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History of India, c. 150 A.D. to 350 A.D.: Naga–Vakataka Imperial Period c14: Part I. India under the Nāga Dynasty [c. 150 A.D.—284 A.D.]

History of India, c. 150 A.D. to 350 A.D.: Nāga–Vākāṭaka Imperial Period c14

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Contents

Part I. India under the Nāga Dynasty [c. 150 A.D.—284 A.D.]

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India under the Nāga Dynasty

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‘Daśāśvamedhāvabhṛitha-snānānāṁ Bhāra-Śivānām’

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‘Of the Bhāra Śivas who had performed Ten Aśvamedhas followed by baths of completion’—[Vākāṭaka Royal Copper-plate Deeds]

I. Introductory. Re-founders of the Imperial Hindu Throne

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1. Dr. Vincent Smith in the last edition (1924), as well as in the earlier editions, of his *Early History of India* declared:

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A. ‘So much, however, is clear, that Vāsudeva was the last Kushān king who continued to hold extensive territories in India. After his death there is no indication of the existence of a paramount power in Northern India’ (page 290);

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B. ‘Probably numerous Rājas asserted their independence and formed a number of short-lived states......... but historical materials for the third century is so completely lacking that it is impossible to say what or how many those states were’ (page 290);

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C. ‘The period between the extinction of the Kushān and Andhra dynasties, about A.D. 220 or 230, and the rise of the imperial Gupta dynasty, nearly a century later, is one of the darkest in the whole range of Indian history’ (page 292).

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In other words, the period is a ‘blank’ in the history of India as he put it at page 291. This hopelessness has been tacitly acquiesced in up to this time. After working at the materials available I find that none of the three statements cited above can be accepted and need be repeated in future. The materials are copious, as we shall see below, and for two sections of the period, scientifically arranged for us by Hindu historians.

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2. Revival of Imperial Power. The statement that there was no paramount power before the Imperial Guptas is thoroughly incorrect and cannot be maintained for a moment. The history of the Imperial Hindu revival is not to be dated in the fourth century with Samudra Gupta, not even with the Vākāṭakas nearly a century earlier, but with the Bhāra-Śivas half a century earlier still. There is not a line about the Vākāṭakas in the history of Dr. Vincent Smith, nor a line about the Bhāra-Śivas in any text-book. About the latter I have not seen even a paper written upon in any of the historical or archæological journals, although the main history of both these dynasties is contained in well-attested documents on copper or stone, and as we shall see, fully set out in the Purāṇas, which is supported by coins. The miss and neglect is due to the fact that the editors of those records, Fleet and others, did not read the facts contained in the inscriptions though they read the inscriptions. And as Vincent Smith who surveyed the history of India missed the period, following the lead of Fleet and Kielhorn, the period was declared to be blank. But as a matter of fact it is unusually full as compared with many periods of Indian history. Dr. Fleet while translating the Vākāṭaka inscriptions even missed the prominent expression *Samrāṭ*, ‘EMPEROR OF ALL-INDIA,’¹ the title of Pravarasena I, who assumed it after performing as many as four sacrifices of imperial sovereignty, that is, four *aśvamedhas*.

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¹ See Matsya Purāṇa, ch. 113, verse 15, on the definition of *Samrāṭ*; in vs. 9-14 the limits of India [as distinguished from Further India, § 149A] are given, and *Samrāṭ* is the emperor of ‘all’ (*kṛtsnam*) India.

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3. Vākāṭaka Emperor and the preceding Power. The Emperor Pravarasena I, of the dynasty of the Vākāṭakas, who was crowned, as we shall presently see, a generation before the Emperor Samudra Gupta, was the Emperor of Āryāvarta and also a large portion of the South, if not of the whole of the South, immediately before Samudra Gupta. And it was the position of that Brahmin Emperor, Pravarasena the Vākāṭaka, which Samudra Gupta took over from his grandson Rudrasena I, described as Rudra Deva,¹ the leading sovereign of Āryāvarta in the list given in the political biography of Samudra Gupta published on the Allahabad pillar.

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¹ See § 64, below.

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4. It was a continuation by Samudra Gupta of that imperial rule and paramount sovereignty which had been in the hands and the keeping of the Vākāṭakas for 60 years before Samudra Gupta, as is evident from the Vākāṭaka inscriptions and the Purāṇas. I say advisedly ‘in the hands and the keeping of the Vākāṭakas’, for they had inherited that paramountcy from the Bhāra Śivas whose dynasty had performed no less than Ten aśvamedhas on the Ganges—a repeated assertion of their imperial position in Āryāvarta. It is needless to state that the aśvamedhas were at the cost of the Kushan² Empire, that history written in the orthodox Hindu fashion of these imperial functions sums up the breaking-up of the Kushan Empire and the driving of the Kushans further and further north-west towards the confines of the Salt Range.

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² I have preferred the foreign form Kushan and have left it unpunctuated.

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5. The Emperor Pravarasena got his son Gautamī-putra married to the daughter of the Bhāra Śiva King, Mahārāja Bhava Nāga. This event was so important in the history of the Vākāṭaka dynasty that it was incorporated in their dynastic history and repeated in all the official deeds of the Vākāṭakas. There it is recorded that before this political marriage, the rājavaṃśa (dynasty) of the Bhāra Śivas had performed Ten Horse-Sacrifices on the Ganges which they had acquired by valour; that with the holy water of the Ganges they had been crowned kings. The Bhāra Śivas adopted Śiva as the presiding deity of their empire. The site of the daśāśvamedha of the Bhāra Śivas performed on the bank of the Ganges, seems to me to be the sacred site come down to us as Daśāśvamedha at Benares, the earthly home of Lord Śiva. The Bhāra Śivas issuing from Baghelkhand must have reached the Ganges through what we now call the Ancient Deccan Road terminating at the town of the Goddess Vindhyavāsinī [Mirzapur, U.P.]. The district of Benares was at one end of the Kushan Empire. It was far removed from its western seat. If a new power arising from the Vindhya hills were to reach the plains and if it went, not through Baghelkhand but through any part of Bundelkhand, it would reach the Jumna and not the Ganges. The site of the home of the Vākāṭakas also gives an indication: the ancient town of Vāgāṭ (=Vākāṭa) from which the Vākāṭaka family derived its name, I have discovered in the northern part of the Orchha State in Bundelkhand; and the Vākāṭakas were evidently the neighbours of the Bhāra Śivas¹. There are other indications which I shall discuss in their proper places, in the shape of monuments, place-names, and coins which fix the seat of the Bhāra Śivas between Kauśāmbi and Benares.

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¹ There is a pillar at Durehā (Jāso State, Baghelkhand) which bears the inscription Vākāṭakānām and below it their royal wheel-mark. See appendix at the end of the book.

