and of Jainism ; and it
;
was the capital of the Çūrasenas, one of the leading peoples of the Midland
Country. Its earlier rulers find a place in the Purāņas, but only in the
general summary of those dynasties which were contemporary with the
Pūrus (p. 282); and coins have preserved the names of at least twelve later
kings who reigned during the Çunga perioda. One of these, Balabhūti.
is associated by the style and type of his coinage with Bahasatimitra of
Kauçāmbi, whose daughter was married to a king of Mothurā (p. 473).
The two kings were almost certainly ruling at about the same time ; and it
seems reasonable to assume, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary
that they were both feudatories of the Çungas. Another king of Mathurā.
Brahmamitra (Pl. V, 6) was probably contemporary with king Indramitra of
Ahicchatra (Pl. V, 4); for both names are found in the dedicatory inscrip-
tions of queens on pillars of the railing at Buddh Gayā, which is assigned
by archaeologists to the earlier part of the first century B. c.
Inscriptions show that in the second half of the first century B. C. the
region of Mathurā had passed from native Indian to foreign (Çaka) rule”;
and their evidence is confirmed and amplified by that of the coins. The
characteristic type of the kings of Mathură is a standing figure, which has
been supposed to represent the god Kộishna (Pl. V, 5, Gomitra); and this
type is continued by their conquerors and successors, the satraps of the
Çaka King of Kings. Rañjubula (Rājuvula) and his son Çodāsa (Pl V. 9,
10) are known also from inscriptions; and the date on the Āmobini votive
tablet, if it has been rightly interpreted, shows that the latter was ruling
as great satrap in 17-6 B. c. (pp. 518-20). Çodāsa was preceded by his father,
Ranjubila, who ruled first as satrap and afterwards as great satrap ; and
Ranjubula appears to have been the successor of satraps who are known
only from their coins – Hagāmasha (Pl. V, 7). and Hagāna ruling conjointly
with Hagāmasha (Pl. V, 8). These numismatic indications all tend to
support the conclusion that by about the middle of the first century B. C.
Çaka dominion was fully established in that region of the Jumna river
which lies beyond the south-eastern limits of the Punjab.
By c. 72 B. C. , according to the chronology of the Purāņas, the
1 Chapter XIII, p. 275.
2 Cunningham, Coins of Ancient India, pp. 85. 90, PI. VIII, Rapson, Indian Coins,
p. 13: J. R. A. S. , 1900, pp. 1( 9. 11.
3 See Chapter XXIII, pp. 518-20.
## p. 475 (#513) ############################################
XXI]
KOSALA AND MAGADHA
475
dynasty of the Çuņgas had come to an end. In the present state of Indian
archaeology it seems impossible to trace the extension of the rule of those
kings of Vidicā who reigned after Pusyamitra beyond the region in which
the Jumna and the Ganges meet, i. e. the ancient kingdom of the Vatsas
(Kauçambi) and the present district of Allahābād. The investigation of
ancient sites may no doubt some day throw light on the contemporary
history of the countries which lay to the north and east of Kauçāmbi-
Kosala (Oudh), Videha (N. Bihār), Kāçi (Benares), Magadba (S. Bihār),
and Anga (Monghyr and Bhāgalpur) ; but the available evidence is not
sufficient to enable us to determine whether the kingdoms in these countries
still united under the sovereignty, as in the time of Açoka, or
whether they had become independent. Kosala is represented by coins
of this period which are found on the site of Ayodhya , but from these
little information can be gleaned at present. They represent a line of
about ten kings, of whom nothing is known but their names (Pl. V, 11,
Aryamitra ; 12, Mūladeva)'. A king of Magadha and a king of Rājagộiha
are also mentioned in the inscription of Khāravela ; but whether the
former was still a powerful suzerain at this time, and whether the latter
was anything more than a local prince ruling over the old capital of
Magadha must remain doubtful until more definite evidence can be dis-
covered (p. 484). The history of the famous kingdom of Magadha, once
the centre of the empire, becomes utterly obscure. That for some time
Pushyamitra continued to occupy the imperial throne which he had
seized is a natural inference from those passages of the literature in which
he is mentioned in connexion with the Pātaliputra ; but that he was able
to hold it to the end, and to hand it down to his successors is at present
not capable of proof. No certain traces of the later Çungas or of their
feudatories have yet been found in the region of Magadha.
