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History of India, c. 150 A.D. to 350 A.D.: Naga–Vakataka Imperial Period c16.s1: XI. History of Magadha from 31 B.C. to 250 A.D. and the Rise of the Guptas [275 A.D. to 375 A.D.]

History of India, c. 150 A.D. to 350 A.D.: Nāga–Vākāṭaka Imperial Period c16.s1

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XI. History of Magadha from 31 B.C. to 250 A.D. and the Rise of the Guptas [275 A.D. to 375 A.D.]

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109. Magadha, after the fall of the Kāṇvas, according to the Purāṇas, passed on to the Āndhras and Lichchhavis at Pāṭaliputra. This statement is corroborated by the find of Sātavāhana coins in the excavation of Bhiṭā [Allahabad District]. I read one Sātavāhana coin excavated in my presence by Dr. Spooner at Kumhrār [Patna]. The Sātavāhanas, however, could not have been for more than fifty years at Pāṭaliputra and in Magadha after the fall of the Kāṇvas (31 B.C.). The Nepal inscription of Jayadeva II of the Lichchhavi dynasty, dated in Śrī-Harsha Saṃvat 153 (=758 A.D.),¹ states that 23 successions before Jayadeva I, his ancestor Supushpa Lichchhavi was born at the city of Pushpapura. The date of Jayadeva I is about 330 A.D. to 355 A.D. as worked out by Dr. Fleet.² Now, giving an average of about 15 years to this long list of 23 kings we may place Supushpa in the beginning of the Christian Era. The Lichchhavis in occupying Pāṭaliputra might have taken a mandate for doing so from the Sātavāhana Emperor, or they might have independently captured the capital, which they had aspired to do for centuries. The disturbance caused to the Sātavāhana Emperor by the appearance of Kadphises and Wema Kadphises in Northern India afforded an ample opportunity to the Lichchhavis to fill up the vacuum at Pāṭaliputra. We may also take it that their occupation of Pāṭaliputra would have ended with the advance of Vanaspara, viceroy of Kanishka, to Magadha about the close of the century.¹

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¹ I.A., Vol. IX, p. 178. Fleet, G.I., Introduction, pp. 184-185.

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² Fleet, G.I., Introduction, 135, 191; I.A., XIV, 350.

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¹ See Part I (§ 33) above.

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110. The Lichchhavis, having once occupied Pāṭaliputra for about a century, must have felt a sort of claim to re-possess Magadha on the liberation of the Gangetic valley by the Bhārasivas. But when the Bhārasiva reorganisation comes into play, we find Magadha not in the possession of the non-Brahmanical Lichchhavis but of an orthodox Kshatriya family. This family is called 'the Magadha family' in the Kaumudi-mahotsava, and by Samudra Gupta it is called 'the Dynasty of Kota' (Kota-kula). The founder's name seems to have been Kota; the descendant of Kota who was a contemporary of Samudra Gupta and whose name is lost in the earlier part of the Allahabad inscription, is called Kota-kulaja. The names of these Magadha kings ended in varman.² This family must have come into existence about 200-250 A.D.

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² See in Bhandarkar Annals, 1930, XII, pp. 50 ff., 'Historical data in the drama Kaumudī-Mahotsava' by the present author.

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111. The Guptas appear about 275 A.D. somewhere in Magadha. Gupta, the first Rājā,³ rises as a feudatory prince. As later, we find the early Guptas connected with Allahabad [Prayāga] and Oudh [Sāketa], Mahārāja Gupta's fief seems to have been near about Allahabad. His son was Ghaṭotkacha, and Ghaṭotkacha's son was the first prince who turned the name of his ancestor Gupta into a dynastic title. His name was Chandra. At the time of the rise of Chandra, called by the Prakrit name Chaṇḍa-sena⁴ in the Kaumudi-mahotsava, the king of Magadha at Pāṭaliputra was Sundara-varman, ruling from his palace called Su-Gāṅga. This palace is named in the inscription of Khāravela as the Su-Gaṃgīya and in the Mudrā-Rākshasa as the Su-Gāṅga. The capital city of Pāṭaliputra thus came down with its ancient palace intact to the period of king Sundara-varmā and Chandra. King Sundara-varman was an old man, having a child of a few years of age yet in charge of a nurse. Chandra or Chandra-sena had been adopted as his son by the king of Magadha, evidently before the birth of the young prince. Chandra regarded himself as the heir, being the elder, though a Kritaka son. He entered into a marriage alliance with the Lichchhavis who are described as the enemy of the Magadha dynasty in the same drama Kaumudī-mahotsava.¹ The Lichchhavis with a large army and Chandra laid a siege to Pāṭaliputra. A battle was fought in which the old king Sundara-varman died. The young prince Kalyāṇa varman was carried away to the Kishkindhā hills by the faithful ministers. Chandra founded a royal dynasty (rāja-kula). The angry authoress of the drama calls the Lichchhavis ‘Mlechchhas’ and Chaṇḍa-sena a Kāraskara, implying a casteless or a low-caste man, not fit for royalty.²

