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History of India, c. 150 A.D. to 350 A.D.: Naga–Vakataka Imperial Period c15.s2.t1: Vākāṭaka Coins

History of India, c. 150 A.D. to 350 A.D.: Nāga–Vākāṭaka Imperial Period c15.s2.t1

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Contents

Vākāṭaka Coins

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Coin of Pravarasena.

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15

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[ C. I. M., Pl. XXII. ]

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Coin of Rudra [ Sena I. ]

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[ C. I. M. XX. 5 ]

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Coin of ‘Prithv[i]shena’

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[ C. I. M., Pl. XX. 4 ]

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On the top of it, there is probably the bracket of a makara-head—the standard of the Ganges.¹ Above the bull, there is a figure with a halo on a pedestal, probably a representation of Śiva as in the Pallava seal. The obverse has a legend on the margin above the wheel It reads Rudra; the top of the r has a box-head and the head of d is thickened. To the right of the mountain there is the figure of 100. I take it to be the coin of Rudrasena dated in the year 100. It is allied to the coins of Pravarasena I and Pṛithivīsheṇa I by its dare, the Gangetic symbols, the mountain, the tree, the bull, and the wheel (§ 30).

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¹ I think, the bracket-shaped makara standard acquired the name makara-toraṇa. The 'bracket' is still called toḍī or toṛī (तोड़ी) in the United Provinces. The Patna Museum possesses an ancient miniature standard of makara-toraṇa in bronze, upholding a chakra. It was found near Buxar.

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The other Vākāṭakas have no coins.

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§ 61A. For convenience of reference I note below all the Vākāṭaka inscriptions published up to this time, arranging them in their chronological order:—

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Vākāṭaka Inscriptions.

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Pṛithivīsheṇa I.—(a, b, c) Three short dedicatory inscriptions [same text] on stone pieces, to mark the erection of pious buildings at NACHNĀ and GANJ, by the donor Vyāghra-deva, under the reign of Pṛithivīsheṇa I. The donor was either a member of the family of Pṛithivīsheṇa or an officer or a feudatory of Pṛithivīsheṇa. The inscriptions bear the royal wheel-mark.—G.I., p. 233, nos. 53 and 54 at Nachnā, E.I., XVII, 12 (Ganj).

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Regent Prabhāvatī Guptā.—(d) POONA Plates of the Regent Queen Prabhāvatī Guptā [daughter of Chandra Guptā II and of the Mahādevī Kubera-Nāgā], mother of Yuvarāja Divākara-sena, dated in the year 13th. The gift was made from Nandi-Vardhana, in the Nagpur District, C.P.—E.I., XV, 39.

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Pravarasena II.—(e) CHAMAK Plates of Pravarasena II, son of Rudrasena II and Prabhāvatī Guptā, daughter of Deva Gupta, dated in the 18th year, issued from Pravarapura. The plates were found at Chamak, in the district of Illichpur, Berar, and relate to Chamak (Charmāṅka) in the Bhojakaṭa kingdom.—G.I., p. 235.

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(f) SEONI Plates, found at Seoni, C.P., of Pravarasena II, dated in the 18th year of his reign. It relates to a property in the Illichpur District—G.I., p. 243.

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(g) (Second) POONA¹ Plates of the reign of Dāmodarasena Pravarasena (=Pravarasena II) of the year 19th, by Queen-Mother Prabhāvatī Guptā, Mahādevī, wife of Rudrasena II, mother of Mahārāja Śrī Damodarasena-Pravarasena. The gift was made at Rāmagiri (Rāmṭek, near Nagpur, C.P.)—I.A., vol. 53, 48.

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¹ It should be called Riddhapur plates—see Hira Lal, Inscriptions in C.P. and Berar, 1932, p. 139. Riddhapur is 26 miles from Amaraoti.

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(h) DUDIA Plates of Pravarasena II, dated in the 23rd year, issued from Pravarapura, found in the Chhindwara District, C.P.—E.I., vol. III, 258.

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(i) PATNA MUSEUM Plates of Pravarasena II; fragmentary; no date; the plates came from Jabalpur, C.P., to Patna.—J.B.O.R.S., XIV, 465.

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Prithivisheṇa II.—(j) BĀLĀGHĀṬ Plates of Pṛithivīsheṇa II, son of Mahārāja Śrī Narendrasena, who was the son of Pravarasena II. Pṛithivīsheṇa II's mother was the Mahādevī Ajjhitā Bhaṭṭārikā, daughter of the King of Kuntala (Kuntalādhipati). The plates are a draft ready for engraving a gift on the blank portion; no gift is recorded. They were found in the District of Bālāghāṭ, C.P.—E.I., IX, 269.

