The Age of the Imperial Guptas c4.130

c4.130

We possess a number of records of Skandagupta’s reign from which the chronology can be reconstructed very accurately but the most important among them is the undated official inscription on the pillar at Bhitari in the Ghazipur district. The earliest record in the chronological order is the great Junagadh rock inscription of his governor of Kathiawad, Parnadatta and his son Cakrapālita. This record contains three different dates, 136, 137, and 138, all in the Gupta era and must be read jointly with the Junagadh rock inscription of the Mahākṣatrapa Rudradāman I of 150 A.D. We learn from this inscription that the Vaiṣya Viceroy Puṣyagupta of the emperor Candragupta of the Maurya dynasty had caused a great lake named Sudarśana to be constructed at the foot of the mount Girnar or Urjayanta near Raivataka and that the Yavana king Tuṣāspha, the Viceroy of the great Maurya emperor Aśoka had excavated irrigation canals from this great lake. During the reign of Rudradāman I, in the Śaka year 72=150 A.D., this great lake burst through its bonds on account of excessive rain. The dams were rebuilt by Suviśākha, son of Kulaipa, a Pahlava, the minister of Rudradāman I.¹ This great lake, the Sudarśana, once more burst its bunds on the night of the 6th day of Prauṣṭhapada (August-September) of G.E. 136 (455-56 A.D.) and was repaired by the orders of the emperor Skandagupta when Parnadatta was the Viceroy of Surāṣṭra or Kathiawad under the superintendence of the latter's son Cakrapālita. The new dam was of masonry and on it Cakrapalita built a temple of Viṣṇu in G.E. 138=457-58 A.D. The bed of the ancient Sudarśana lake is now a fertile plain surrounding the base of Mount Girnar near the city of Junagadh in the state of that name in Kathiawad. The inscriptions of Rudradāman I and Skandagupta are to be found on the same boulder on which the great Aśoka had caused his fourteen rock edicts to be inscribed for the information of the people of Surāṣṭra. No trace can be found of the great embankments or the temple of Viṣṇu built by Cakrapālita.