Page:History of India Vol 2.djvu/225

 KANVAS AND ANDHKAS 187 of them was slain in 27 B. c. by a king of the Andhra, or Satavahana, dynasty, which at that time possessed wide dominions stretching across the table-land of the Deccan from sea to sea. The Puranas treat the whole Andhra dynasty as following the Kanva, and consequently identify the slayer of the last Kanva prince with Simuka, or Sipraka, the first of the Andhra line. But, as a matter of fact, the independent Andhra dynasty had begun about 220 B. c., long before the suppression of the Kanvas in 27 B. c., and the Andhra king who slew Susarman cannot possibly have been Simuka. It is impossible to affirm with certainty who he was, because the dates of accession of the various Andhra princes are not known with accuracy. ANDHRA DYNASTY Before proceeding to narrate the history of the Andhra kings after the extinction of the Kanva dy- nasty, we must cast back a glance to the more distant past, and trace the steps by which the Andhra kingdom became one of the greatest powers in India. In the days of Chandragupta Maurya and Megas- thenes the Andhra nation, probably a Dravidian people, now represented by the large population speaking the Telugu language, occupied the deltas of the Godavari and Krishna (Kistna) Rivers on the eastern side of India, and was reputed to possess a military force second only to that at the command of the King of the Prasii, Chandragupta Maurya. The Andhra territory