DDK HistoryF.p65 - CSIR

8.1 j SATAVAHANA ORIGINS 243
Jatakas (Jat. 118;147), to be celebrated by every couple. The cultured
citizen, on a visit to the village, was to display and describe the tasteful
accomplishments of city life in a way that the more intelligent of the
country-dwellers could appreciate not conversing wholly in Sanskrit
nor wholly in the rural idiom. In all this, the proper choice of a bride is
not neglected, while detailed intricacies of the sexual act have given the
work a faithful reading public (and some interpolations) lost by the
Arth. The work is dated after a fashion by mention of a Cola ruler, and
of the fatally rough lovemaking by king Kuntala Satakarni.
The chronology 1 of this period is still difficult to establish beyond
dispute, so that it is useful to review the names of kings and their
approximate dates. Soon after the death of Asoka, there arose in the
south thef royal house of the Satavahanas (or Satakanis, Sanskritized as
SatavShana, SSlivahana, and SStakarni). Their original location might
have been about the present Bellary district, but they remain associated
with Andhra> territory during their later days of glory. Satavahana
deposits (i.e. with the rouletted ware) are the first dear traces of
civilizations iij the south though pre-Mauryan (including the
megalithic) traits continued for some time, to pass away finally
when the SStavahanas.were firmly established. Roman trade goods in
Satavahana levels (found at Kolhapur, Karhad, and near Pondichery)
enable us to assess 2 the importance and the range of trade in luxury
articles by confirming the Periplus account. The rouletted ware is copied
from Arretine pottery between 50 B. c. and A. D. 50. When the age of
the Antonines ended with the turmoil of civil’wars after the death of
Corn-modus, the Satavahana kingdom also declined. It had produced
enough village agriculture to pass out of history. Ptolemy’s king Siro-
Ptolemaios is identified with Vasithiputa siri-Pulumayi. 8
The name Satakani appears to be aboriginal. The factors 4 are two
Indo-Austric words, sada = horse, and kon = son, which would indicate
a horse-totem of the non-Aryans. The formation cannot go back to
pre-Aryan days, as the horse, which appears on many Satavahana coins,
is an Aryan innovation for India. The dynasty could be the Assaka of
SN 977. The proper Sanskritization of sata is sapti (horse), which
actually appears in a late purana. Saptikarna would indicate