Traikūṭaka dynasty

The coastal kingdom

The Traikūṭakas held Aparānta, the coastal country north of the Ghats, from about the middle of the third century. Their name is usually explained as deriving from a three-peaked hill, and their territory covered the ports and the passes behind them — the same commercial ground the Sātavāhanas had held.

They are attested by copper-plate grants, by silver coins imitating Western Kṣatrapa types, and by a donative inscription in the great caitya cave at Kanheri, which records a Traikūṭaka gift and shows the western monasteries still receiving royal patronage in this period.

The era

Traikūṭaka charters are dated in an era with an epoch of 248 or 249 CE. The same reckoning was used later by the Kalachuris and is now generally called the Kalachuri-Chedi era, but the Traikūṭakas are its earliest known users, which is why the era's origin has been sought in the western Deccan — sometimes in the Ābhīra king Īśvarasena, sometimes in the Traikūṭakas themselves. The question is open.

The dynasty was displaced in the later fifth century, and the Konkan passed through a series of hands before the Kalachuris and, in Gujarat, the Maitrakas of Vallabhī established themselves.