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6. To perform ten aśvamedhas before or up to the time of Pravarasena I and his aśvamedhas, the dynasty of the Bhāra Śivas must have been in existence for about at least a century. To put it roughly here, their rise is to be dated about 150 A.D.

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Beginnings of the Bhāra Śivas.

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7. The real contribution of the Bhāra Śivas is the foundation of a new tradition—or rather the revival of an old tradition—the tradition of Hindu freedom and sovereignty. The national law-book, the Mānava Dharma Śāstra, had laid down that Āryāvarta was the God-given land of the Āryas and that the Mlechchhas must live beyond that and outside. This was their political and international birth-right² prescribed by the sacred law of the land. It had to be vindicated. The tradition initiated by the Bhāra Śivas was kept up by the Vākāṭakas and was taken over by the Guptas and fully maintained by the

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² For this ruling idea see the references cited under § 38.

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Contribution of the Bhāra Śivas.

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subsequent emperors from Chandra Gupta Vikramāditya to Bālāditya. If there had been no Bhāra Śivas there would not have come into existence a Gupta Empire and the Gupta Vikramādityas.

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8. The history of those Bhāra Śivas is set in lapidary by the Vākāṭaka historiographer. Never so shortly, yet so pregnantly, was a history in miniature set in, as in these three lines of the copper-plate¹:

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¹ Fleet, Gupta Inscriptions, pp. 245, 236.

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amsabhāra-sannivēśita-Śiva-lingôdvahana-Śiva-suparitushṭa-samutpādita-râjavamśānām parākram=âdhigata-Bhāgîrathy=amala-jala-mûrddhā-bhishiktānām daśāśvamēdh=āvabhṛitha-snānānām Bhāraśivānām
‘Of [the dynasty of] the Bhāra Śivas whose royal line owed its origin to the great satisfaction of Śiva on account of their carrying the load of the symbol of Śiva on their shoulders—the Bhāra Śivas who were anointed to sovereignty with the holy water of the Bhāgīrathī which had been obtained by their valour—the Bhāra Śivas who performed their sacred bath on the completion of their Ten Aśvamedhas’

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9. The last Kushan emperor was Vāsudeva who was ruling up to the year 98 of the Kushan era as evident from a Mathurā inscription.² Either in the last years of Vāsudeva (c. 165 A.D.) or on his death (176 A.D.) the imperial rule of the Kushans came to an end. The end of the Kushan rule synchronizes with the rise of the Aśvamedhin Bhāra Śivas. When they rise, the power they had to face and break was the imperial Kushan.

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² Lüders, List, No. 76 (Epigraphia Indica, vol. X, supplement).

II. Identification of the Bhāra Śivas

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10. After a century of Kushan domination, a Hindu king in the person of the Bhāra Śiva king was consecrated to Hindu sovereignty with the holy waters of the Ganges. The significance of this statement is that after an interregnum of hundred years he became the first legal king. In this connection we may recall the Purāṇic statement about the foreign kings in India in those days, namely that they were not consecrated kings: naiva mūrdhābhishiktās te.

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Now, is it possible that the Purāṇas will fail to record these Mūrdhābhiṣikta kings, consecrated to the throne with Vedic hymns and Vedic rites, a line of lawful kings, who performed not one or two but ten aśvamedhas in the sacred land of the Āryas—an achievement which was not to the credit of any of the ancient dynasties of the Kali Age whom the Purāṇas have described? The Śuṅgas performed two, and the Śuṅgas are in the Purāṇic list of the Emperors. The Sātavāhanas performed two, and the Sātavāhanas have been recorded. The Bhāra Śivas, who performed ten, could not have been left out. And in fact, they have not been left out.

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11. We have in the Vākāṭaka inscriptions one of the Bhāra Śivas named, and we have in that name that he was a Nāga king—of the Bhāra Śivas—[i.e. of the dynasty of the Bhāra Śivas]—Mahārāja Śrī Bhava Nāga’. The Purāṇas describe, after mentioning the fall of the Āndhras and their contemporaries the Tukhāra-Muruṇḍa dynasty [i.e. the dynasty we now call the Imperial Kushan], the rise of Vindhyaśakti on the Kilakilā, that is, the Vākāṭaka dynasty in Bundelkhand, ‘Kilakilā’ being a river near Panna.¹ The Purāṇas in explaining the importance of the rule of the son of Vindhyaśakti begin to describe the Nāga Dynasty. The Nāga Dynasty arose at Vidiśā, the well-known seat of a viceroyalty under the Śuṅgas.

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¹ To Rai Bahadur Hira Lal I am indebted for the information that the Kilakilā is a small river near Panna. I have since ascertained, through the kind offices of Mr. Śaradā-Prasad of Satnā (Rewah) that one crosses it on the road Satnā-to-Pannā, about 4 miles E. of Pannā, and the river enters the town of Pannā. It still bears its original name. It finally falls into the Ken under the name Mahāur. Probably the entire table-land of Pannā was termed Kilakilā at the time. It agrees with the contemporary designations of other territorial units like Kosalā and Mekalā. [Since the above information I have personally seen the river and found it called ‘Kilkila’ on two tablets on its bridges in Pannā, erected in 1870 A.D., marked ‘Kilkila Bridge’.]

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12. The Purāṇas divide the Nāga dynasty of Vidiśā into two parts:

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(A) Those kings who flourished before the end of the Śuṅgas, and (B) those kings who flourished after their end.

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We must recall here that the Matsya and the Bhāgavata chronicle¹:

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¹ Pargiter, Purāṇa Text, p. 38.

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‘Suśarmāṇam praśahya (or, pragṛhya) taṃ
‘Śuṅgānāṃ ch=aiva yach=chheṣaṃ kṣapitvā tu balaṃ tadā.’

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‘[The Āndhra king] having taken Suśarman (the Kāṇva king) a prisoner and having destroyed whatever had been left of the Śuṅga power at that time.’

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This statement would refer to the Śuṅga power which had been left in Vidiśā, their ancestral home. And as the Purāṇas here are dealing with the Vaidiśa kings, the statement about the Vaidiśa Nāgas coming into power before and after the Śuṅgas, must refer to the Āndhra or Sātavāhana period when the Sātavāhanas become the emperors of Āryāvarta in addition to their being the emperors of Dakṣiṇāpatha, i.e. about 31 B.C.²

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² J.B.O.R.S., I, 116: Pushyamitra: acc. 188 B.C. Śuṅgas: 112 years } 157 Kāṇvas: 45 years } 31 B.C.

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13. The kings before 31 B.C. in the Nāga dynasty, according to the Purāṇic chronicles, were:

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(1) Śeṣa, ‘king of the Nāgas’, ‘conqueror of his enemy’s capital’ (Surapura³—according to the Brahmāṇḍa).

