History of India, c. 150 A.D. to 350 A.D.: Naga–Vakataka Imperial Period c14.s4: IV. The Kings and Chronology of the Bhāra Śivas

History of India, c. 150 A.D. to 350 A.D.: Nāga–Vākāṭaka Imperial Period c14.s4

Language: English

c14.s4.t1 Bhāraśiva Coins — 144 parts

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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Traya Nāga (Indian Museum)

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[ C. I. M. Plate XXIII. ]

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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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Here we should take the coin of the smaller denomination, Serial no. 7, plate XXIII, fig. no. 9. Dr. Smith read only one letter—*na* on the obverse, and one letter on the reverse as Aśokan *ja*. The so-called Aśokan *ja* is the figure-symbol for 6, and it is the date. The obverse reads *sa ya ha*. The legend reads in the reverse way—a feature not unknown on coins and seals. It has to be read from the right beginning with *ha*. It is Hayasa [=Haya-Nāga’s]. It should be compared with the smaller coin of Charaja for its small size, with which it agrees.

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The small coin of ‘Charaja’ has on its reverse a date. Dr. Smith read it as ‘*la*’. I read it as the symbol-figure 30. The coin is of a smaller denomination and was struck after his bigger coin.

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Serial no. 12, [plate XXIII, fig. no. 13]: I read on the obverse [misdescribed by Smith as reverse]: [*Śri*] *Ba[r]hinasa*; the left-side leaves of the tree are combined with the tail of a peacock, i.e. looked at from the bottom they are branches, turning the coin upside down the branches become the tail of the peacock. The peacock represents the name of the king [Barhina]. The reverse bears the same tree and a legend which is partially worn out; I read from a cast: [*Nā]ga[sa*]. What Dr. Smith took as *vajra* has probably the symbol for 7 at the bottom of a taurine symbol.

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We have thus four kings after Nava Nāga and Vīrasena, namely, H a y a N ā g a who ruled for 30 years or more, C h a r j a N ā g a who also ruled for 30 years or more, B a r h i n a N ā g a (7 years), and T r a y a N ā g a whose years we do not yet know. The script of the coin of H a y a N ā g a is the earliest and is referable to the period of Vīrasena. He should be placed immediately after Vīrasena, i.e. c. 210 A.D. It should be noted that the coins of all these kings bear dates and the palm tree, which, according to Prof. Rapson, is also on the coin of Vīrasena.

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and which I have identified with the tree-symbol in his inscription. The tree is essentially the same as on these Bhāraśiva coins. Giving the latter four kings 80 years after 210 A.D. (Virasena) we get approximately their date as 210-290 A.D. Some of these kings evidently had long reigns; probably some younger sons succeeded as in the case of the imperial Guptas. The date for Bhava Nāga, c. 300 A.D., I have assigned on the considerations of the Vākāṭaka and Gupta chronology [§ 67, 68]. Bhava Nāga was a contemporary of Pravarasena I, who was an elder contemporary of Samudra Gupta. Thus the dates for these kings as allotted here receive an indirect corroboration from the date of Bhava Nāga.

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The Nava Nāgas of the main line or the Bhāraśivas may be listed as follows on the consideration of the lettering on their coins and their artistic connection inter se:

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This agrees fully with the Purāṇas which give 7 successions to the Nava Nāgas.¹ We shall now take up the subsidiary dynasties of the Nava Nāgas at Padmāvatī and other centres and the question of the seat of the senior, the Bhāraśiva, line.

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¹ Nāgā bhokshyanti sapta vai—V., Br.; PT., 53.

