Question

Discuss the concept of polity, economy and trade during 200 B.C. – 300 A.D.

Answer 1

Post-Mauryan’ is the name given to the period extending from approximately 200 BC to 300 AD, that is, from the fall of the Mauryan dynasty to the rise of Gupta power. Though several important new developments are seen in this phase, it is best viewed in terms of the continuity and intensification of political, economic and social processes that started in the post-Vedic (6th, century BC) and matured in the Mauryan, cuminating in the post-Mauryan.
In this lesson and the next, we survey the chief features of this period. Our sources include literature (brahmanical, Buddhist as well as foreign accounts), archaeological excabations (late NBPW and post – NBPW), coins (of a large variety and number), inscriptions (in Prakrit and, for the first time, Sanskrit) and architectural and art remains from these five hundred years.
Political History
Subsequent to the collapse and break-up of the vast Mauryan empire, we see the rise of a number of smaller territorial powers in its place in different regions of the subcontinent. In the Ganga valley, for instance, the Mauryas were immediately succeeded by the Shungas under Pushyamitra, the general of the Mauryan army who is believed to have assassinated the last Mauryan king in Circa 180 BC. The Shungas, who ruled for about a 100 years (and were then replaced by the Kanvas who quickly made way for the Mitras), included in their kingdom Pataliputra (Magadha), Ayodhya (central Uttar Pradesh) and Vidisha (eastern Malwa), and possibly reached up to Shakala (Punjab). Pushyamitra is associated with the performance of the Vedic Ashvamedha sacrifice and with an antagonistic attitude to the Buddhist faith.
In Kalinga (south Orissa), Mahameghavahana Chedis set up a kingdom towards the end of the first century BC. We know this from the Hathigumpha inscription of King Kharavela who belonged to this dynasty. The rise of a regular monarchy in Orissa represents the spread of state polity and society to new areas in this period. This is illustrated also by the Satavahana kingdom that, with its capital at Pratishthana (modern Paithan on the Godavari river), covered Maharashtra and Andhra and, at times, parts of north Karnataka, south and east Madhya Pradesh and Saurashtra.
The Satavahanas were a major ruling dynasty of the post-Mauryan period which held sway from the first century BC to the early third century AD. However, there is uncertainty about who the Satavahanas were and where they came from. While in their inscriptions they claim to be exalted brahamanas (ekabahmana) who performed Vedic yajnas, the Puranas call them Andhras who are described as lowly social groups. Similarly, apart from the name ‘Andhra’, the discovery of early Satavahana coins from sites in Andhra Pradesh led some historians to believe that the Satavahanas began their rule in the eastern Deccan and then spread westwards. On the other hand, their inscriptions in the Nasik and Nanaghat caves point to the western Deccan as the original power center of the Satavahanas. At any rate, the Satavahanas adopted the title of Lord of Dakshinapatha and Pliny, the Roman chronicler, too says that the Andhras had many villages and thirty walled towns and a large army of 1,00,000 infantry 2,000 cavalry and 1,000 elephants.
The Satavahana territories were divided into a number of administrative divisions known as aharas and we hear of different sorts of officials such as amatyas, mahamatras, mahasenapatis, and of scribes and record keepers. However, the basic organization of the empire was feudatory which means that there existed a number of local rulers of subordinate chiefs in the realm, known as the maharathis and mahabhojas whom the Satavahanas exercised political paramountcy over but did not eliminate.
Some of the major Satavahana kings were Gautamiputra Satakarni (c.106-130 AD) during whose reign the empire seems to h..