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³ Surapura may be Indrapura, now Indor Kherā in the Bulandshahr district, where a large number of the so-called Mathurā coins have been found. See A.S.R., XII, p. 36 ff.

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(2) Bhogin—son of King Śeṣa.

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(3) Rāmachandra, chandrāṃśu,⁴ as the second descendant, i.e. a grandson of Śeṣa.

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⁴ I do not read Chandrāṃśu separately, as the Viṣṇu Purāṇa does not read it so.

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(4) Nakhavān (or, Nakhapāna), i.e. Nahapāna.

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It is noteworthy that the Viṣṇu Purāṇa omits this name from the list, evidently for the reason that it was not to be read in the line of the Nāgas.

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(5) D h a n a -, or D h a r m a - v a r m a n (D h a r m a, according to the Vishnu).

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(6) V a ṅ g a r a.¹ The Vāyu and the Brahmāṇḍa without naming him call him the fourth descendant, i.e. he was the fourth descendant from Śeṣa; probably D h a r m a (5) was the third descendant of Śeṣa.

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¹ This name, as a name, is traceable in a village-name Vaṅgara [near Nāgaudh] in the Khoh copper-plate of Mahārāja Hastin. G.I., page 105.

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The Purāṇas, after this, make the definite division from the next king, the Bhāgavata omitting the previous names altogether and the Vāyu and the Brahmāṇḍa stating that the next kings flourished ‘after the end of the Śuṅga Dynasty’,² that is, after the conquest by the Sātavāhanas of Nahapāna, and their arrival in Central India and their conquest of the Kāṇvas and the Śuṅgas. These post-Śuṅgan Nāgas were:

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² भूति[भूत]नन्दिस्यापि वैदिशे तु भविष्यति शृङ्गानां तु कुलस्यान्ते । [Pargiter's PT., p. 49, n. 15.]

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(7) B h ū t a N a n d i o r B h ū t i N a n d i.

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(8) Ś i ś u N a n d i.

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(9) Y a ś o N a n d i [younger brother of Śiśu Nandi]; other kings are left unnamed.

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14. Before proceeding further we should notice here that the Vāyu calls these Vaidiśa Nāgas ‘V r i s h a’³—Śiva’s bull, i.e. ‘N a n d i’, with which the names of the kings coming after the close of the Śuṅga dynasty end. It seems that the title Bhāra Śiva, which was taken up later, is connected conceptually with the ‘V r i s h a’ of the Vāyu and the ‘N a n d i’ of the names.

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³ वृषान् वैदिशकांश्चापि भविष्यांश्च निबोधत । (II. 37-360.)

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15. There is a positive confirmation of the existence of these post-Śuṅgan Nāgas in the first century A.D. At P a d a m p a w ā y ā, which is the site of P a d m ā v a t ī, a statue of Yaksha Manibhadra was dedicated by some members of a public body in the fourth year of the reign of ‘K i n g S v ā m i n Ś i v a N a n d i’.⁴

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⁴ Archæological Survey of India Report, 1915-1916, p. 106, plate LVI.

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The script of the inscription is earlier than that of the early Kushans. The 'i'-vowel-marks do not curve and are straight; seriph is not developed. The style of the Yaksha image is also early. The script will place the record in the first century A.D. Śiva Nandi would be one of the unnamed kings coming after Yaśaḥ Nandi. As the Purāṇas generally omit the names when a dynasty comes under an overlordship, Śiva Nandi was probably the king superseded by Kanishka. It is stated in the Purāṇas that Padmāvatī passed under a ruler named Vinvas-phāṇi who is to be identified with the viceroy of Kanishka, Mahākshatrapa Vanaspara (§ 33). Śiva Nandi up to his fourth year was an independent king, for the inscription is dated in his regnal years and not in the Kushan Era. Under the Kushans the dating was universally in their imperial era. The royal style 'svāmī' is exactly after the fashion of the earlier Sātavāhanas.¹ It was a term denoting 'sovereign' which was borrowed from Hindu politics, and which was adopted by the early Śaka rulers of Mathurā, for instance, in the Āmohini inscriptions of Samvat 42 of the reign of 'Svāmī' Mahākshatrapa Śoḍāsa—a style which went out of use at Mathurā since the rule of Kanishka.

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¹ See Lüders, List No. 1100 for Puḷumāvi. Cf. No. 1174 for Nahapāna. See below § 26 A.

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16. It seems that from the time of Bhūta Nandi when the dynasty was re-established as treated by the Bhāgavata, they made Padmāvatī their capital. A famous Śivalingam called Svarṇabindu was established there, and seven centuries later in the time of Bhavabhūti it was popularly alleged (ākhyāyate) that it had no human origin. The platform of the Svarṇabindu Śiva has been discovered by Mr. Garde at Pavāyā.² An image of Nandi with human body and bull's head has also been found there, and also a number of sculptures in the ‘Gupta style’.

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² A.S.R., 1915-1916, p. 100 ff. On the description of Padmāvatī, see Khajuraho inscription, E.I., Vol. I, page 149. The description (1000-1 A.D.) is worth quoting. It runs:—'There was on the surface of the earth a matchless (town), decorated with lofty palaces, which is recorded to have been founded here between the golden and silver ages by some ruler of the earth, a lord of the people, who was of the Padma dynasty, (a town which is) read of in histories (and) called Padmāvatī by people versed in the Purāṇas. This most excellent (town) named Padmāvatī built in an

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17. Let us take a series of coins which, in my opinion, belongs to this early Nāga dynasty. Some of the coins are generally assigned to Mathurā. In the British Museum there are coins of Śeshadāta, Rāmadāta¹ and Śiśu-chandra-dāta. The script of the Śeshadāta coin is the oldest and belongs to the first century B.C. In the same series there are coins of Rāmadāta. These three kings, in my opinion, are identical with Śeṣha-Nāga, Rāma-chandra and Śiśu-Nandi of this dynasty. Amongst themselves they are connected by their coinage—a fact already recognised.² The coins of Śesha and Śiśu are intimately connected with those of Virasena, as already pointed by Prof. Rapson (J.R.A.S., 1900, page 115). Virasena's coin, reproduced by Prof. Rapson, has a serpent rising over the throne, on which is seated a female figure holding a jar in her up-raised right hand, the figure being evidently that of Gaṅgā. Another coin of Virasena, reproduced by General Cunningham, has a nāga standing by a male figure. The Nāga figures there, on the analogy of the coins of Nava Nāga (§ 20), complete the name as ‘Virasena Nāga’. The *Vrisha* or Nandi, serpent and *triśūla* are prominent on the Nāga coins.

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¹ Mr. Carlleye found at Indor Kherā a coin of ‘Rāma’ (Rāmasa) without the addition of dāta. A.S.R., Vol. XII, p. 43.

