Shalivahana (IAST: Śālivāhana) was a legendary emperor of ancient India, who is said to have ruled from Pratishthana (present-day Paithan, Maharashtra).
Ananta's heroic poem Viracharita (12th century CE) mentions Shalivahana as a rival of the king Vikramaditya of Ujjain.
[3] According to the text (3.1.6.45-7.4), the first Paramara king was Pramara, born from a fire pit at Mount Abu (thus belonging to the Agnivansha).
[4] Bhavishya Purana mentions that Vikramaditya ruled Bharatavarsha (India) bounded by Indus river in the west, Badaristhana (Badrinath) in the north, Kapila in the east and Setubandha (Rameswaram) in the south.
When the outsiders such as the Śakas heard about the destruction of dharma (righteousness, law and order) in Aryadesha, they raided the country by crossing the Indus and the Himalayas.
500 years after Shalivahana, his descendant Bhoja also fought against foreign invaders including "Mahamada", a character modeled on Muhammad and possibly Mahamud Ghazanvi.
According to Theodor Aufrecht, the passages about Jesus were inserted by an employee of the Venkatesvara Press, which published its first printed edition of the text in 1897.
The non-Shramana ascetics started retiring to wilderness, and prayed to Shiva and Vishnu to stop the new king's atrocities.
Shalivahana asked his people to build stone houses or hide in the river (Kaveri) to escape the rain of fire.
[5] To destroy Shalivahana, Shiva now created the Three Crowned Kings: Vira Cholan, Ula Cheran, and Vajranga Pandyan.
They then reached Cudatturiyur (possibly Uraiyur), where Vira Cholan wrote letters to all those who worshipped Shiva and Vishnu, seeking their help against Shalivahana.
The Chola Purva Patayam dates Shalivahana's defeat to the year 1443 of an uncertain calendar era (possibly from the beginning of the Kali Yuga).
[8] Dineshchandra Sircar suggests that the association of the northern king Vikramaditya with Vikrama era (also historically inaccurate) might have led the southern scholars to fabricate a similar legend of their own.
He believes the historically inaccurate notion that the "Shalivahana era" was based on the victory of the Satavahana ruler Gautamiputra Satakarni over some Saka (Western Kshatrapa) kings.
[11] [8] Literary works such as Prabodha Chintamani and Chaturavinshati Prabandha suggest that Shalivahana composed 400,000 gathas (single-verse poems).