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27. The period of the Kushan imperial rule is of about a century. This is to be gathered from the Kushan inscriptions at Mathurā running up to the 98th year of their era which falls under the reign of Vāsudeva and after which we get no date for Vāsudeva.¹ The Bhāraśivas reissuing from the jungles of Hoshangabad and Jubalpur, seem to have reached the Ganges through Baghelkhand. The place where the road from Baghelkhand brings one to the Ganges is the old fort of Kantit² between the towns of Mirzapur and the Goddess Vindhyavāsinī or modern Vindhyāchal. This Kantit seems to represent the Kānti-purī of the Vishnu. I found in the fort on a stone pillar-slab the name Kānti in modern Devanāgarī. It is a large mud fort, about a mile long, on the Ganges, marked with several pieces of Gupta sculpture³ and a big stepped well. It is now in the zemindari of the Rajas of Kantit who are the direct descendants of the Gāhaḍwāla kings of Kanauj and Benares. The fort was destroyed in Muhammadan times and the Raja's seat was removed into the neighbouring hills at Bijayapur and Māṇḍā where the family, now in two branches, reside. The local tradition at Kantit is that long before the ‘Gaharwārs’ the fort belonged originally to the Bhar kings. The ‘Bhar’ kings here are evidently a corruption of the ‘Bhāraśiva’ kings, and not the Bhar tribe of whose rule in Mirzapur-Vindhyachal there is no evidence. The same tradition is repeated about the ‘Bhar Deul,’⁴ once a magnificent Śiva’s temple covered all over with the figures of Nāga [Serpent-] kings, built near Maughāt in the Vindhya hills, 25 miles to W.S.-W. of Allahabad. It is in the region of Bhārahut⁵ (=Bhāra-bhukti), ‘Bhāra Province’. We have no historical fact proving the existence of a rule of the aboriginal Bhars in historical times in the district of Mirzapur, Allahabad and the neighbourhood. The tradition stands explained if it is taken to refer to the Bhāraśiva dynasty. The name Bhar deul which is prominently associated with Nāgas in sculpture and in popular tradition recorded by Kittoe in whose time it was called the ‘Temple of Karkoṭ Nāg,’ evidently supports the view that the ‘Bhar’ here stands for Bhāra Śiva. The place names Nāgaudh¹ and Nāgadeya mark the occupation by the Nāga kings of Baghelkhand, and so does Bhārahut and also probably Bhar deul.²

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¹ J.B.O.R.S., XVI, 311, Lüders, List, nos. 76-77, E.I., X, App., p. 8. The Rāja-Taraṅgiṇī (C.I., 169-172) also gives only three generations to the Turushka rule in Kashmir: Hushka (Huvishka) Jushka (Vāsishka) and Kanishka, put in an order from the last, backwards.

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² See A.S.I., XXI, 108 ff. on Kantit in Muhammadan times.

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³ There is a characteristic Gupta statue of Sūrya, about 7 ft. in height, there. It is worshipped at present as Bhairava guarding the fort gate.

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⁴ A.S.R., Vol. XXI, plates 3 and 4, description at pages 4-7.

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⁵ I heard the name pronounced as Bhārahut and Bharahut. Its original will be Bhāra-bhukti, ‘the Bhāra Province’.

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¹ I have passed this town three times. It is called Nāgaudh and Nāgod. The form Nāgaudh would mean the ‘boundary’ (avadhi) of the Nāgas’. Cf. the use of avadhi in this sense in the Matsya, 113. 10.

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² The roof of this temple was flat, with sloping stones over the verandah. The cusped bracket, which is a restoration on the plate by Cunningham, is found generally in mediæval architecture, but no one can be definite as to how ancient its origin is. The large bricks found there and other features are decidedly early.

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The situation of Kantit³ admirably suits the Bhāraśiva history for their descent on the Ganges from Baghelkhand. The Viṣṇu Purāṇa has:—

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³ Yule identified Kindia of Ptolemy with Mirzapur. See McCrindle, Ptolemy, p. 134.

