Kalinga (a part of modern Orissa) came to the forefront with the meteoric rise of King Kharavela, and then subsided into quietude. A biographical sketch of Kharavela is available from an inscription, where he asserts his dominion over the entire Mahanadi delta and claims many victories over south Indian kings. Such maritime kingdoms raised sporadically, their prosperity being due to sea trade and the fertility of their hinterland, generally a delta region.
Meanwhile the north-western part of the subcontinent- the Panjab and the Indus valley-was once again being sucked into the vortex of Iranian and Central Asian politics. Alexander, after his rapid campaign through Persia and north-western India, left behind a number of governors, who on his death in 323 B.C. declared themselves kings of the respective provinces which they governed.
The house of Seleucus in western Asia and its erstwhile satraps, the Greek rulers of Bactria, came into conflict, and gradually the conflict spilled over into north-western India, involving the small and politically isolated Indian kingdoms which were unable to hold back the Bactrian Greeks.
The latter established them in the north-west during the second century B.C. fortunately for us, these kings were enthusiastic minters of coins and their history has been partially reconstructed, largely on numismatic evidence.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
Further south the Parthians made a brief thrust in the region of Sind, but could not maintain their power there for long. Events in Central Asia were now to influence north Indian politics a nomadic movement originating on the borders of China made the Yueh-chih tribe migrate westwards to the neighbourhood of the Caspian Sea, dislodging the existing inhabitants of this region, the Sakas (Scythians).
Further migrations brought both the Sakas and the Yueh-chih to India. The early decades of the first century A.D. saw the Yueh-chih settled in northern India and the Sakas concentrated in the region of Kutch and Kathiawar in western India. The Sakas were now neighbours of the Satavahana or Andhra kings, who had established a kingdom centred on the north-western area of the Deccan plateau.
In time the Sakas found themselves sandwiched between two important powers, for in the north the Yueh-chih or Kushana kingdom had been consolidated by Kanishka, who not only extended its southern and eastern boundaries as far as Mathura and VaranasI, but also participated in campaigns in Central Asia.
To the south of the Sakas, the Satavahanas drew their strength from the fact that they were a bridge between the northern and southern parts of the subcontinent. This characteristic of the Deccan kingdoms, deriving their power from their location, was to remain an important geo-political factor in Indian history for many centuries.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
The history of south India emerges in clearer perspective during the period between 200 B.C. and A.D. 300, the evidence being that of archaeology, epigraphy, and the Sangam literature of the early Tamils.
The extreme south of the peninsula, Mysore and beyond had not been under actual Mauryan control, though the relationship between the imperial power and the southern kingdoms was a close and friendly one.
This is revealed by Asoka’s references to his neighbours in the south, the kingdoms of the Cholas, Pandyas, Kerala- putras, and Satiyaputras, some of which are also mentioned in the Sangam literature. Archaeology provides evidence of a well-organized megalithic culture in this region during the Mauryan period. Possibly it was in contact with a similar culture in western Asia, a contact which had its antecedents and which continued in later centuries.