History of Gujarát: Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency, Volume I, Part I.Campbell, James M.
History
History of Gujarát: Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency, Volume I, Part I.
Campbell, James M.
Gujarat (India) -- History
It is clear from this that Ísvaradatta's reign did not last
long. His peculiar name and his separate date leave little doubt
that he belonged to some distinct family of Kshatrapas. The general
style of his coins shows that he cannot have been a late Kshatrapa
while the fact that he is called Mahákshatrapa seems to show he was
an independent ruler. No good evidence is available for fixing his
date. As already mentioned the workmanship of his coins brings him
near to Vijayasena (A.D. 238-249). In Násik Cave X. the letters of
Inscription XV. closely correspond with the letters of the legends
on Kshatrapa coins, and probably belong to almost the same date as
the inscription of Rudradáman on the Girnár rock that is to about
A.D. 150. The absence of any record of the Ándhras except the name
of the king Madharíputa Sirisena or Sakasena (A.D. 180), makes it
probable that after Yajñasrí Gautamíputra (A.D. 150) Ándhra power
waned along the Konkan and South Gujarát seaboard. According to the
Puránas the Ábhíras succeeded to the dominion of the Ándhras. It
is therefore possible that the Ábhíra king Ísvarasena of Násik
Inscription XV. was one of the Ábhíra conquerors of the Ándhras who
took from them the West Dakhan. A migration of Ábhíras from Ptolemy's
Abiria in Upper Sindh through Sindh by sea to the Konkan and thence
to Násik is within the range of possibility. About fifty years later
king Ísvaradatta [147] who was perhaps of the same family as the
Ábhíra king of the Násik inscription seems to have conquered the
kingdom of Kshatrapa Vijayasena, adding Gujarát, Káthiáváda, and
part of the Dakhan to his other territory. In honour of this great
conquest he may have taken the title Mahákshatrapa and struck coins
in the Gujarát Kshatrapa style but in an era reckoned from the date
of his own conquest. Ísvaradatta's success was shortlived. Only two
years later (that is about A.D. 252) the Mahákshatrapa Dámájadasrí
won back the lost Kshatrapa territory. The fact that Ísvaradatta's
recorded coins belong to only two years and that the break between
the regular Kshatrapas Vijayasena and Dámájadasrí did not last more
than two or three years gives support to this explanation. [148]
The following table gives the genealogy of the Western Kshatrapas:
[The Kshatrapa Family Tree.] THE WESTERN KSHATRAPAS.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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