Note 47 — Chapter V · THE KSHATRAPAS (b.c. 70–a.d. 398.)

An inscription on the Girnár rock gives us more information regarding Rudradáman than is available for any of the other Kshatrapas. The inscription records the construction of a new dam on the Sudarśana lake close to the inscription rock in place of a dam built in the time of the Maurya king Chandragupta (b.c. 300) and added to in the time of his grandson the great Aśoka (b.c. 240) which had suddenly burst in a storm. The new dam is recorded to have been made under the orders of Suvishákha son of Kulaipa a Pahlava by tribe, who was ‘appointed by the king to protect the whole of Ánarta and Suráshṭra.’ Pahlava seems to be the name of the ancient Persians and Parthians47 and the name Suvishákha as Dr. Bhau Dáji suggests may be a Sanskritised form of Syávaxa.48 One of the Kárle inscriptions gives a similar name Sovasaka apparently a corrupt Indian form of the original Persian from which the Sanskritised Suvishákha must have been formed. Sovasaka it will be noted is mentioned in the Kárle inscription as an inhabitant of Abulámá, apparently the old trade mart of Obollah at the head of the Persian Gulf. This trade connection between the Persian Gulf and the Western Indian seaboard must have led to the settlement from very early times of the Pahlavas who gradually became converted to Buddhism, and, like the Pársis their modern enterprising representatives, seem to have advanced in trade and political influence. Subsequently the Pahlavas attained such influence that about the fifth century a dynasty of Pallava kings reigned in the Dekhan, Hindu in religion and name, even tracing their origin to the great ancient sage Bháradvája.49