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‘Nava-nāgā Padmāvatyaṁ Kāntipuryāṁ Mathurāyāṁ’

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It is significant that the other Purāṇas omit Kāntipurī. The reason for this may be the absorption of the line of Bhava Nāga into the Vākāṭaka line. In place of the ‘Bhāraśivas’ the Purāṇic designation is the ‘Nava Nāgas’. The first, the Vidiśā Nāgas, i.e. Śeṣa to Vangara, are the earlier Nāgas; from Bhūta Nandi, when the style of the name changes to Nandi (‘Vṛiṣa’), then or certainly at their re-rise about 150-170 A.D., they are the Bhāraśivas. The coins of King Nava and his successors are marked off from the earlier coins of the Nāgas by dropping ‘dāta’ and adopting ‘Nāga’. The Bhāgavata does not mention the Nava Nāgas but concerns itself with the princes from Bhūta Nandi to Pravīraka. The Nava Nāgas, to the author of the Bhāgavata, are therefore covered by the line of Bhūta Nandi and the rule of Pravīraka. Pravīra-Pravarasena was guardian to Rudrasena ‘the Infant’, and according to the other Purāṇas they two ruled together. The Viṣṇu Purāṇa which had some materials not used by others, gives the order of the Capitals as Padmāvatī-Kāntipurī-Mathurā. It probably implies that the original seat of the Nāgas was Padmāvatī and the next seat was Kāntipurī and the third was Mathurā. This is verified by the known facts. Bhūta Nandi's line, up to Śiva Nandi and about half a century later, was at Padmāvatī. Padmāvatī then passes to the Kushan viceroys [§§33-34]. The Bhārasivas in the latter days of the imperial Kushans, about 150 A.D., reach Kāntipurī on the Ganges. They performed their aśvamedhas¹ and coronations at or near Benares where the place Nagwā, the present site of the Hindu University, seems to be associated with their name. From Kāntipurī they move westwards and under Virasena, who strikes coins extensively and whose coins are found from the east of Ahichhatra up to Mathurā, regains Padmāvatī and Mathurā. The early coins with the letters 'Vi'² and 'V(.)' amongst the Padmāvatī coins are the first of the Padmāvatī series, and belong to Virasena. The peacock on the reverse of these two coins is the well-known symbol of Virasena who seems to be the same as Mahāsena, meaning the general of the Gods. As Bhīma Nāga and Skanda Nāga both follow the peacock design,³ these two princes seem to have followed Virasena. For though with Skanda the peacock is connected, with Bhīma it is unconnected. Virasena having reached Mathurā and even beyond, Indor Kherā, where his coins have been largely dug out⁴, would have naturally recovered the old Nāga territories in western Bundelkhand which had passed under the Kushan rule a century back.

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¹ 'Haya'-Nāga was probably a name given to a child born after one of the 'Aśvamedhas.

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² It is read as 'kh(a)' by Cunningham but I read it as 'Vi', as the hook turns upwards disclosing it to be an i-mark, and identify it with the series having Mahārāja V(.), as the reverse of both and their letterings are identical (Cunningham, Coins of Mediæval India, Plate II, Nos. 13 and 14).

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³ Cunningham, Coins of Mediæval India, Plate II, Nos. 15 and 16, p. 23.

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⁴ Cunningham, A.S.I., Vol. XII, pp. 41-42.

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28. The Purāṇas advisedly use the term Nava Nāgas. For if they used the term Bhāraśiva or their own term Vaidiśaka or Vṛisha Nāgas, the idea of their revival as practically a new dynasty would have been lost and the practical break by the intervention of the Kushan rule would have been lost and confused. After describing the empire of the Vindhyakas, i.e. the Vākāṭakas, the Purāṇas total up and close the Nava Nāgas immediately before beginning the imperial line of the Guptas and their empire. The reason for doing this was the peculiar situation of Rudrasena the Śiśuka, who, though a grandson of Pravarasena Vākāṭaka, had succeeded as a Bhāraśiva dauhitra, so much so that the Vākāṭaka plates of Bālāghāṭ describe him only as a Bhāraśiva Mahārāja and not also as a Vākāṭaka.¹ And as we shall see below [Part II, § 64], it was Rudrasena, described as Rudra Deva (‘His Majesty’, or ‘King’ Rudra) who was killed in battle by Samudra Gupta. The Nāga line thus continued up to the time of Samudra Gupta in the Vākāṭaka period. The position of the Nava Nāgas, both chronological and territorial, is accurately given by the Purāṇas. They are placed between Vi(n)vasphāṇi (the Kushan viceroy) who ruled in Magadha and at Padmāvatī and the Guptas of Magadha who are said in the Viṣṇu to have risen while the Nava Nāgas were ruling. And this insertion is made in the general history of Magadha which starts as a new section after the Vākāṭaka imperial history. The Nava Nāgas were not only rulers of the United Provinces but also of both eastern and western Bihar, for the Vāyu and the Brahmāṇḍa in all their copies describe their capitals both as Mathurā and Champā² (‘Champāvatī’—Bhagalpur). That the Guptas established a government of their own at Champā (as we shall see in Part III, below) is especially noticed by the Purāṇas when dealing with the Gupta imperial system.¹ The Gupta emperor there was substituting himself in the Bhāraśiva-Vākāṭaka system.

