Reign c. 20 – c. 24 CE | ||
Books The Absent Traveller: Prākrit Love Poetry from the Gāthāsaptaśatī of Sātavāhana Hāla People also search for David Ray, Sulima, Batya Swift Yasgur | ||
Hāla (r. 20–24 CE) was a Satavahana king who ruled in present-day Deccan region. The Matsya Purana mentions him as the 17th ruler of the Satavahana dynasty.
The Maharashtri Prakrit novel Lilavati (c. 800 CE) describes his romance with a princess of Simhaladvipa (identified with present-day Sri Lanka). Vijayananda, the commander-in-Chief of Hala's army led a successful campaign in Ceylon. On his way back, he stayed back at Sapta Godavari Bhimam. Here, he came to know about Lilavati, the beautiful daughter of the king of Ceylon. He narrated her story to Hāla. King Hāla secured Lilavati and married her.
Hāla is famous for compiling an anthology of Maharashtri Prakrit poems known as the Gaha Sattasai (Sanskrit:Gāthā Saptaśatī), although from linguistic evidence it seems that the work now extant must have been re-edited in the succeeding century or two.