atavahana rulers were quoted in old works like the Aitareya Brahmana,the Epics ,
the Paraná’s, the early Buddhist and Jain works.Gunadhya’s Brhatkatha,
Hala’s Gathasaptasati and Vatsyayana’sKamasutras reflected the
social and cultural life of the Satavahana period.
The Kathasaritsagara mentions the story of a king named Dipakarni
who saw a boy riding a Sata or lion, adopted him and named him
Satavahana
‘Satavahana’ and ‘Satakarni’ are the two standard names by which the
rulers of that dynasty are referred to in their inscriptions and coins.
Various explanations have been given for these names: Satkarni means
” the son of a horse”, and explained in terms of the Aswamedha tradition.
Barnett explained Satkarni as meaning the son of Sata. Sometime it is taken
to mean as one who has a hundred ships, or one whose vehicle is drawn by
hundred bulls or the one with his ears bored. The Kathasaritsagara mentions
the story of a king named Dipakarni who saw a boy riding a Sata or lion,
adopted him and named him Satavahana or the one who had a lion for his vehicle.
It is also suggested that Satavahana is only a variant of ‘Saptavahana’,
meaning the sun, and that they were so called because they were the worshippers
of the sun. these theories, however, have been discarded by Dr. M. Rama Rao,
who has argued that the dynasty has been named after the founder of the dynasty,
who ruled before Simukha.
Przyluski thinks that Sata and vahana, the constituents of Satavahana, are both
Mundawords; the former is the Sanskrtisation of the Munda word sadam meaning
a horse and the latter ofhapan meaning a son. Satavahanas were “sons of horse”
as they believed themselves to be born of the chief queen with the sacrificial horse
in the Asvamedha sacrifice So many kings in the Puranic dynasties as well as in
historic ruling families werecelebrated performers of the Asvamedha sacrifice
Even Megashtanes,Pliny ,Ptolemy,wrote refers about
satavahana army ,forts,maritimeTrade,viharas,even Fahein of 5th c AD ,wrote
about the donations to famous viharas by satavahana queens
