Indian Epigraphy c6.s2.21

c6.s2.21

The great part played by inscriptions, including legends on coins and seals, in the reconstruction of the history of ancient India can be demonstrated by an example. No imperial ruler named Budhagupta was known till the first quarter of the 19th century. A stone inscription mentioning Suraśmicandra, a viceroy of king Budhagupta, was discovered at Eran in the Sagar District of Madhya Pradesh in 1838.¹ The record, bearing a date in the Gupta year 165 corresponding to 484-85 A. D., states that Mātṛviṣṇu, ruler of Eran, was subordinate to Budhagupta’s viceroy governing a province lying between the rivers Kālindī (Yamunā) and Narmadā. Thus we came to learn that a king named Budhagupta held sway over the Malwa region in 484-85 A.D. Some silver coins of Budhagupta were discovered in 1894, and they were found to have been issued in the Gupta year 175 corresponding to 494-95 A. D.² It was thus further learnt that Budhagupta, king of Malwa, reigned for about ten years between 484 and 495 A.D. In 1914-15 two inscriptions belonging to Budhagupta’s reign were discovered at Sarnath near Banaras³ and were found to be dated in the Gupta year 157 (476-77 A. D.). Thus we came to learn that king Budhagupta was not a local ruler of the Malwa region, but that his dominions included considerably large portions of the U. P. It was also clear that he ruled not for about ten years but at least for about eighteen years between 476 and 495 A.D. The extension of Budhagupta’s dominions from Malwa in the west to Banaras in the east led to the suspicion that he might have belonged to the Imperial Gupta house of Magadha. This possibility was nearly proved in 1919-20, when two copper-plate inscriptions⁴ of the same king were found at Damodarpur in the Dinajpur District of North Bengal. These indicated the inclusion of the northern part of Bengal within the vast empire of Budhagupta. But, even then, we were in the dark about the exact position of Budhagupta in the genealogy of the Imperial Guptas of Magadha. In 1943, however, the study of the legend on a damaged clay seal⁵ of Budhagupta, discovered at Nalanda (Patna District, Bihar), proved that he was the son of Pūrugupta, grandson of Kumāragupta I Mahendrāditya, great-grandson of Candragupta II Vikramāditya and great-great-grandson of the mighty Samudragupta of the Imperial Gupta dynasty of Magadha. Thus, after the lapse of more than a century from 1838 to 1943, fairly complete information about the position of an ancient Indian monarch named Budhagupta was available to the students of early Indian history. Unfortunately, however, many facts associated with the reign of this ruler have still to be recovered. But this gathering of information bit by bit is of absorbing interest to all investigators in the field of Indian historical research. The students of Indian history, who studied the Eran inscription in 1838, Budhagupta’s coins in 1894, the Sarnath inscriptions in 1914-15, the Damodarpur plates in 1919-20 and the Nalanda seal in 1943, must have felt like ‘some watcher of the skies when a new planet swims into his ken.’