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² Rapson, J.R.A.S., 1900, p. 109.

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18. The word ‘dāta’ in Śiśu cham. dāta³ and Śesha dāta, Rāma dāta, etc. may not correspond to ‘datta’, as hitherto held, but to ‘dātṛi’ or ‘dātva’, which is evident in Śiśuchandra dāta—meaning ‘liberal,’ ‘sacrificer,’ ‘protector,’ ‘donor’. This is further evident from the legend ‘Rāmasa’—without dāta—on some coins of the series.⁴

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³ J.R.A.S., 1900, pl. opposite p. 97, fig. No. 14.

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⁴ A.S.I., Vol. XII, p. 43.

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unprecedented manner, was crowded with lofty rows of streets of palaces, in which tall horses were curvetting: with its shining white high-topped walls, which grazed the clouds, it irradiated the sky; (and) it was full of bright palacial dwellings that resembled the peaks of the Snowy Mountain.’

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19. There are also coins of Uttama dāta and Purusha dāta,¹ Kāma dāta and Śiva dāta (mentioned by Prof. Rapson as Kāmadatta and Śivadatta in J.R.A.S., 1900, p. 111), and also of Bhava dāta [illustrated in J.R.A.S., 1900, p. 97, pl., fig. No. 13, which, read by Prof. Rapson as Bhīmadāta, really reads as of Bhavadāta]². Against these there are the unnamed kings of the line in the Purāṇas amongst whom figures Śiva Nandi of the Pavāyā inscription who can now be easily identified with Śiva dāta of the coins.

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¹ V. Smith, C.I.M., pp. 190, 192.

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² Cf. V. Smith, C.I.M., p. 193.

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21. Thus we have the following names of the dynasty against which we have coins of this connected series:—

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| (1) | Śeṣa, Nāgarāja | .. | (coins) Śeṣa dāta. |
| (2) | Rāma chandra | .. | ,, Rāma dāta. |
| (3) | Śiśu Nandi | .. | ,, Śiśu chandra dāta. |
| (4) | Śiva Nandi (from inscription: one of the unnamed kings of the Purāṇas) | .. | ,, Śiva dāta.³ |
| (5) | Bhava [Nandi ?] [one of the unnamed kings] | .. | ,, Bhava dāta. |

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³ Described by Prof. Rapson as Siva-datta in J.R.A.S., 1900, p. 111.

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22. Whether the early Nāga princes, Śiśu Nāga and others, ruled at Mathurā or not we cannot say. For, Mathurā was the mart where coins from adjoining territories, e.g. Padmāvatī, Vidiśā, Ahichhatra, etc., came. We have, however, the Purāṇic datum that they ruled at Vidiśā and that the first king, Śeṣa, was the conqueror of his enemy's capital. In view of the fact that the Brahmāṇḍa gives Surapura as the description of the town conquered, we would be authorised in assuming that he took Indrapura, now in the Buland-shahr district, a very important town in those days⁴ where a number of coins of these early Nāgas have been found. We do find Śiva Nandi's rule extending up to Padmāvatī. In any case, the political connection of Mathurā with Vidiśā had been very old, and it was again firmly established in the later Nāga history. The presumption that the earlier Nāgas played a part in ousting the Mathurā satraps is not discounted by the fact that we have a line of kings at Mathurā with ‘Mitra’-ending names in coins found there in the period succeeding the satraps, as these coins seem to be later.¹

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⁴ A.S.R., Vol. XII, p. 36 ff.

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¹ Vincent Smith, C.I.M., p. 190.

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§ 22A. Approximately the following table will represent the chronology of the Vidiśā Nāgas:

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| The Vidiśā Nāgas' Chronology. | | |
| C. 110 B.C. to 31 B.C. | Śeṣa (110–90 B.C.) | (Coins) |
| 5 successions but four generations. | Bhogin (90–80 B.C.) | (No coins) |
| | Rāma-chandra (80–50 B.C.) | (Many coins) |
| | Dharma-varman (50–40 B.C.) | (No coins) |
| | Vangara (40–31 B.C.) | (No coins) |

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The time of the kings after 31 B.C.—probably henceforth at Padmāvatī—would be as below:

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C. 10 B.C.–10 B.C. Bhūta Nandi (No coins). 10 B.C.–A.D. Śiśu Nandi (Many coins). C. 25 A.D.–30 A.D. Yaśaḥ Nandi (No coins).

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[The unnamed kings in the Purāṇas: under whom will come, c. 50 A.D., Śiva Nandi (from the inscription of his 4th year and from coins as ‘Śiva dāta’); c. 80 to 175 A.D., comes the Kuṣan rule with the withdrawal of the Nāga kings to Purikā and Nāgapura-Nandi-vardhana in the Central Provinces (§§ 31A, 44).]

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Reconstructing the list of the early Nāgas, we get the following kings:—

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1. Śeṣa Nāga.
2. Bhogin.
3. Rāma chandra.
4. Dharma-varmā.
5. Vangara.
6. Bhūta Nandi.
7. Śiśu Nandi.
8. Yaśaḥ Nandi. [We know the relationships of the kings up to No. 8, § 13.]

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9 to 13: Purusha dāta Uttama dāta Kāma dāta Bhava dāta Śiva Nandi or Śiva dāta } Five kings from inscription and coins. (Order of succession uncertain.)

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They cover about 200 years, from about c. 110 B.C. to 78 A.D.

III. The Senior Nāga Dynasty and the Vākāṭakas

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23. The Senior Nāga dynasty merged into the Vākāṭakas by a marriage, according to the Purāṇas, which is confirmed, as we shall see, by the Vākāṭaka inscriptions. After Yaśaḥ Nandi, say the Purāṇas, ‘there will be kings in the line of Yaśaḥ Nandi’ or in the Vidiśā line:

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tasy=ānvaye bhaviṣyanti rājānas tatra yas tu vai dauhitraḥ Śiśuko nāma Purikāyāṃ nṛipo 'bhavat¹

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¹ P.T., p. 49, n. 23.

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‘In his line there will be kings, and therein he who was a daughter’s son, popularly called the Infant, became king at Purikā.² In place of rājānas tatra yas tu (dauhitraḥ), some manuscripts read rājānas taṃ [or, te] trayas tu vai, which is a clear misreading, because the article ‘te’ before ‘trayaḥ’ would not be needed, and taṃ would give no meaning. If the reading ‘trayaḥ’ (three) be there, which I doubt, it will have to be interpreted as three lines of kings arising from Yaśaḥ Nandi and not three kings, in view of what the Viṣṇu says later, that the Nava Nāgas³ ruled from three capitals, Padmāvatī, Mathurā, and Kāntipurī. The dynasty of Y a s a ḥ N a n d ī, or at least one line of it, lapsed and got merged into ‘the d a u g h t e r ’ s s o n’, popularly known as the ‘Infant’. The Nāgas had, under the evident pressure of the Kushans, left Padmāvatī. We have the definite statement in the Purāṇas that Vinvasphāṇi ruled at Padmāvatī and ruled up to Magadha (§§ 33-34). Therefore, we may take it that about 80-100 A.D. the Nāga dynasty takes shelter, away from the trunk road between Mathurā and Vidiśā, into the inaccessible jungles of the Central Provinces (§ 31 A).

