Lectures on Ancient Indian Numismatics (Carmichael Lectures, 1921) c6.13

c6.13

So much for one administrative puzzle presented by the study of numismatics. I will now place another before you. I shall here come to a somewhat later period, *viz.*, the Gupta period, and fix your attention on the coins of the founder of this dynasty. On the obverse are the figures of a king and his queen, who from the legends appear to be no other than Chandragupta I and his wife Kumāradevī, and on the reverse the legend has *Lichchhavayaḥ*, *i.e.* the Lichchhavis. What is the significance of these names? Those who are numismatists need not be told that as the name of the Lichchhavis occurs on the reverse, they had evidently become subordinate to Chandragupta I. But how did they come to occupy this subordinate position? Did Chandragupta conquer them? This does not appear to be possible, because his son Samudragupta calls himself with pride *Lichchhavi-dauhitra*, "the daughter's son of a Lichchhavi." This Lichchhavi father-in-law of Chandragupta could not have been a ruler of Nepāl as conjectured by Dr. Fleet. Before the conquest of Nepāl the Lichchhavis according to their tradition ruled at Pushpapura or Pāṭaliputra, and this is confirmed by one of the Nepāl inscriptions published by Pandit Bhagwanlal Indraji.¹ The Lichchhavis, you know, were an oligarchic tribe and consisted not of one but of many chiefs who ruled conjointly.¹ How could they have become subordinate to Chandragupta even through this matrimonial alliance? This is the real puzzle presented by Chandragupta's coins. Perhaps the solution is that he was already married to a Lichchhavi princess, and in some battle or through some such catastrophe all the Lichchhavi chiefs and their heirs were killed, leaving no male issue behind and leaving the whole state as patrimony to Kumāradevī, queen of Chandragupta. Kumāradevī thus through succession came to be the ruler of Pāṭaliputra and the surrounding Lichchhavi territory, and, being a Hindu wife, her husband was naturally associated with her in this rule. But that Kumāradevī was an actual ruler is seen from the fact that along with Chandragupta's her figure appears on the obverse of his coins. I do not claim any finality for the solution I have proposed, and I have no doubt that some one amongst you will suggest a better solution.