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Devasena.—(k) Inscription in AJANTA CAVE TEMPLE, No. XIII (Ghaṭotkacha Cave) by HASTIBHOJA, minister of King Devasena, [inscribed] in the reign of Devasena Vākāṭaka² (Vākāṭake rājati Devasene). The minister was a southern Brahmin whose genealogy is given; he dedicated the cave-temple to Buddhist faith.—A.S.W.I., IV, 138.

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² Bühler has wrongly ascribed a later date to this.

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Harisheṇa.—(l) AJANTA inscription (No. 3 of Bühler) in CAVE TEMPLE no. XVI, of the reign of King Hari-sheṇa, son of Devasena who abdicated in favour of his son Harisheṇa. Devasena was the son of the son (name lost) of Pravarasena II. The first part of the inscription (verses 1 to 18) is the family history (*kshitipānupūrvī*), the *ānupūrvī* (order of succession) of the Kings of the Vākāṭaka dynasty, beginning with Vindhya-śakti. The second part (verses 19 to 32) is devoted to the pious foundation itself, the construction and gift of the Cave-Temple, a Chaitya, to Buddhist worship, by the minister (Varāhadeva), son of Hastibhoja who had been the minister of Devasena.—A.S.W.I., IV, 124.

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(m) AJANTA CAVE TEMPLE inscription, no. 4 of Bühler, by a family of feudatory kings subordinate to King Harisheṇa. It gives their genealogy for 10 generations and records the construction of the Cave Temple (no. XVII) and its dedication to Lord Buddha. It is dated in the reign of Harisheṇa ‘who did what was good for his subjects’ [‘paripālayati kshitīndra-chandre Harisheṇe hitakāriṇi prajānām’].—A.S.W.I., IV, 130, l. 21.—A.S.W.I., IV, 128.

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There are two more records—stone inscriptions—which I regard to be Vākāṭakan and which I shall discuss here later¹.

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¹ One of them is the Durehā (Jāso) pillar; see the App. A (end). This expressly mentions the dynastic name, and is the earliest in script.

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62. The Vākāṭaka genealogy, as constructed from inscriptions and the Purāṇas, stands thus [the members enclosed (in round brackets) did not succeed as Vākāṭaka kings]:—

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poets and composers. The handsome king, ‘who was accessible to all his subjects like a good friend’ was given to a life of ease and pleasure, he resigned kingship in favour of his son Harisheṇa, saw him anointed king, and dedicated his life completely to pleasure.

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64. In the Vākāṭaka chronology the one fixed point according to the inscriptions is the contemporaneity of Chandra Gupta II with Prithivisheṇa I and Rudrasena II. Another point, which we infer from the Allahabad inscription of Samudra Gupta, is that Pravarasena, the Emperor, had been dead and gone before Samudra Gupta launched on his imperial career, as we do not find his name there. Samudra Gupta made the kings of ‘the Forest Country’ adjoining the Gaṅgā-Yamunā Doāb, his own governors and servants,¹ which undoubtedly means that Bundelkhand and Baghelkhand passed under him. Who was, then, the Vākāṭaka king at the time whose feudatories in the Vindhya country were snatched away by Samudra Gupta? As his conquests are to be taken to have come after Pravarasena, and as the fourth Vākāṭaka king (Prithivisheṇa I) ruled over the whole of the Vākāṭaka territory and his son was married to Chandra Gupta Vikramāditya’s daughter, the Vākāṭaka contemporary of Samudra Gupta must have been the king succeeding Pravarasena and preceding Prithivisheṇa, i.e., Rudrasena I, whom we may identify confidently with Rudradeva, the leading king of Āryāvarta in the list of Samudra Gupta (§ 139).

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¹ G.I., p. 13.

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65. But, we get more data and more help from the Purāṇas in the matter of the Vākāṭaka chronology. The Purāṇas give only 96 years to the dynasty of Vindhyaśakti, out of which they assign 60 years to the Infant and Pravarasena [Pravīra] together, and consequently 36 years would belong to Vindhyaśakti. In other words, with Rudrasena I they close the dynasty. We can, therefore, say with confidence, that Rudrasena came in conflict with Samudra Gupta and disappeared from the scene. The Vāyu and the Brahmāṇḍa give 96 years for the passing away of the empire (bhūmi).¹ The Vāyu uses the verb in the plural when it mentions the 60 years and thereby seems to refer the 60 years to both; its verb ['bhokṣyanti'] instead of being the dual, is in the plural, which is a Prakritism, as pointed out by Mr. Pargiter (P.T., p. 50, n. 31). The Bhāgavata does not mention and count the Infant at all. Samudra Gupta seems to have immediately on the death of Pravarasena started this campaign, and the imperial power of Rudrasena I was broken on the battlefield of Allahabad or Kauśāmbī which resulted in the death of the important members of his confederacy, viz. Acyuta, Nāgasena and also probably Gaṇapati Nāga.²

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¹ Cf Allahabad inscription where pṛthivī (l. 24) and dharaṇī mean 'India' and 'Empire'.