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² On Purikā, see Pargiter, Ancient Indian Historical Tradition, p. 262, J.R.A.S., 1910, 445. The location agrees with Hoshangabad.

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³ ‘Nava-Nāgāḥ Padmāvatyāṃ Kāntipuryāṃ Mathurāyāṃ; anu-Gaṅgā-Prayāgaṃ Māgadhā Guptāś cha bhokṣyanti.’ As the Guptas are qualified by ‘Māgadhāḥ’, so the Nāgas are qualified by the word ‘Nava’. In both cases the Purāṇa does not give any number. It cannot mean here ‘nine’. It may mean either the ‘New’, ‘Later’, Nāgas or the Nāgas of Nava’s Dynasty. See § 26.

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24. The Purāṇas, when they reach ‘the Infant’ in the Nāga line, again take up the line of V i n d h y a - ś a k t i in the person of Vindhyaśakti's son, about whom they say that he was popularly known¹ as P r a v ī r a, ‘the Great Hero’. The Viṣṇu expressly states that the two, the Infant and the Great Hero, ruled together: ‘Śiśuka-Pravīrau.’ The Vāyu applies to them a plural verb, ‘bhokṣyanti’—a Prakritism for the dual.² The Bhāgavata omits the Infant altogether and only gives Pravīra. It is thus evident that the Purāṇic historians are signifying here that the Infant succeeded to the territories of the Nāga king, his maternal grandfather, and that in the name of the grandson (the Infant), Pravīra son of Vindhyaśakti ruled. The joint rule is emphasised by the word ‘ch=āpi’ (‘Vindhyaśakti-sutaś chāpi’) of the Vāyu and the Brahmāṇḍa. The Viṣṇu expressly places the Infant first while the Vāyu and the Brahmāṇḍa imply it. The Vāyu and the Brahmāṇḍa give a rule of 60 years to Pravīra, at ‘Purī Kāñchanakā’ or at ‘P u r i k ā a n d C h a n a k ā’³, the latter reading being, more likely, correct, owing to the presence of the ‘a n d’ [cha]. All this is fully confirmed, and fully tallies with, the known details of the Bhāra Śiva and Vākāṭaka history as contained in inscriptions (§ 25).

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¹ प्रवीरो नाम वीर्यवान्.

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² Pargiter, PT., p. 50, n. 31.

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³ ‘bhokṣyanti cha samā shashṭim purīm Kāñchanakāñ cha vai’ where, it is possible to read, following the Prakrit forms Pulakā and Chalakā of Pargiter’s e Vāyu, ‘Purīkāñ Chanakāñ cha vai’. Chanakā may be the same as Nachnā. Such transpositions of syllables are a common phonetic

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Nāga dauhitra and Pravīra-Pravarasena at Purikā and Chanakā.

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25. According to the Vākāṭaka inscriptions¹ Gautamīputra, son of the Emperor Pravarasena and father of Rudrasena I, did not succeed, but Rudrasena I both as the grandson of the Emperor Pravarasena and as the grandson of the Bhāraśiva Mahārāja Bhava Nāga, succeeded; and with this marked distinction that he comes in as the maternal grandson of the Bhāraśiva first and then as a Vākāṭaka—quite unlike Samudra Gupta who comes in the inscriptions as a Gupta king first and as a Lichchhavi grandson next. In one of the Vākāṭaka copper-plates (Bālāghāṭ—E.I., vol. IX, 270) Rudrasena I is expressly described as a ‘Bhāra Śiva’ Mahārāja [Bhāraśivānām Mahārāja-Śrī-Rudrasenasya]. The Viṣṇu Purāṇa is here thus fully supported by the Vākāṭaka dynastic inscriptions. Then, the Vākāṭaka inscriptions mark off the period at the death of Rudrasena I and separate it from the next Vākāṭaka period commencing with Pṛthivīsheṇa I, his son and successor. This is, as we shall see later, because of the extinction of the imperial position of the Vākāṭakas with the defeat and death of Rudrasena at the hands of Samudra Gupta [§ 52 ff], who calls him ‘Rudradeva’, just as in the Nepal inscriptions Vasantasena is called Vasantadeva.² At the accession of Pṛthivīsheṇa I the dynasty had completed 100 years with which the inscriptions mark off the previous period which is the period of independence: ‘varśaśatam=abhivardhamāna-kośa-daṇḍa-sādhana-’. ³ There is ‘96 years’ phenomenon. Nachnā is an ancient capital in the Ajayagarh State where Vākāṭaka inscriptions and monuments have been found. [A.S.R., XXI, 95.] The name Chanakapura is known to the Jaina literature as the older name of Rājagṛiha [Abhidhāna-Rājendra.]. Chanakā will mean ‘celebrated’. Very likely Kāñchanakā and Chanakā were alternative names. The Kalki-Purāṇa (III, 14, 2-21; Veṅkaṭeśvara ed., p. 298) gives the name of the capital of the Nāgas as Kāñchanī purī, which was a secluded (guptā) hill-fortress (giridurgāvṛitā). See also § 60 on Nachnā.

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¹ Fleet, G.I., pp. 237, 245. भारशिवानां महाराज-श्रीभवनाग-दौहित्रस्य गौतमीपुत्रस्य-पुत्रस्य वाकाटकानां महाराज-श्रीरुद्रसेनस्य

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² Fleet, G.I., Introduction, pages 186 to 191.

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³ ‘[Who belonged to an uninterrupted succession of sons and sons’ sons], whose treasure and means of government had been accumulating for a hundred years’ [Fleet].

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given to the dynasty of Vindhyaśakti in the Vāyu and the Brahmāṇḍa.¹ The ‘100 years’ of the inscription stands for what we will say to-day—‘well-nigh a century’. The result is that the identity of the Bhāraśivas with the family of Bhūta-Nandi Nāga is established.

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¹ समाः षष्णवति भूत्वा [ज्ञात्वा], पृथिवी तु गमिष्यति. P.T., p. 48, ns. 86, 88—‘On completion of 96 years, the Empire (see Part III, § 125, below) will pass away.’