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³ Prabhāvatī Guptā [Poona Plates, E.I., xv] appropriately calls him ādīrāja.

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⁴ For Chandra becoming Chaṇḍa in Prakrit see the inscription of Chaṇḍasāti, the Sātavāhana king, published in E.I., Vol. XVII, p. 317,

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¹ The drama is published in the Quarterly Journal of the Andhra Research Society, Vols. II and III.

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² कचिं एरिस-वणस्स से राच्चसिरी ?—K.M., Act. IV, p. 30.

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112. Before we enter on the subsequent history of the fortunes of Chandra Gupta I, let us see if we can find out the caste of the Guptas which has remained a mystery up to this time. The data which we obtain from the contemporary inscriptions are:

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(a) that nowhere they disclose their origin or caste status, as if they have purposely concealed it; and,

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(b) that their caste sub-division was Dhāraṇa.

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and coins of Śrī Chandra Sāti where ‘Chandra’ becomes ‘Chaṇḍa’—Rapson, Coins of Andhras, p. 32. For the dropping of sena, cf. the case of Vasanta-sena and Vasantadeva of the same king (G.I., Introduction, p. 186 ff.); Dahrasena on his coins adopts the style Dahra-gaṇa (C.A.D., p. clxiv).

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From the inscription of the Gupta Princess, Prabhāvatī Guptā¹ we know that she belonged to Dhāraṇa gotra. She is evidently giving here her father's gotra, as her husband's gotra was different (Viṣṇu Vṛddha). Our knowledge, however, is expanded by the Kaumudī-mahotsava which gives the caste of Chandra as Kāraskara. The Kāraskaras are mentioned by Baudhāyana as a low community, to whom the Brāhmaṇas should not go and on return from whom they should perform a ceremony of purification.² The Kāraskaras in Baudhāyana are joined with the Punjābī community Āraṭṭas [which literally means 'the republicans']. Their exact location is given by Hema-chandra, who in explaining the Sālvas calls them the people of the Kāra valley.³ The place Kārapatha or Kārāpatha was at the foot of the Himalayas.⁴ The Sālvas were a division of the Madras and were at Sialkot where their name as Siāl, derived from Sālva which is also spelt as Sālya⁵, survives. The Kāraskaras were therefore a Punjab people, a subdivision of the Madras. We know that the Madras were called Vāhikas and Jārtikas⁶. The Madraka⁷ community was thus made up of several subdivisions, comprising Sālvas, Yartris or Jārtikas [whom we call to-day Jaṭs] and others. Now, we may recall here the grammatical illustration of Chandra-gomin: 'the Jārta (king) defeated the Hūṇas.' This is pre-eminently referable to Skanda Gupta⁸. We have thus evidence from different sources converging at one point, that is, that the Guptas were Kāraskara Jāts—originally from the Punjab. Kakkar Jāts¹ in my opinion are the modern representatives of the original community of the Guptas. Amongst the Kāraskaras the particular subdivision to which Guptas belonged was evidently Dhāraṇa. The word gotra in Prabhāvatī Gupta’s inscription (Poona Plates) would mean a caste-subdivision. Dhanri, the Jāt clan found in Amritsar,² may be compared with the Sanskrit Dhāraṇa of Prabhāvatī Guptā. The Kaumudī-mahotsava is in full agreement with and is in fact supported by Chandra-gomin, who is undoubtedly a Gupta author.

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¹ E.I., XV, 41; cf. ibid., p. 42, n.

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² Baudhāyana, Dh. S., I, i. 32.

