History of India, c. 150 A.D. to 350 A.D.: Naga–Vakataka Imperial Period c15.s2.t1.45.3

c15.s2.t1.45.3

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