The Coinage of the Gupta Empire and its Imitations c14.s1.4

c14.s1.4

Smith divided¹ the coins of the Western type into two varieties, variety A consisting of the coins with the legend *Paramabhāgavata-Mahārājādhirāja-śrī-Kumāragupta-Mahendrāditya*, and variety B, where the title *Mahārājādhirāja* of the above legend was abbreviated into *Rājādhirāja*. While recognising that the local tradition reported by Watson to the effect that Kumāragupta served as a viceroy of Kathiawar under his father was unreliable, Smith still suggested that the coins with the shorter title *Rājādhirāja* may have been issued by him when a viceroy. There is, however, no sufficient difference in the import of the two titles to justify this conjecture. In the Mathurā inscription, dated in G. E. 61,² we find that the title *Rājādhirāja* is used for Chandragupta II, even when he was the ruling paramount emperor. Smith has also admitted that the features of the king on the coins with the longer legend are usually younger than those on the coins with the shorter legend,³ and so it is hardly possible to argue that the latter were issued earlier in the life of Kumāragupta, when he was a viceroy under his father. The coinage by the heir-apparent is unknown to Hindu tradition and so it is difficult to accept Smith's theory in this connection.