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² See part III below (§ 132 ff.).

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66. The Purāṇas thus close the Vindhyaka dynasty, while they regard the Guptas as still running by leaving them unnumbered and by not giving the total of their reign-period. Thus, by summing up the imperial Vākāṭaka rule, they place it before the rise of the Gupta Empire. The 96 years of the Purāṇas as the total of the Vindhyaka (Vākāṭaka) imperial period is confirmed by the Vākāṭaka inscriptions which mark off the reign of Pṛthivīṣeṇa I by the statement 'who belonged to an uninterrupted succession of sons and sons' son, and whose treasure and means of government had been accumulating for one hundred years' (Fleet, G.I., p. 24). The coin of 'Rudra' of the Kosam series, with the characteristic Vākāṭaka wheel, bears the year 100 [§ 61]. Rudrasena thus completed the 100th year of his dynasty, and had a reign of 4 years.

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67. The Viṣṇu and Bhāgavata give two totals, one of 100 years and another of an uncertain figure : 56, 6 or 60 (?), the reading being corrupt. The manuscripts of the Viṣṇu read 'varṣa-śataṁ ṣaṭ varṣāṇi' and 'varṣa-śataṁ ṣaś pañca varṣāṇi', and the Bhāgavata reads 'varṣa-śataṁ bhaviṣyanti adhikāni ṣaṭ'.³ It seems that after writing varṣa-śataṁ something else was written which has become unintelligible. There was no reason to repeat the word varṣāṇi in the Viṣṇu after varṣa-śatam. The editors or copyists of the Viṣṇu had two figures before them, one of sixty for Śiśuka-and-Pravīra, and another for the family of Vindhyaśakti, 100 years or 96 years. Ninety-six plus sixty, they made into ‘varṣa-śatāni śaś pañcha’ or ‘ṣaṭ’, evidently, 100 and 56 or 100 and 60 were contracted into 106. It should be noted that they neither give the 60 of the Vāyu and the Brahmāṇḍa, nor the 96 of the Vāyu and the Brahmāṇḍa, and in place of these two they read 106 or 156. We, therefore, take 100 or 96 as the figure for the duration of the independent Vākāṭaka rule and 60 years for Pravarasena and Rudrasena. Rudrasena I by himself, as a king and not an emperor, seems to have had a reign of 4 years (100, ‘varṣa-śataṁ’, against the 96 years, i.e. the difference between the different data of the two sets of the Purāṇas).¹

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³ P.T. 50, n. 30.

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¹ Legally from one point of view the Vākāṭaka dynasty ended with Pravarasena I [§ 28, n.⁵].

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68. The Purāṇas give another important chronological datum. They, after closing the rule of the Sātavāhanas about 238 or 243 A.D.² and their contemporaries the Muruṇḍa-Tukhāras (closing about 243 or 247 A.D.³) mention the rise of Vindhyaśakti. Taking, therefore, the start of Vindhyaśakti at 248 A.D., we get the following results from our combined data of the Purāṇas and the inscriptions:

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² J.B.O.R.S., Vol. XVI, p. 280.

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³ Ibid., p. 289.

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| 1. | Vindhyaśakti | .. | 248-284 A.D |
| 2. | Pravarasena I | .. | 284-344 A.D. |
| 3. | Rudrasena I | .. | 344-348 A.D. |
| 4. | Pṛithivīṣeṇa I | .. | 348-375 A.D. |
| 5. | Rudrasena II | .. | 375-395 A.D. |
| 6. | Prabhāvatī Guptā as regent for— | | |
| | (a) Divākarasena | .. | 395-405 A.D. |
| | and (b) Dāmodarasena-Pravarasena II | 405-415 A.D. |
| 7. | Pravarasena II (on majority) | .. | 415-435 A.D. |
| 8. | Narendrasena (succeeded at the age | | |
| | of 8) | .. | 435-470 A.D. |
| 9. | Pṛithivīṣeṇa II | .. | 470-485 A.D. |
| 10. | Devasena (abdicated) | .. | 485-490 A.D. |
| 11. | Hariṣeṇa | .. | 490-520 A.D. |

