[Northern Kshatrapas, B.C. 70-A.D. 78.] According to inscriptions and coins Northern Kshatrapa rule begins with king Maues about B.C. 70 and ends with the accession of the Kushán king Kanishka about A.D. 78. Maues probably belonged to the Saka tribe of Skythians. If the Maues of the coins may be identified with the Moga of the Taxila plate the date of king Patika in the Taxila plate shows that for about seventy-five years after the death of Maues the date of his accession continued to be the initial year of the dynasty. From their connection with the Sakas, arriving in India during the reign of the Saka Maues and for nearly three quarters of a century accepting the Saka overlordship, the Kshatrapas, though as noted above their followers were chiefly Malayas, Pallavas, Ábhíras, and Medas, appear to have themselves come to be called Sakas and the mention of Saka kings in Puránic and other records seems to refer to them. After lasting for about 150 years the rule of the Northern Kshatrapas seems to have merged in the empire of the great Kushán Kanishka (A.D. 78). Though recently found inscriptions and coins show that the Kshatrapas ruled over important parts of India including even a share of the western seaboard, nothing is known regarding them from either Indian or foreign literary sources. What little information can be gleaned is from their own inscriptions and coins. Of the Northern Kshatrapas this information is imperfect and disconnected. It shows that they had probably three or four ruling branches, one in the Kábul valley, a second at Taxila near Attak on the North-West Panjáb frontier, a third at Behát near Saháranpur or Delhi, and a fourth at Mathurá. The last two were perhaps subdivisions of one kingdom; but probably those at Kábul and at Taxila were distinct dynasties. An inscription found in Mathurá shows a connection either by marriage or by neighbourhood between the Behát and Mathurá branches. This is a Baktro-Páli inscription recording the gift of a stúpa by Nandasiriká daughter of Kshatrapa Rájavula and mother of Kharaosti Yuvarája. Kharaosti is the dynastic name of the prince, his personal name appears later in the inscription as Talama (Ptolemy ?). From his dynastic name, whose crude form Kharaosta or Kharaottha may be the origin of the Prakrit Chhaharáta and the Sanskritised Kshaharáta, this Talama appears to be a descendant of the Kshatrapa Kharaosti whose coins found at Taxila call him Artaputa that is the son of Arta apparently the Parthian Ortus. The same Baktro-Páli Mathurá inscription also mentions with special respect a Kshatrapa named Patika, [64] who, with the title of Kusulaka or Kozolon, ruled the Kábul valley with his capital first at Nagaraka and later at Taxila.