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¹ Legally the Bhāraśiva dynasty superseded the Vākāṭakas in the person of Rudrasena I (a putrikāputra), and the Vākāṭaka imperial dynasty and rule ended with Pravarasena I from that point of view.

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² There were only two Champās—one in Aṅga, now Champānagar at a distance of about 5 miles from Bhagalpur, and an old town with Jaina temples to Vāsupūjya who was born and died at Champā; and the other was in the hills now called Chambā.

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¹ The Purāṇas are specially full on the Vākāṭaka and Gupta Empires. The chronicles of those periods seem to have been composed in the Vākāṭaka country where, in the Vākāṭaka secretariat, the details of both could be easily available. The imperial system of the Andhras is also attempted in the Purāṇas by recording their feudatories [see Part IV, below], though not in such detail. As in the case of the Vākāṭakas they go back to the early Nāga history from the imperial land-mark of the merging of the Nāgas into the Vākāṭakas, so also in the Andhra history they go back to the origin, from the point of imperial succession to the Magadha throne. The Purāṇas have thus followed a system of going back to the beginning of a dynasty from a critical point and giving the earlier history of the imperial families. This they have done in the case of the Andhras, the Vindhyakas and the Nāgas, and they would have done so regarding the Guptas if they could give their full history. Yet the earlier history of the Guptas is attempted in the Viṣṇu (see Part iii, § 122).

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29. The system of the Nāga Government was a federation consisting of (1) three main monarchical Nāga families, one of which the Bhāraśivas, was the imperial leader, with a number of gubernatorial families under them, and (2) a number of republics. Two branches—at Padmāvatī and Mathurā—were set up by the Bhāraśivas, with distinguishing dynastic titles of their own. The Padmāvatī dynasty had the official designation—the Ṭāka-vaṃśa, which is given in the Bhāvaśataka, a book dedicated to Gaṇapati Nāga (§ 31). The Mathurā family had the official title—the Yadu-vaṃśa, which is given in the drama Kaumudimahotsava written about the same time as the Bhāvaśataka. The two titles incidentally furnish ethnological data regarding the Nava Nāgas. They were Yādavas and had migrated from the Ṭakka-deśa [in the Punjab].² The Mathurā family never minted any coin. But the Padmāvatī family did so from the beginning to the end. They were thus a sovereign family, and their subordination to the Bhāraśivas was evidently of an imperial type. The Mathurā family and the family to which Nāgadatta (father of Mahārāja Maheśvara Nāga of the Lahore seal) belonged and who ruled somewhere in the Ambālā district, probably at the old capital Srughna, seem to have been under the direct control of the Bhāraśivas. There was a ruling family at or near Indrapura (Indor Kherā) in the district of Bulandshahr. At Bulandshahr the seal of Mattila with a Nāga symbol (Śaṅkha-pāla)¹ and without the title ‘rājan’ was found. This Mattila has been identified by Growse and Fleet with the Matila of Samudra Gupta’s inscription². This area is described as the governorship of Antarvēdi (western part of the land between the Gaṅgā and the Yamunā) in the Indor plates issued by a Nāga ruler of the name of Śarva Nāga, governor of Skanda Gupta.³ Nāga-datta, Nāga-sena or Matila or their ancestors did not strike any coin, nor did any governor of Ahichhatra in the time of the Bhāraśivas. At Ahichhatra the ruler called Achyuta on his coins and Achyuta Nandi in Samudra Gupta’s inscription, strikes his coins for the first time, but that was under the Vākāṭakas, which indicates that the Vākāṭakas set up a feudatory family next-door to the Province of Kośala [Oudh], probably as a counterpoise against the Lichchhavis and the Guptas. As far as the Bhāraśiva government is concerned, we find only two sovereign centres—Kāntipurī and Padmāvatī. The seat at Champāvatī (Bhagalpur), given by the Vāyu and the Brahmāṇḍa⁴, was evidently a subordinate seat, as we find no coins of Champāvatī. As we shall see in due course [§§ 132, 140], in Samudra Gupta’s inscription the Āryāvarta rulers are divided into two groups—one beginning with Gaṇapati Nāga, which is the group of the kings killed in the first Aryāvarta War of Samudra Gupta, and the other being the group of those rulers who were attacked in or after the second campaign and who are enumerated in territorial order beginning with Rudra Deva, i.e. Rudrasena the Vākāṭaka. The first group is headed by Gaṇapati Nāga; he was the chief sovereign among the Nāga rulers in the Vākāṭaka times, which is confirmed by the Bhāvaśataka (§ 31). The republics in Malwā and Rajputana and probably also the Kuṇindas in the Punjab, who strike their respective coins in the Bhārasiva times, were also sovereign members of the Bhārasiva Federation (§ 43).

