Note 92 — Chapter V · THE KSHATRAPAS (b.c. 70–a.d. 398.)

It is clear from this that Íśvaradatta’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 Yajñaśrí Gautamíputra (a.d. 150) Ándhra power waned along the Konkan and South Gujarát seaboard. According to the Puráṇas the Ábhíras succeeded to the dominion of the Ándhras. It is therefore possible that the Ábhíra king Íśvarasena 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 Íśvaradatta92 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, Káthiáváḍa, 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. Íśvaradatta’s success was shortlived. Only two years later (that is about a.d. 252) the Mahákshatrapa Dámájaḍaśrí won back the lost Kshatrapa territory. The fact that Íśvaradatta’s recorded coins belong to only two years and that the break between the regular Chapter V. Western Kshatrapas, a.d. 70–398. Kshatrapas Vijayasena and Dámájaḍaśrí did not last more than two or three years gives support to this explanation.93