But in addition to the powers which dominated the kingdoms on
the great highways of communication, there were in less accessible regions
numerous independent states ; and of some of these the coins of this period
have preserved a record. These communities were military clans or groups
of clans ; and they were governed sometimes by kings, but more often by
tribal oligarchies. They were Kshatriyas ; and by this name, the common
designation of them all, they are known to the historians of Alexander the
Great in two districts - in the north of the Punjab to the east of the Rāvi
(p. 332), and the south-west where the Indus and the Sutlej meet (Xathri,
p. 357). They were the ancestors of the Rajputs who played a most
important part in the history of Northern India at a later date, and their
coins are found throughout the regions to which modern
which modern ethnologists
trace the origin of the Rajputs :
i Cunningham, Coins of Ancient India, p. 90, Pl. IX ; Rapson, Indian Coins,
p. 11; J. R. A. S. , 1903, p. 287.
## p. 476 (#514) ############################################
476
[ch.
INDIAN NATIVE STATES
The cradle of the Rājput is the tract named after him (Rājaputāna) not, how-
ever, as it is lirnited in the present day, but extending from the Jamna to the Narbadā
and Satlaj, including, therefore the whole of Mālvā, Bundelkhand, and parts of Agra
and the Panjāb. From the northern part of this tract there seems to have been an
early movement of conquest up the western rivers of the Punjab, as far as the Himāla.
yas and Kashmir, whereby was laid the foundation of the predominance of the tribes
still in possession (Baines, Ethnography, p. 29. )
Examples of such early Rājput states are the Yaudheya confederation
in the southern portion of the Punjab . . and the northern parts of Rājpu-
tāna' (J. R. A. S. 1897. p. 887), and the Arjunāyanas in the Bhartpur and
Alwar States of Rājputāna (ibid. p. 886). Both the Yaudheyas, 'Warriors. '
and the Arjunāyanas, 'Descendants of Arjuna,' are mentioned by Pāņini
in the fourth century B. C. ; both issued coins as early as the first century
B. C. ; and both appear among the peoples on the frontiers of the Gupta
empire in the Allahābād inscription of Samudragupta c. 380 A. D. Other
states struck coins with the bare legend. 'Of the Rājanya (Kshatriya)
Country. It is impossible at present to determine with much precision
the localities in which these coins were issued ; but similarity of type
suggests that one variety may belong to the same region as the coins of
the Arjunāyanas and the kings of Mathurā (Pl. V, 13).
The mountainous fringe of country of the north of the Punjab
and the United Provinces was also accupied at this period by independent
native Indian states ; and the names of some of them have similarly been
preserved by the coins, which were no doubt the result of commerce
between these peoples of the hills and the low-landers. In the Gurdāspur
District of the Punjab there lived the Udumbaras, who claimed to
be descended from Viçvāmitra, the rishi of the third book of the Rigveda.
His figure appears on the coins of their king, Dharāghosha, whose
reign must probably be assigned to the latter half of the first century
B. C. , since his coinage is evidently imitated from that of the Çaka
king Azilises (Pl. V, 14, Dharāghosha ; 15, Azilises). Of a somewhat
later date, perhaps of the first or second century A. D. , are the coins of the
Kulūtas, the eastern neighbours of the Udum baras, in the Kulū valley of
the Kangra District; and to the same period as the coins of the Udumbaras
belong the earlier issues of the Kuņindas who inhabited the country of the
Sutlej in the Simla Hill States (Pl. V, 16, Amoghabhūti). These
three peoples, the Udumbaras, the Kulūtas, and the Kuņindas, lived on the
border between the regions in which the two ancient alphabets. Brāhmi and
Kharoshthi, prevailed : they accordingly used both of them in their
coin-legends. To a branch of the Kunindas (or Kulindas, as they are called
1 Rapson, Indian Coins, pp. 11-13, and PII, III, 20 and IV, 1.
2 Cf. Pargiter , Márk Pur. p. 355. For the connexion between Viçvamitra
and the country of the Beas, See l'edic Index, II, p. 310.