IV. The Kings and Chronology of the Bhāra Śivas

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26. Classified under a tentative name [De]va we have a coin of the Kauśāmbī mint which is reproduced by Vincent Smith in the Catalogue of Indian Museum, page 206, plates XXIII, 15 and 16. The coin is ‘common in the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh’. The first letter of it has not been read with any confidence uptill now. I have compared this letter with the letters occurring in the scripts from the first century A.D. to the third and I read it as ‘Na’. The *n* is of the early Kushan type.² The coin is ‘Navasa’ and above ‘Navasa’ there is a figure of a nāga (serpent) with raised hood. It stands for the dynastic name Nāga which is expressly given on other coins of the dynastic series (§ 26B). I read it as the coin of N a v a N ā g a. The palm symbol occurring here occurs on the coins of the series and on Bhāraśiva monuments (§ 46A).

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² See the N's in E. I., vol. i, pl. opposite p. 388, no. 2A. of the year 15, no. 7 B of the year 35; cf. also in vol. ii, p. 205, no. 20 of the year 79.

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This coin has been a great puzzle to numismatists.³ Its large area point to the king having been an important figure in history. But his personality could not be discovered, his name and dynasty remained concealed. These things are certain about him:

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³ Cf. V. Smith, C.I.M., p. 199: ‘The D e v a s a class (separately numbered) is puzzling. The coins are common in the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, and a good specimen which I formerly possessed came from Kosam in the Allahabad District. The upper characters look like numerals in the old notation. The reading d e v a s a is due to Prof. Rapson. The first character, being peculiar in form, has been read

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(1) He was a king who ruled in the United Provinces.
(2) His coins were issued from Kauśāmbī where they are often found and the coins have symbols and fabric of the Hindu mint of Kauśāmbī.
(3) His coins are of the same series which Dr. Smith has published on Plate XXIII of the C.I.M., and called them ‘unassigned’ (see below, § 26 B).
(4) His coinage bears affinity with the Vidiśā-Mathurā Nāga coins.
(5) He had a reign of at least 27 years, as his coins are dated in the years 6, 20 and 27.¹
(6) By his coinage he is connected with Padmāvatī and Vidiśā on the one hand and with Virasena and the kings of the Kauśāmbī coins on the other.

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¹ V. Smith, C.I.M., p. 206.

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As we shall see in § 26 B below ‘the Kauśāmbī coins’ are really Bhāraśiva coins. Several of them bear names ending in ‘-Nāga’. This N a v a N ā g a of our coins seems to me to be no other than the king after whose name the Purāṇas designate the Nava Nāga or Nava Nāka Dynasty. He was the founder of the Nava Nāga dynasty whose official title was Bhāra-śivas. The letters on his coins being in form identical with those of the Huvishka-Vāsudeva records, we should take him as a contemporary of Vāsudeva and assign him approximately to 140-170 A.D.

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§ 26 A. About 175 or 180 A.D., we find a Nāga king re-establishing Hindu sovereignty at Mathurā. It was Virasena. The rise of Virasena is a turning point not only in the Nāga history but also in the history of Āryāvarta. His coins have been largely found in Northern India, almost all over the United Provinces, and also in the Punjab.² They are most common at Mathurā where Cunningham generally as Ne, but De appears to be the correct reading. There is nothing to indicate who Deva was.’

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² In the words of Mr. Vincent Smith, they ‘are tolerably common in the North-Western Provinces and the Punjab’. J.R.A.S., 1897, p. 876.

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| Bhāraśiva Power at Mathurā, established c. 175-180 A.D. under Virasena. | |

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ham obtained about a hundred. Carlleyle obtained thirteen at Indor Kherā, Bulandshahr district. They have been also collected in the Etah district, as well as at Kanauj and at other places in the Farukhabad district.¹ It is thus evident that he occupied Mathurā and ruled all over the Āryāvarta Doab. 'The commonest variety' of his coinage is the small rectangular piece 'with a palm tree on obverse'² and a figure seated on a throne³ (V. Smith, C.I.M., p. 191). The palm tree, as already pointed out above, is a Nāga symbol. It recurs, as we shall see later, in the architectural monuments of the Bhāraśivas (§ 46A). Another variety of his coinage is the one illustrated by General Cunningham in his Coins of Ancient India, pl. VIII, fig. 18, where a human figure⁴ probably seated, holds a standing nāga. A third issue is illustrated by Prof. Rapson in J.R.A.S., 1900, fig. 15, in the plate facing page 97, where a female figure is seated on a canopied throne and a nāga rises from the bottom of the throne up to the chhatra (canopy) as if upholding the canopy and protecting the throne. It is the figure of Gaṅgā as the right-hand holds a jar.⁵ There is a palm tree on the reverse flanked by a symbolic design of the same type on each side of the tree. The coin is artistically connected with those of Nava; the Nāga figure is made to complete the title. It is dated like Nava's. The nāga represents the dynasty and the palm tree, the royal emblem. In the issue where the nāga rises up to the chhatra of the throne, probably a double significance is artistically intended to denote Ahi-chhatra, i.e. it is the issue of the Ahi-chhatra mint. There is also an issue of the Padmāvatī mint of this king,⁶ with the legend Mahārāja V(i)

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¹ V. Smith, C.I.M., 191.

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² Ibid., p. 191.

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³ The chhatra or canopy part of the throne has been often mistaken for a crown. [Cf. C.I.M., p. 197.]

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⁴ See Plate I herein. The reproduction of Cunningham is a hand-copy, not a photograph.

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⁵ See Plate I herein. [The standing figure in the cast coin of the period in C.I.M., pl. XXIII, fig. 1 seems to be of Gaṅgā.]

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⁶ Cunningham, Coins of Mediæval India, pl. II, figs. 13 and 14.

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See also 'Catalogue of Coins in Lahore Museum', Pt. III, 128; Rodgers, C.I.M., Pt. III, pp. 32-33.

Bhāraśiva Coins

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9

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10

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11

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12

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13

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15

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16

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Traya Nāga (Indian Museum)

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[ C. I. M. Plate XXIII. ]

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18

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20

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C. A. I. Plate VIII.

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J. R. A. S., 1900, P. 97. Virasena.

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Bhāra Siva Sculptures, cir. 200 A.D., at Jānkhat.

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Probably a Makara head, bearing Virasena's inscription.

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Gaṅgā on Makara (Royal emblem of the Bhāra Sivas) forming door-jamb of a Temple.

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Lion-Capital pilaster, (Bhumara Style).

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Two-handed God (Bhumara Style).

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Indistinct Figure.