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69. The above chronology which is primarily based upon the Purāṇas, verifies itself with the known historical data we possess, namely, the reign of Chandra Gupta I and the reign of Samudra Gupta. Chandra Gupta captures Pāṭaliputra with the help of the Lichchhavis, both according to his coins and the *Kaumudī-mahotsava*. The reigning dynasty of Magadha which must have been a member of the empire of the Bhāraśivas, coming into existence about 250 A.D., is dispossessed by Chandra Gupta I. Chandra Gupta I strikes his coins in the name of the Lichchhavis from 320 A.D.,¹ that is, he defies the overlordship of the Bhāraśivas and their successor Pravarasena I. His coins have about 9 issues [in his two provinces—Kosala and Magadha] which will cover a rule of about 20 years. This again supports the statement of the *Kaumudī-mahotsava* that the child of Sundaravarman had escaped with his nurse to the Vindhyas and was recalled to Pāṭaliputra by the City Council of that Capital and was crowned king, which according to Hindu constitutional law, would take place after completing the twenty-fourth year. The *Kaumudī-mahotsava* and Samudra Gupta's inscription both prove that before the time of Samudra Gupta, the Gupta dynasty had been dispossessed of Pāṭaliputra. That there was a breach between the imperial coinage of Samudra Gupta and that of Chandra Gupta I is indicated by the fact that Chandra Gupta I's coins have never been found in association with the imperial Gupta coins.

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The period which Samudra Gupta occupied as a small rājā, living in Sāketa or between Benares and Sāketa, is determined by his coins of the Tiger type. On these coins he is described merely as ‘Rājā Samudra Gupta’. He had not yet adopted the Garuḍa standard or any of the figures which appear on his imperial coins. The reverse bears the figure of Gaṅgā standing on a Gangetic dolphin (śiśumāra). Gaṅgā and Yamunā were the imperial marks under the Vākāṭakas. Gaṅgā is found on the Bhāraśiva coins and also on the coin of Pravarasena. It seems to have been adopted by Samudra Gupta in his feudatory capacity as an imperial Vākāṭaka mark, which is not repeated in his own imperial coinage. There are very few coins of the Tiger type, yet from the examples found, we are sure that there were at least two issues of this coin. In the Tiger type coins, Samudra Gupta has not assumed the imperial armour-robes like his father, which also shows that Samudra Gupta assumed the humbler rôle of an orthodox Hindu rājā of the United Provinces, quite in line with the other feudatories of the Vākāṭakas. Dating Chandra Gupta I cir. 320 to 340 A.D. and assigning 4 years to the two issues of the Tiger type coinage of Rājā Samudra Gupta, we arrive at 344 A.D., which was a critical date for Samudra Gupta.

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The death of the great Vākāṭaka Emperor, Pravarasena, who had evidently had a hand in curbing the ambition of Chandra Gupta I and in reinstating the Kota family whose prince had taken refuge at Pampā in the Vākāṭaka dominions, was the most appropriate opportunity in Samudra Gupta's calculation to make a bid for the recovery of Magadha and for an independent position, which had been the unrealized dream of the so-called Mahārājādhirāja Chandra Gupta I. We should recall here that the Tiger coins of Samudra Gupta are not struck with any affinity claimed with the Lichchhavis. The coins do not bear the Lichchhavi symbol of the goddess on the lion, nor the name of the Lichchhavis. At the same time, Samudra Gupta repeats in his inscriptions the fact of his being a Lichchhavi grandson. The constitutional significance of this is that Samudra Gupta lays claim to the independent position once established by the Lichchhavis and to the Lichchhavi dominions. Under his son Chandra Gupta II, the Lichchhavi capital became a provincial seat of a Gupta governor with the title of Mahārāja. The Lichchhavi Republic, therefore, had been suppressed and had gone before the grandson of the Lichchhavi became Emperor of India. And we do find that the Lichchhavi rulers migrated to Nepal where they founded a

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¹ His previous coins, it seems to me, are found amongst the so-called Pañchāla coins illustrated by Cunningham in his CAI., Pl. VII, figures 1 and 2. These coins really belong to the Kosala series, as Dhanadeva, one of the kings of the series I have proved from the Ayodhyā inscription (J.B.O.R.S., X, p. 202 [204]) to be a Kosala king. The legend on the above coins [no. 1] reads *Chandra-guptasya*, and not *Rudraguptasa* as Cunningham read it. The style is purely Hindu, unlike his Lichchhavi coins.

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Date of the dispersion of the Lichchhavis.

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monarchy about 330-350 A.D.¹ The inference is irresistible that the Lichchhavis under whose protection the coins of Chandra Gupta I were struck, were defeated and dispersed by the Vākāṭaka emperor about 340 A.D. Samudra Gupta thus had a big legacy of political vendetta against the Vākāṭaka House and he missed no chance. The date 344 A.D. or thereabouts for the death of Pravarasena and the rise of Samudra Gupta thus fully agrees with the known facts.

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¹ Fleet, G.I., Introduction, p. 135.

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