The Satavahanas are identified in the Puranas by which one of the following epithets?

Correct — A, Andhras. The Puranas do not use the dynastic name Satavahana at all. Their king-lists, which run the Magadhan succession from the Sisunagas through the Nandas and Mauryas to the Sungas and Kanvas, call the next power the Andhras or the Andhra-bhrityas, literally the Andhra servants — a memory of the family having once served the Mauryas. The Satavahanas' own inscriptions and coin legends, by contrast, always give the family name Satavahana, from Simuka the founder down to Gautamiputra Satakarni and Vasishthiputra Pulumavi. Puranic Andhras and epigraphic Satavahanas are therefore the same house under two naming systems, and matching them is the whole point of the question.

• (b)Shakas — The Shakas were Central Asian in origin and ruled western India as the Kshaharatas and later the Kardamakas of Ujjain. They were the Satavahanas' chief enemies — Gautamiputra Satakarni's Nashik record boasts of destroying Nahapana.
• (c)Kshatrapas — Kshatrapa, and mahakshatrapa above it, is a satrapal title of Iranian derivation carried by the Shaka governors of the west. It names an office, not the Satavahana house.
• (d)Sungas — The Sungas are a separate dynasty of Magadha founded by Pushyamitra after he killed the last Maurya. The Puranas list them before the Kanvas, and the Andhras come after both.

The Satavahanas ruled the Deccan for about four and a half centuries from the first century BCE, with Pratishthana on the Godavari as their principal seat. They were the first major power to hold the peninsular interior after the Mauryas, they issued lead and potin coinage, and they patronised the rock-cut chaitya halls of the Western Ghats at Karla, Bhaja and Nashik as well as the stupa at Amaravati.

Two habits of the dynasty are worth carrying into the hall. The kings used metronymics — Gautamiputra, Vasishthiputra, Yajnasri, each naming the mother rather than the father — which is unusual in Indian dynastic practice and has been read as evidence that women held real standing in the family. And the sources split: the Puranas call them Andhras, the inscriptions call them Satavahanas, and the coins add a third layer with Prakrit legends on one side and Dravidian on the other. Any question that quotes a Puranic epithet is testing whether you know the two names describe one dynasty.

• The Puranas call the Satavahanas Andhras or Andhra-bhrityas; their own inscriptions call them Satavahanas.
• Simuka founded the line; Gautamiputra Satakarni is its best-known ruler, celebrated in the Nashik inscription of his mother Gautami Balashri.
• The capital was Pratishthana, modern Paithan on the Godavari in Maharashtra.
• Satavahana kings took metronymics, naming themselves after their mothers.
• Their long contest was with the Shaka Kshatrapas of western India, whose leader Nahapana was defeated by Gautamiputra.

• Taking the Puranic label Andhra to mean the dynasty ruled only the Andhra country; its core lay in the western Deccan.
• Confusing Kshatrapa, a title, with the name of a dynasty.
• Placing the Satavahanas before the Sungas because the Deccan feels peripheral to Magadha.

A source-to-dynasty match. Whenever a stem names the Puranas and asks for an epithet, it is checking a single equivalence you either hold or do not.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The capital of the Satavahana dynasty was

  • (a)Amaravati
  • (b)Pratishthana
  • (c)Ujjain
  • (d)Vidisha

  Answer(b) Pratishthana — modern Paithan on the Godavari.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Satavahana rulers such as Gautamiputra and Vasishthiputra took their names from

  • (a)their father
  • (b)their mother
  • (c)their clan deity
  • (d)their capital city

  Answer(b) their mother — the dynasty used metronymics.