THE GREAT ANCIENT EMPIRESIndian realms, too. The incorporation of local lords into the state hierarchy
was a general feature of state formation in early medieval India.
Two other specific features, or perhaps even innovations, of the
Shatavahana system were the distribution of military garrisons throughout
the empire and the practice of granting land to Brahmins while at the same
time providing them with immunities (parihara). Both of these institutions
were obviously designed to penetrate the countryside with royal agents. The
officers (gaulmika) heading the garrisons had some local administrative
functions and, as the garrisons were to be self-supporting, had to secure the
necessary resources from the local people. This in turn made it necessary to
exempt Brahmins and Buddhist monasteries, to whom land was granted
very specifically, from such exactions by royal officers. Consequently, the
grant of such immunities became part and parcel of the land grant.
The Shatavahana system was not based on a centralised bureaucracy
but on a network of noblemen who had such grandiloquent titles as ‘Great
Lord of the Army’ (mahasenapati). Brahmins and Buddhist monasteries
probably served as countervailing forces to the potentially centrifugal
forces of local magnates. The Shatavahanas were Hindus but they
nevertheless provided a great deal of patronage to the Buddhist order.
Perhaps the good connections between monasteries and guilds also
recommended the Buddhist order to the rulers who benefited from
international trade.
Shatavahana power declined in the third century, showing symptoms
typical of the final stages of all Indian kingdoms. Local princes strove for
independence and finally a series of small successor states emerged. The
northern part of the empire remained under the control of one branch of
the Shatavahanas for some time until the Vakatakas rose to prominence in
this region; they then entered into the alliance with the Gupta empire.
The eastern part of the Shatavahana empire, especially the fertile delta
region of Krishna and Godaveri, was then ruled by the short-lived
Ikshvaku dynasty. The founder of this dynasty celebrated the great horse
sacrifice obviously in order to declare his independence from his
Shatavahana overlord. The Ikshvakus continued the policy of the
Shatavahanas in extending their patronage both to Brahmins and to the
Buddhist order. Inscriptions belonging to the reign of the second Ikshvaku
king which were found in the monasteries at Nagarjunikonda show that
even the queens made donations to the Buddhists. One of these inscriptions
gives evidence of international relations of the monastery: Kashmir and
Gandhara, the Yavanas (Greeks) in northwestern India are mentioned, also
Kirata in the Himalayas (Nepal?), Vanavasi in western India, Toshali and
Vanga (Orissa and Bengal) in the east, Damila (Tamil Nadu), the Island of
Tamrapani (Sri Lanka) and even China. This shows to what extent
Buddhism added an international dimension to the polity of India’s early
regional kingdoms.