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² See Cunningham, A.S.R., Vol. II, p. 6 ff. on the Ṭakkas and Ṭakka-deśa, and p. 14 ff. on the Yādavas in the same area. Hemachandra in his Abhidhāna-Chintāmaṇi (IV. 25) equates Vāhīka with Ṭakka.

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¹ See Part III on Gupta history (§ 140). I.A., XVIII, p. 289, pl., where a conch and a serpent are sculptured. Light radiates from the serpent's body.

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² I.A., XVIII, 289.

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³ G.I., p. 68.

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⁴ Nava-Nākās [Nāgās] tu bhokshyanti purīm Champāvatīm nṛipāḥ. P.T., p. 53.

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§ 29 A. The Purāṇas give to the Padmāvatī and the Mathurā Nāgas—or, in view of the Viṣṇu, to the Padmāvatī-Kāntipuri-Mathurā Nāgas—seven successions (p. 28 above). This is fully borne out by the names gathered from the coins and inscriptions as tabulated below.

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BHĀRASIVAS: Rise at Kāntipurī, c. 140 A.D.

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[*Vākāṭaka Suzerainty begins c. 284 A.D.*]

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¹ Cunningham read only ‘Vyāghra..’ but the plate [C.M.I., Pl. II, fig. 22] shows ‘Vyāghra-Nāga’.

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*Gubernatorial Nāga families.*

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My reasons for assigning the above order in the succession of the P a d m ā v a t ī kings are these: G a n a p a t i N ā g a is the last king; about his date we are certain from the date of Samudra Gupta. As he has left several thousands of coins—in fact, he has left the largest number of coins out of all the kings of Hindu times—we have to assign to him a long reign. The issues of his coins are also many (I have counted about 8). I have, therefore, given him a reign of 35 years. B h i m a N ā g a’s coins immediately follow V i r a s e n a’s; and S k a n d a N ā g a’s coinage follows his. D e v a N ā g a seems to have immediately preceded Ganapati Nāga, for they both add at times ‘Indra’ (A.S.R., 1915-16, p. 105) behind their names—Devendra, Ganendra. Between B r i h a s p a t i N ā g a and V y ā g h r a N ā g a, the latter preceded immediately Deva Nāga, as both have the [Vākāṭaka] imperial wheel-mark [§§ 61A, 102¹] on their coins.

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¹ See also Appendix at the end, on the Durehā Pillar.

