Short notes on Gautamiputra Satakarni (AD 106-130)

Gautamiputra Satakarni was the greatest of the Satavahana rulers. His reign period is noted by some scholars as 80 to 104 and by others from 106 to 130; in any case he is credited with a rule of 24 years.

The difference in this assignment of number of years to his rule arises because the former scholars do not take into account the reign of Siva Svati who immediately preceded Gautamiputra. This Satakarni is known to us largely because of an inscription recorded at Nasik by his mother Gautama Balasri who sets forth his achievements.

That inscription was actually engraved in the 19th year of Pulumayi II son and successor of Gautamiputra Satakarni. From that inscription we learn that Gautami Balasri was the mother of a Maharaja and grandmother of a Maharaja’. It describes] Gauthamiputra as ‘the destroyer of Sakas, Yavanas and Pahalavas’, ‘the destroyer of the Kshaharata family’, ‘the restorer of the glory of the Satavahana dynasty’ and ‘who crushed the pride of the Kshatrapas’. It is interesting to note that in this record Gautamiputra is called Ekabhamana usually translated as the ‘unique Brahmin’.

From this some historians! Deduce that he was a Brahmin and therefore the entire Satavahana family was also Brahmin. But these deductions are farfetched. There is no reason to believe that the Satavahana family was Brahmin. It was only Hindu and brahmanical and the expression Ekabhamana! Merely means ‘one who follows the brahmanical way assiduously’. His empire included Maharashtra, Gujarat, Malwa, Berar and North Konkan but not the Andhradesa.

If we are i to believe Gautami Balasri’s record and if negative evidence means anything, the prevalence of a number of coins struck by Gautamiputra in the coastal Andhra districts possibly indicates the inclusion of these areas in his empire. The determination of the extent of an empire merely on the basis of the availability of coins in certain regions also is risky because coins go with merchants and they could go beyond the empire.¹ He defeated the contemporary Kshatrapa Nahapana and restruck his coins in large hoards.

Gautamiputra Satakarni bears a name which has made some historians entertain a theory regarding matriarchy among the Satavahanas. He is called Gautamiputra even as there is another ruler called Vasishtiputra Sri Pulumayi and yet another Kausikiputra Satakarni and these mean Satakarni son of Gautama, Sri Pulumayi son of Vasishti and Satakarni son of Kausiki and in these cases Gautama, Vasishti and Kausiki were the names of the mothers of these rulers respectively.

That they prefix their mother’s names to theirs seems to mean to these historians that they derive themselves in the female line and not in the male line thereby suggesting matriarchy. This is not acceptable for there is no other evidence to support such a radical conclusion and even in Kerala matriarchy came in much later, certainly not before a few centuries after the Sangam age.

The real explanation for this kind of matronyms seems to be that since the rulers married a number of wives from different royal families a prince was best identified with reference to his mother. This practice is found reflected in the system adopted in the colophons to the Padirruppattu a Tamil Sangam anthology in which early Chera genealogy is mentioned. Gautamiputra was very charitable and there is a record which mentions his gift of a piece of land which had originally belonged to one Ushavadatta. Vasishtiputra Sri Pulumayi (AD 130-158)

He was succeeded by Vasishtiputra Sri Pulumayi who ruled for 28 years from c. 130 to 158 but only for 24 years according to some who base themselves on the last regnal year indicated by his inscriptions. This Pulumayi was defeated by Rudradaman, the Kshatrapa. He was probably the son-in-law of that Kshatrapa in spite of the use of the expression ‘non-remote relationship’ used to indicate their relations.

A cave inscription in Kanheri refers to the queen of Vasishtiputra Satakarni as the daughter of Rudradaman. Due to the defeat he sustained at the hands of his father-in-law he lost a part of his father’s empire. Some scholars would reverse this sequence of events and say that because this Pulumayi was preoccupied with conquering eastern Andhra this gave an opportunity to the Sakas to deprive him of his northern-western possessions.

It has also been claimed that because some of his coins are found on the Coramandal coast as far south as Cuddalore, the Tondaimandalam also was part of his empire. For reasons mentioned above regarding occurrence of coins not being sufficient evidence to determine extent of empire this contention cannot be accepted. Sri Yajna Satakarni (AD 170-199)

One of the best known Satavahana rulers, perhaps second only to Gautamiputra Satakarni is Sri Yajna Satakarni who ruled from c. 170 to 199. He struggled hard against the Sakas and recovered some of the territories lost by his predecessors. He is famous for his coinage, specimens of which are found all over the Deccan. Some of his coins bearing the figure of a ship perhaps indicate his interest in naval activities; or possibly these coins were issued by autonomous merchant groups interested in overseas trade.

After Sri Yajna the Satavahanas lost control over a good part of the Deccan. Coins indicate the reign of certain rulers named Kama, Kumbha and Rudra but these are not found in the puranic lists possibly because the Puranas did not consider these rulers members of the main Satavahana line. The Puranas, however, mention Vijaya, Chandasri Satakarni and a Pulumayi III as successors of Yajnasri. These last rulers were weaklings who did nothing but bring the kingdom to ruin.

Among themselves they ruled for about twenty years. Since Sri Yajna’s reign lasted practically till the end of the second century, the Satavahana power may be taken to have come to an end by c. 220 a date on which even historian who do not agree on anything else, seem to concur. Thus the Satavahana power which declared its independence of Mauryan hegemony in 230 BC came to an end in AD 220 having ruled the Deccan or most parts of it for nearly four and a half centuries plunging into political confusion that vast area to which such confusion had never been unfamiliar.