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and a figure of the peacock which is the ‘vāhana’ of the god Virasena or Mahāsena. It is the earliest coin of the series of the Padmāvatī Nāgas [§ 27]. All these coins go back to the Hindu system, both in weight and shape and in the matter of symbolic language. In other words, Virasena’s inscription. sena discarded the Kushan coinage. We have also an inscription of this king discovered by Sir Richard Burn thirty-six years¹ back, at a village called Jānkhaṭ in the Tirwa tahsil of the district of Farukhabad. It is now published in the *Epigraphia Indica*, Vol. XI, p. 85, edited by Mr. Pargiter. There are a number of broken sculptures and carved pieces, and this inscription is on the head and mouth of a sculptured animal.² It bears the same royal symbols as the coin reproduced by Prof. Rapson. There is a rough representation of a tree, which on the analogy of the coins is to be taken as a palm tree. The side decorations are the conventional marks denoting the same thing as on the coin, but the significance of which is yet undisclosed. I regard the record as one of a royal foundation on account of the royal symbols. The inscription is dated in the thirteenth year of the reign of ‘Svāmin Virasena’ (*Svāmisa Virasenasa saṃvatsare* 10, 3). The other portion of it is too fragmentary to give the object of the record. It is dated in the fourth fortnight of the summer season on the eighth day . . . . . . . . . . The letters are identical with the letters on the Ahi-chhatra coin. Further, they agree in all their characteristics with the inscriptions of Huvishka and Vāsudeva, found at Mathurā, published in vols. I and II of the *Epigraphia Indica* by Dr. Bühler. For instance, compare the inscription of the 90th year of the Kushan era given in the plate opposite page 205 in vol. II, where the heads of the perpendicular lines in ‘s’ and ‘k’ and ‘n’ are thicker. The ‘y’ in the Jānkhaṭ inscription is older in shape, but very near the shape in the record of the 90th year. Compare also the slanting vowel-marks in this inscription with the same forms in the Mathurā inscription no. 11 of the 4th year of the Kushan era in line 3, words ‘saha’ and ‘dāsena’ and in ‘dānam’, line 3 of the inscription no. 13 dated in the 18th Kushan year, also those in ‘gaṇato’ and the other ‘to’s in line 2, and in the inscription of the 98th year (kṣuṇe gaṇato). Most of the characteristics of the Jānkhat writing being earlier than the inscriptions of the time of Vāsudeva and a few being contemporary, we have to assign the record to a period not later than the time of Vāsudeva Kushan.¹

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¹ J.R.A.S., 1900, 553.

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² These pieces are undoubtedly examples of the Bhāraśiva art. Fortunately I could obtain a photograph of these. It was taken in 1909 by the Archæological Survey of India. See Plate II herein. For the photograph I have to thank Rai Bahadur Daya Ram Sahani, Director-General of Archæology. The pillar is a *Makara-toraṇa* (bracket). The female figure is the royal Gaṅgā.

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¹ Mr. Pargiter (E.I. XI. 85) has misread a passage on the date of Virasena's coins in Dr. Vincent Smith's Catalogue of Coins. Mr. Pargiter thought that Dr. Smith accepted the date about 300 A.D. for Virasena. But he missed Vincent Smith's distinction which he made between the Virasena of the coins of Cunningham and Rapson and the so-called Virasena of a later series. [The later ‘Virasena’ is really Pravarasena (§ 30)]. The result of this unfortunate mistake in regarding the two series of coins as one by Mr. Pargiter has been a sad one. Although he notes that the forms ‘Y’ and ‘V’ are found in inscriptions varying in date from the first century B.C. to the second century A.D., and that of ‘sh’ not until the second century A.D.’, yet to bring the age of the inscription in agreement ‘with Mr. V. Smith's conjecture regarding Virasena's age’ [which Dr. Vincent Smith never made about the Virasena we are concerned with] Mr. Pargiter would place the inscription in the third century A.D., and ‘very possibly’ in ‘the latter part of it’. Mr. Pargiter never realised that Dr. Smith postulated two Virasenas. Mr. Pargiter put forward two reasons for assigning a late date, both of which are absolutely untenable. One is that the bar denoting the long ‘ā’-value shows a slight curve upwards, which he regards to be a Gupta tendency and not Kushan. His second reason is that the heads of the letters in this inscription are slightly wedge-shaped. Mr. Pargiter is entirely wrong both on principle and on fact. His principle for determining a later age of an inscription is to find out as to when ‘later or new forms found in this inscription came into use’. I am not the first to question this principle. Dr. Fleet himself has questioned it by a footnote (E.I. XI 86: ‘any particular record may easily give the first available instances of types found in it, and so may carry them back to earlier times than had been previously established for them’). The two grounds of Mr. Pargiter, assuming them to be correct on fact, cannot make a record whose letters admittedly range from the first century B.C. to second century A.D. and not later, a record of the end of the third century A.D. But the facts of Mr. Pargiter are also wrong. The slight

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Virasena, like Nava, assumed full sovereignty from the first year of his reign. The Jānkhat record is dated in his own regnal years,¹ while the universal practice under the Kushan régime was to date records in the Kushan era. As in Śiva Nandi’s inscription, the title of ‘*Svāmin*’ is employed, which in the Hindu law and politics (Manu, IX, 294; VII, 167) means the ‘*sovereign-in-the-state*’. Virasena thus reverts here also to the orthodox system, as in his coinage. He adopts the ancient technical title and ignores the pompous royal style of the Kushans.

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¹ Dr. Vincent Smith was wrong in supposing it to be dated in the year 113 of the Kushan era [C.I.M., p. 192] and Sir Richard Burn was right when he read it as 13.

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The distribution of the coins and the different issues prove that Virasena ousted the Kushans from Mathurā and from the whole of the Doab of the Gaṅgā and Yamunā which constitute the present territory of the United Provinces. From the evidence of the Kushan inscriptions and the age of the coins and the inscriptions of Virasena it is certain that soon after the 98th year of the Kushan era, the new king Virasena occupied Mathurā, which we may date about the year 180 A.D. The date, therefore, of the Jānkhat inscription would be about 180-185 A.D. Virasena had a fairly long reign. His coin reproduced by General Cunningham bears a date, which I read as year 34. Giving him a reign of about 40 years, we place him from 170-210 A.D. as the sovereign replacing the Kushans.

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His predecessor N a v a N ā g a must have been an independent ruler in the eastern part of the United Provinces in the reign of Vāsudeva, and Virasena’s 10th or 13th year would have coincided with the last years of Vāsudeva. He would have thus come to the throne about 170 A.D.

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thickening of the heads of the letters are as early as the records of the year 4 of the Kushan era. (Inscription no. 11 in the plate facing page 203 of vol. II of the *Epigraphia Indica* and even earlier as in the Śuṅga inscription of Ayodhyā edited by me in J.B.O.R.S., vol. X, p. 202, and in the Pabhosā inscriptions in E.I., vol. II, p. 242, which everybody has accepted to belong to the B.C. centuries). His view about the slightly upward tendency of the ‘ā’-vowel-marks, which one would find throughout in line 1 of the Pabhosā inscription given in E.I., vol. II, plate facing page 243, and in numerous other examples, is one which cannot be entertained for a moment.