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In the M a t h u r ā dynasty, the last name, N ā g a s e n a, is taken from the record of the conquest of Samudra Gupta. His seat, on the basis of Samudra Gupta’s inscription, which is discussed in Part III below, seems to be, almost certainly, at Mathurā. K i r t i s h e n a is described in the *Kaumudī-mahotsava* as a friend of S u n d a r a - v a r m a n and as the father-in-law of K a l y ā ṇ a - v a r m a n, son of Sundara-varman, who dispossessed C h a n d r a G u p t a I from Pāṭaliputra. His date is discussed in Part III in the Gupta history [§ 133]. On the basis of that date N ā g a - s e n a is given only 4 years and Kirtisheṇa, *c.* 315–340 A.D. To complete seven successions there should have been three more kings after Virasena at Mathurā. The Nāgasena of the Harsha-charita was a prince at Padmāvatī and not at Mathurā, and he probably flourished under the Guptas as he has left no coin at Padmāvatī.

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The Ahichhatra family is located from the coins of Achyuta and the occurrence of his name in Samudra Gupta's inscription, which I discuss in Part III. His coins bear the same imperial wheel-mark (C.I.M., Pl. XXII, 9) as the coin of Devasena of Padmāvatī (C.M.I., Pl. II, 24). I restore the territorial unit, the province of Antarvedī, from the Indor plates of Skanda Gupta's reign, issued by Śarva Nāga, governor (vishayapati) of the Province (G.I., p. 70). I regard Indrapura [Indor Kherā] as its capital on account of its probable mention in the Brahmāṇḍa as Surapura and on account of the antiquity of the place, where also the Indor plates were found. Śarva Nāga was very likely a descendant of Matila whom I discuss in Part III (§ 140). The location of Nāga-datta of Samudra Gupta's inscription is discussed in Part III (§ 140). His headquarters must have been at or near Srughna, in the Ambala district. His son's seal was found at Lahore (G.I., p. 282) who, in his time, must have ruled as a Gupta feudatory or servant. The seat of Champāvatī is mentioned in the Vāyu and the Brahmāṇḍa, but names of the rulers have not yet been found.

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30. As we have been dealing here with the Bhāraśiva coins, I may discuss a coin which has been taken as a coin of Virasena but which I take to be a Vākāṭaka coin, of Pravarasena I. It belongs to the same series as the coins we have been noticing. It is of the old orthodox Hindu type, post-Kushan in script and pre-Guptan in style. The coin is illustrated in the Catalogue of the Coins of the Indian Museum by Dr. Vincent Smith on plate No. XXII, fig. no. 15¹ It is read by him as 'V(i)rasenasa'. He reads the 'i' doubtfully, and although he takes the coin on the whole as a coin of Virasena, yet he says that this is subsequent to the coins of the earlier Virasena.² His estimate of the difference between the two in point of time and the decision to take it as belonging to another and a later king is correct, but he is incorrect in reading the name as ‘Virasena’. I read the legend on the coin as Pravarasenas[y]a, reading ‘Pra’ as the first letter in the left-hand bottom-corner, beginning the legend with it. And I also read as 76 [70, 6], below the name. On the obverse there is seated a female figure with a jar in her right hand, which denotes that it is the figure of the River Goddess Ganges [cf. § 17].¹ In the right-hand bottom corner there is the Vākāṭaka wheel which we meet at Nachnā and Jāso (see last App.).

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¹ See Plate III herein.

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² C.I.M., p. 192, p. 197, n. 2.

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¹ There is no ‘rayed crown’ on the head of the figure (C.I.M., p. 197), but it is the canopy (chhatra) part of the throne. See also § 61 below on Vākāṭaka coins.

