History of India, c. 150 A.D. to 350 A.D.: Naga–Vakataka Imperial Period c14.s4.t1.73

c14.s4.t1.73

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.