Indian Epigraphy c16.s2.13

c16.s2.13

The earliest indigenous Indian ruler who used the title *Mahārāja* is king Khāravela of Kaliṅga, who flourished about the last quarter of the first century B.C.⁶ But, in the north-western part of Bhāratavarṣa, foreign rulers of Parthian and Scythian extraction, who were gradually supplanting Greek rule from that area, began to adopt more dignified royal titles. Thus certain coins of Maues, Azes I and Azilises use the epithet ‘the great king of kings’. The expression *Basileōs Basileōn Megalou* in Greek on the obverse of their coins has its Prakrit translation *Maharajasa Rajarajasa* (or *Rajadirajasa*) *mahatasa* (Sanskrit *Mahārājasya Rājārājasya mahataḥ* or *Rājātirājasya mahataḥ*) on the reverse.¹ This style was also an imitation of that of the old Achaemenian emperors who described themselves in their inscriptions as *Khshāyathiya Khshāyathiyānām* (modern Persian *Shāhān Shāh*, ‘the king of kings’).² In the Prakrit legend on certain coins of the Parthian king Gondophernes, the title used in *Maharaja-rajatiraja-tratara* (Sanskrit *Mahārāja-rājātirāja-trātṛ*, ‘the great king, the supreme king amongst kings, the saviour’),³ in which the word *tratara* is a translation of the Greek epithet *soter* used, as indicated above, by many of the Indo-Greek rulers. The coins of the early Kuṣāṇa kings called them *Mahārāja Mahān*, *Mahārāja Rājarāja* and *Mahārāja Rājātirāja*, while some of them also used the title *Devaputra* believed by some scholars to have been borrowed from the Chinese royal title ‘the Son of Heaven.’⁴ The later Kuṣāṇas of Kaniṣka’s house also enjoyed the titles *Mahārāja*, *Rājātirāja* and *Devaputra*.⁵ They assumed the Persian title *Shaonano Shao* (*Shāhān Shāh*)⁶ and are mentioned in a Gupta inscription as *Daivaputra-Ṣāhi-Ṣāhānuṣāhi*.⁷ The successors of Kaniṣka sometimes called themselves *Ṣāhi* (Persian *Shāh*) and rarely *Kaïsara* from Roman Caesar).⁸