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§ 31. The family history of Gaṇapati Nāga has been yielded by a manuscript in Mithilā of a poetic work written in the reign of Gaṇapati Nāga and dedicated to him. The author says that both ‘Vāk’ (Sarasvatī) and ‘Padmālayā’ (=Padmāvatī) adore the Nāga king (Nāgarāja)² whose name he gives in verse as ‘Gajavaktra Śrī (the “Elephant-faced Majesty”) Nāga’.³ In one of the verses he says that by looking at ‘Gaṇapati,’ the other Nāgas feel afraid.⁴ The king is called the overlord of Dhārā (Western Malwa).⁵ His family is described as Ṭaka vaṃśa and his gotra is called Karpaṭi. Neither his father, Jālapa, nor his grandfather, Vidyādhara, was king; he evidently succeeded from a collateral line. The name of the book is ‘Bhāva-śataka’ which consists of a little over a hundred verses, 95 verses of which are mostly on sentiments. Every verse is complete in itself with one poetic idea, as in Amaru. Many verses, however, are in praise of Śiva who was the iṣṭa devatā of the author’s patron. The author’s patron is described as of a severe and austere character, who did not take interest in beautiful women and who is noted to be of a warlike temperament and a veteran warrior. The book is printed in the Kāvyamālā series, Part IV, 1899, pages 37 to 52.¹ But in the second śloka of the Kāvyamālā text the name of the king is wrongly given as Gatavaktra-Śrīr Nāgarājaḥ,² while in the Mithilā manuscript it is Gajavaktra-Śrīr Nāgarājaḥ, i.e. Śrī Gaṇapati Nāgarāja, which led me to identify the king with Gaṇapati Nāga. The Tāk Nāgas living near Jammu and elsewhere in the Punjab are well known.³ Their royal race is mentioned by the chronicles of Rajputana, Chandbardai and Muhammadan historians. Their gotra Karpaṭi is to be traced in the Mahā-Bhārata where we have the Five Karpaṭas placed in the company of the Mālavas in the Punjab-Rajputana region, evidently as republican communities.⁴ The Nāga family seems to have been akin to their next-door neighbours the Mālavas who were worshippers of Karkoṭa Nāga and had migrated from the Punjab to Rajputana (see Pt. III of this book, §§ 145-6).

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2-3 Jayaswal, Cat. of Mithilā MSS., Vol. II, 105. नागराज-सम [प्रतं] ग्रन्थं नागराजेन तन्मता । अकारि गजवक्त्र-श्रीर्नागराजो गिरां गुरुः ॥ २ ॥

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4-5 पन्नगपतयः सर्वे वीक्षन्ते गणपतिं भीताः (80). धाराधीशः (62).

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¹ 1-2 On character see verses 76, 66, 62, etc. See Kāvyamālā text, verses 1, 98-100, where the family is described.

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² 1-2 On character see verses 76, 66, 62, etc. See Kāvyamālā text, verses 1, 98-100, where the family is described.

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³ Cunningham, A.S.R., Vol. II, p. 10. For Ṭakkārikā a Bhaṭṭa village in Madhyadeśa in the Middle Ages, see I.A., XVII, 245.

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⁴ See my Hindu Polity, Part I, page 156; M.Bh., Sabhā, C. XXXII, verses 7-9.