>
## p. 477 (#515) ############################################
XXI)
RISE OF THE ANDHRAS
477
in the Purāņas), whose territories 'extended further east along the southern
slopes of the Himalayas as far as Nepal' (Pargiter, Mārk. Pur. p. 316), are
probably also to be attributed the coins of two kings which have been found
in the Almora District (Pl. V, 17, Çivadatta)'.
The 'unsubdued' peoples on the southern borders of the Maurya do-
minions were, during the Çunga period, united under the suzerainty of the
most powerful among them, the Andhras, whose home was in the coastal
region of the Madras Presidency between the rivers Godāvari and Kistna.
The dynasty, which is known by its tribal name in the Purāņas and by its
family name or title, Çātavāhana, in inscriptions, is traced back to
king Simuka, who was succeeded by his younger brother, Kțishņa.
At some date at the reign of Simuka or Krishņa the Andhra conquests had
extended up the valley of the river Godāvari for its whole length, a distance
of some nine hunderd miles, to the table-land of the Nasik District. This
is proved by the inscriptions ( no. 1144 ) in one of the Nasik caves
which was excavated when Kșishṇa was king. Already the Çātavāhanas had
justified their claim to the title, 'Lords of the Deccan (Dakshināpatha),'
which they bear in their later inscriptions. The third of the line and
the best known of the earlier kings was called Çatakarņi, a name which, to
the perplexity of modern students of Indian history, was borne by several
of his successors on the throne.
The exact date of the establishment of the Andhra suzerainty cannot
be determined from the discrepant accounts given by different Purāņas of
the kings and the duration of their reigns ; but it is clear that the most
complete of the extant lists can only be interpreted as indicating that he
founder, Simuka, began to reign before 200 B. 0. 3 To this extant the
evidence of Purāņas confirms the opinon of Bühler, who from empigra-
phical considerations assigned the Nāsik inscription of the second king,
Kirshņa, to 'the times of the last Mauryas or the earliest Çungas, in
the beginning of the second century B. C. '' It is therefore possible
that Kțishņa's immediate successor, the third Andhra king, Çātakarni, may
have been contemporary with the first Çunga king, Pushyamitra (c. 184-148
B. c. ). As we shall see (p. 482) this name Çātakarņi was probably also con-
temporary with Khāravela. king of Kalinga.
1 For the coins of Kulūta, see Bergny, J. R. A. S. , 1900, p. 415 ; for other coins
mentioned in this paragraph see the references in Rapson, Indian Coins, pp. 101-2.
2 See Chapter XXIV, pp. 542-43. The inscriptions from Bhattiprolu near
month of the Kistna in the Guntur District (c. 200 B. C. ) menti in a king Khubiraka or
Kubiraka (Kuvera) who is otherwise unknown ; see Bühler, Ep. Ind. II, pp. 323 ff.
3 The accession of the twenty-third king, Gautamīputra, çītakarni, must be dated
106 A. D. or a few years later ; see Rapson, B. M. Cat. , Coins of the Andhra Dynasty
& c. p, XXX. If a calculation be made from this fixed point, the maximum readings
of the Purāṇas would indicate c. 244 B. C. and the minimum readings c. 202 B. C. , as the
date of Simuka's accession ; cf. Kali Age, pp. 38-42, 71 with B. M. Cat. , pp. lxvi, lxvii.
4 Årch. Sur. West. Ind. IV, p. 98.
the
## p. 478 (#516) ############################################
478
[Ch.
INDIAN NATIVE STATES
For the history of this period the cave-inscriptions of Nānaghāt
(nos. 1112-20) are of the highest importance.
