Place · Satavahana capital city · India
Pratishthana / Paithan
Also known as Pratishthana, Paithan
Pratishṭhāna (modern Paithan on the north bank of the Godavari, 56 km south of Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar/Aurangabad) was the political capital of the Sātavāhana empire from c. 230 BCE to 220 CE and the southern terminus of the Dakshiṇāpatha, the Great Southern Road. The Sātavāhana kings called themselves Lords of the Dakshiṇāpatha; from Pratishṭhāna the empire controlled the trade route that carried cotton, pepper, muslin and ivory from the Deccan interior to the western-coast ports (Bharuch, Sopara and Kalyan) and from there to Rome. The town’s silk-and-cotton Paithani sari tradition descends unbroken from this trade; its brocade motifs — lotus, parrots, Ashavali vines — are already named in the Periplūs of the Erythraean Sea (c. 60 CE).
- Function
- Trade & production
- Patron dynasty
- Sātavāhana
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 19.480, 75.380
Connections (2)
- Trade routeKaushāmbī pillar (now Allahabad Fort)
Kauśāmbī on the Yamuna was the grand junction of the Uttarāpatha with the Dakshiṇāpatha; Pratishṭhāna on the Godavari was the southern terminus. The two were connected by the Dakshiṇāpatha, which climbed from Kaushambi through Vidisha and Ujjain, crossed the Narmadā at Mahishmati, and descended into the Satavahana Deccan.
- Trade routeTagara / Ter
Pratishṭhāna and Tagara (Ter) were the two great inland trade entrepôts of the Sātavāhana Dakshiṇāpatha, named in the Periplūs of the Erythraean Sea (c. 60 CE) as sources of cotton cloth, muslin and 'mallow-coloured cloth' sent on from the Deccan interior to the Red Sea trade through Bharuch, Sopara and Kalyan.
On these journeys
Sources
Standard reference.
Open Pratishthana / Paithan in the repository →