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31 A. The Nandi-Nāgas, when they leave Padmāvatī and Vidiśā in the Kushan period about 80 A.D., migrate to the Central Provinces where they live and rule in the security of mountain fastnesses for over half a century. There is a definite piece of evidence of their occupation of the district Nāgpur (C.P.). The Deoli plates of the Rāṣṭrakūṭa king Kṛṣṇarāja II (E.I., Vol. V, p. 188) which was found within a few miles of Nagpur, the modern capital of the Central Provinces, and is dated in the Śaka year 852 (940-41 A.D.) describes the gifted estate to be in the district of ‘Nāgapura-Nandivardhana’. Now, both these names are connected with the Nandi-Nāgas. We find Nandivardhana much earlier than this inscription, going back right to the time of the Vākāṭakas who were the immediate successors of the Bhāraśiva Nāgas. In the Poona plates of Prabhāvatī Guptā, edited in E.I., vol. XV, p. 39, the town of Nandivardhana figures. This Nandivardhana has been identified by Rai Bahadur Hira Lal, as pointed out by Mr. Pathak and Mr. Dikshit in E.I., XV, p. 41, with Nagardhan, which is 20 miles from Nagpur.¹ The name Nandivardhana could not have come into existence under the Vākāṭakas or the Bhāraśivas when the title Nandi had dropped, and would go back to a period before the Bhāraśiva rise. When the Nāga kings left Padmāvatī and Vidiśā they at the time bore the dynastic style Nandi. It seems that the Nandi-Nāgas for about half a century made the country on the other side of the Vindhyas in the Central Provinces their place of refuge and haven of freedom where the Kushans could not reach. This migration of an Āryāvarta dynasty into the heart of the Central Provinces has a tremendous effect upon the subsequent history which united Āryāvarta with a part of Dakṣiṇāpatha in the reign of the Bhāraśivas and their successors the Vākāṭakas. From 100 A.D. up to 550 A.D. the Central Provinces became absolutely interwoven and one with the Vindhyan Āryāvarta, i.e. Bundelkhand—a unity which has obtained and come down to our own days. A part of Bundelkhand and the Nagpur part of the ancient Dakṣiṇāpatha have remained a Hindusthānī province, wholly become Northern in race, language and culture; and Āryāvarta has been *de facto* extended up to the confines of the Nirmal range. This is a legacy of the history of those sixty years of the Nāga exile. From Nagpur up to Purikā (Hoshangabad) on one side and through Seoni and Jabalpur on the other, they maintained touch respectively with Eastern Malwā (from which they had been dispossessed) and with Baghelkhand (Rewah) through which ultimately they reached the Ganges. This new home became the second and subsequent home of the Vākāṭakas in the Gupta time and led to the enrichment of Ajaṇṭā, which had been throughout its main history under the influence and direct possession of the Bhāraśivas and the Vākāṭakas. The art of Ajaṇṭā in the main is the Nāgara (Bhāraśiva) and Vākāṭaka art; Ajaṇṭā passed hands from the Sātavāhanas to the Bhāraśiva-Vākāṭakas about 250-275 A.D.

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¹ Hira Lal, *Inscriptions in C.P. and Berar*, p. 10. Nāga-vardhana = Nagardhana

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§ 32. Up to the reign of Skanda Gupta there were some Nāga feudatories, as Skanda Gupta is described to have dealt severely with a Nāga rebellion.¹ Chandra Gupta II married a Nāga princess, Kubera-Nāgā, who was mahādevī and the mother of Prabhāvati Guptā, and, if not identical with Dhruva-Devī, was probably the second wife of Chandra Gupta. A Nāga family of feudatories in Koṭā, Rajputana, is found in the Middle Ages.² The Nāgavaṁśī families of the Bastar inscriptions, published by Rai Bahadur Hira Lal, descend very likely from the Nāgas of the Central Provinces who have left a memorial to their name in the place-namee Nāgpur³ and Nagar(var)-dhana, and are the probable remnants of the Bhāraśiva occupation.

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Linked texts (20)

Matsyapurāṇa — Vyāsa, Sanskrit
Mānava Dharmaśāstra — Manu & Bhṛgu, Sanskrit
Kathāsaritsāgara — Somadeva Bhaṭṭa, Sanskrit
Bhāgavatapurāṇa — Vyāsa, Sanskrit
Brahmāṇḍapurāṇa — Vyāsa, Sanskrit
Rājataraṅgiṇī — Kalhaṇa, Sanskrit
Vāyupurāṇa — Vyāsa, Sanskrit
Palitana plates of Dharasena II, [Valabhī] year 252, Vaiśākha ba. 15 — Sanskrit
Epigraphia Indica
Mahābhārata — Vyāsa, Sanskrit
Purāṇa — Sanskrit
Viṣṇupurāṇa — Vyāsa, Sanskrit
Bṛhatkathā
Kauśāmbī
Abhidhānacintāmaṇi — Hemacandra, Sanskrit
Kaumudīmahotsava — Sanskrit
Vṛddhagārgīyajyotiṣa — Garga, Sanskrit
Bhāvaśataka — Nāgarāja, Sanskrit
Poonā plates of Prabhāvatīguptā (ed. Mirashi 1963) — Sanskrit
Mathurā inscription (No. 60) — Prakrit

History of India, c. 150 A.D. to 350 A.D.: Naga–Vakataka Imperial Period c14.s4: IV. The Kings and Chronology of the Bhāra Śivas

Contents

IV. The Kings and Chronology of the Bhāra Śivas

Bhāraśiva Coins

Linked texts (20)