History of India, c. 150 A.D. to 350 A.D.: Naga–Vakataka Imperial Period c14.s4.t1.77

c14.s4.t1.77

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).