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The intimate connection between his coins and the coins of the undoubted Bhārasiva kings (§ 26 B), the Nāga emblem on his coins as if to complete his name, the period of his rise and his establishing himself at Mathurā, mark Vīrasena out as one of the earliest Bhārasiva Nāgas of the inscriptions and the Nava Nāgas of the Purāṇas.

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§ 26 B. We have discussed Vīrasena. The other kings may be taken up now. We know from the inscriptions that Bhava Nāga was a Bhārasiva and the last Bhārasiva king. Coins reveal a series of kings of his line, preceding him. They also prove that the family ruled in the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh—the area of these coins, and that there was a definite mint at Kauśāmbī of these kings. These coins hitherto have not been assigned by numismatists or historians to any dynasty. Nor has their connection inter se been realised. I discuss them in full below.

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This series of coins belongs to the Indian Museum, Calcutta. They are grouped in section X, as the ‘Unassigned Miscellaneous Ancient Coins of Northern India’. Its subdivision IV (C.I.M., pp. 205, 206) has the following coins¹:

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¹ For the sake of convenience, I reproduce these coins on Plate I. The coins have been slightly reduced in size. I have had the advantage of obtaining their casts from the Indian Museum, thanks to Mr. K. N. Dikshit.

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Serial No. 7, A.S.B., Plate No. XXIII, fig. no. 9. Dr. Smith describes it: ‘Peculiar object springing from railing. Br. na r. [Reverse]—Aśokan ja (?)’

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Serial No. 8, A.S.B., Plate No. XXIII, fig. no. 10. A tree in railings with five branches or leaves, with Brāhmī legends in characters of the second century A.D., read by Dr. Smith as Chija. On obverse: lion, railing above, Brāhmī writing, unread before.

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Serial No. 9, A.S.B., Plate No. XXIII, fig. no. 11. A smaller coin, with Brāhmī writing, read by Dr. Smith as Charāja or Charāju (large letters).

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On reverse: one Brāhmī letter in field, read by Dr. Smith as ‘la’.

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Serial No. 10, A.S.B. It is not reproduced by Dr. V. Smith. ‘Tree in railings. Obverse: lion standing, a disc above, marginal legend read by Dr. Smith as ‘traya nāgasa; before traya—‘yana (?)’. Its symbols and shape are noted to be similar to the next coin, serial no. 11, plate XXIII, fig. no. 12. [I am reproducing the coin here.]

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Serial No. 11, A.S.B., Plate No. XXIII, fig. No. 12. (Tree in railing, Brāhmī legend, read by Dr. Smith as ‘ratha yaṇa gicha m(i)ta(sa)?’ On reverse, ‘lion standing’. Over its back Brāhmī letters which Dr. Smith read, with doubt, as ‘ba’, and a letter below which he read as ‘ya’.

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Serial No. 12, I.M., Æ., Plate XXIII, 13. Dr. Smith described it: ‘Tree in railing’, ‘thunderbolt, traces of marginal legend’. [This is really reverse, not obverse.] [‘Reverse—Tree in railing, and obscure symbols; marginal Br. legend’ (?) ga bhemanapa (or,-ha).]

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[Just below the group of the above coins, under sub-heading (2), Dr. Smith has catalogued 8 coins which he, with doubt, read as coins of ‘Deva’ (pp. 206, 207, 199). They, as pointed out above, really belong to Nava (Nāga). These coins have the same tree in railings which is to be found on the coins above-noticed and which he and other numismatists call the ‘Kosam’ symbol (Plate XXIII, figs. 15 and 16). The reverse bears sometimes the bull and sometimes the elephant. The obverse has a small hooded nāga above the name of the king.]

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The following peculiarities of these coins are to be noted:

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The ‘five-branched’ tree in railings is identical on figures 10, 12, 15 and 16, and serial no. 13. The shape and form of 12, 15 and 16 are identical. The size of 10 is larger but the shape is the same. The size of 11 is very small but the shape is the same. A look at these coins will convince one that they belong to the same series. Further, all these coins are dated.

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Serial No. 10, not reproduced by Dr. Smith, has been studied by me. I have examined casts of the coin. The reading traya nāgasa, about which Dr. Smith was certain, is clear and correct.¹ I reproduce this coin from a cast. In photographing, it has become slightly reduced. Its real size is just the same as of the serial no. 12, plate XXIII, fig. 13 of Dr. Smith. It has the same tree-symbol as the others. Tra begins near the bottom of the railing. There are no letters before it. There might have been a figure-symbol there, but I am not certain about it. What Dr. Smith read as sa in Nāgasa is probably sya. Over the lion, on reverse, sun and moon [not ‘disc’] are in relief. Its great value lies in the fact that it establishes the Nāga coinage of these issues of the United Provinces. About the findspot of the ‘Deva’ [cor. Nava] series, Dr. Vincent Smith has given his opinion that they evidently belong to the Kosam mint, as a coin of that series he received from Kauśāmbī, and the particular tree-symbol is known to be connected with the Kauśāmbī mintage. I now give my reading of the published coins of the series.

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¹ I have to thank Mr. N. Majumdar of the Indian Museum for the casts of this coin and of Serial no. 12 of C.I.M., p. 206. The letter Tra is clear on the cast, though not in my photograph.

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Serial nos. 8 and 9 [Pl.-figs. 10 and 11] bear the same name. They read Charaja. The letters on no. 8 read Charaja; the ‘ra’ being between ‘cha’ and ‘ja’ was missed by Dr. Smith on account its being finer than the other letters. The second line on the obverse of this coin (Plate XXIII, fig. 10) reads nāgaśa; and above the lion (reverse) there are the figure-symbols for 20, 8 (28)². It is thus the coin of Charja Nāga dated in his 28th year. Chara is a name of Maṅgala, i.e. Mars.

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² There is a fragmentary letter before 20, probably sa=year.

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Serial no. 11 (Plate-figure no. 12) reads ‘[Śri] Haya-Nāga-śa, 20, 10’. What Dr. Smith read as ‘ra’, taking it to be a perpendicular stroke, is probably part of Ś[ri]. What he read as ‘tha’ is really a ‘ha’ and his ‘nāgi’ is ‘nāga’. What he read as ‘cha’ I read as the figure for 20. His ‘ma’ stands for the figure ‘10’. There is no ‘ta’ and ‘sa’ about which he himself was doubtful; a part of the foundation of the railings was supposed by Dr. Smith to be writing. On the top of the reverse side, what Dr. Smith read doubtfully as ‘ba’ and ya on its top is the taurine symbol. There is no letter below the animal. Dr. Smith’s has the reverse upside down. The whole legend is: [*Śri*] Haya-Nāgaśa; 30.

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