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³ Hemachandra, A-Ch. IV, p. 23 (Sālvas tu Kāra-kukṣīyāḥ).

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⁴ Raghuvamśa, XV, 90. Wilson's Viṣṇu Purāṇa, Vol. III, p. 390.

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⁵ Wilson and Hall, V.P., Vol. V, p. 70.

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⁶ Rose, Glossary of Punjab Tribes and Castes, i. 59; Grierson, L.S.I., IX., Pt. 4, p. 4, n. 8. M. Bh., Karṇa P., (verse 2034).

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⁷ Cf. on 'Madraka', my Hindu Polity, i, pp. 120-121. It means 'one owing allegiance to the Madra State'.

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⁸ G.I., 54 (l. 15), 59 (l. 4). The two inscriptions (Bhitarī and Junāgarh) describe a decisive and famous battle; while Yaśodharman's was a mere raid into Kashmir (G.I., 147, l. 6) and the Hūṇas' submission to Yaśodharman was practically without a war.

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¹ Cf. Rose, Glossary, ii. 363, n. The name is pronounced as Kakkar also.

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² Glossary of Tribes and Castes of the Punjab and N.-W. Frontier, Vol. II, p. 235.

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113. The position of the Madraka Jāts was probably not very low at the time, for had it been very low, King Sundara-varman would not have thought of making Chandra-sena his adopted son. His original intention seems to have been to bequeath the kingdom to Chandra. And it was only due to the birth of Kalyāṇa-varman from some younger queen (Kalyāṇa-varmā is said to have several step-mothers—‘mātaraḥ’) that the breach between the adoptive father and the adopted son occurred. The real cause of the opposition from the public, which was very pronounced, seems to be a dislike for the social system of the Kāraskaras who were not subject to the fourfold-varṇāśramism of the orthodox system. It is the same dislike which is expressed in the Mahā-Bhārata against the Madrakas. They had one caste amongst them with social equality and freedom, which did not agree with the settled rules of the Gangetic society. The compliment was mutually exchanged: the Kaumudī-mahotsava taunted at the Kāraskara caste as rulers; the Guptas replied—‘we shall abolish the Kshatriyas’.

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114. Now we know from the Purāṇic history that in the reign of Kanishka (and probably also of his successor), Vanaspara imported some Madrakas for administrative purposes. But the Punjab military dress of Chandra Gupta I on his coins would suggest that the family had migrated recently in the Bhāraśiva period after the liberation of the Madraka country by the latter. Very likely a Bhāraśiva king gave Gupta a fief, having border-land between Bihar and Kauśāmbī, for it was to suppress a rebellion of the Śavaras that Chandra Gupta I had gone to his frontier when the City Council of Pāṭaliputra pronounced a decree of deposition against him.

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115. Chandra Gupta I having his caste against him and being somewhat of a usurper, was disliked by the Magadhans of his day, particularly as he failed to adapt himself to the traditional Hindu way of government. He showed a hostile, repressive attitude to the people of Magadha. The Kaumudīmahotsava records that Chaṇḍa-sena¹ had put leading citizens into prison. The people of Magadha looked down upon him as something like a parricide. Chandra Gupta I had thus several elements arrayed against him. A cry was raised that he was not a Kshatriya, he had practically killed his aged adoptive father on the battlefield, he had called in the aid of the hereditary enemies of Magadha—the Lichchhavis, he had married a lady who was neither a Magadhan nor a Brahmanical Hindu. To this we should add that he had defied the imperial authority of the Brahmin Emperor Pravarasena I.

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¹ There are other known examples, as cited above, of new kings changing the second member of their name on coming to the throne. Chandra-sena similarly changed his name into Chandra Gupta. But the hostile contemporaries persisted in calling him by his original, humbler name, and insisted on the vernacular pronunciation for its obvious pun [Chaṇḍa=‘fierce’].

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116. With the aid of the Lichchhavi power and protection he trampled upon the liberties of the people of Magadha and put the leading citizens into prison. Alberūnī therefore recorded a true and historical tradition when he said that the king or kings associated with the Gupta-kāla [-era] were cruel and wicked. The Hindus had the constitutional law laid down in their codes to destroy the king who acted as a tyrant or whose hands had the marks of the blood of his parents.² They planned and rose, called in Prince Kalyāṇa-varman from the Vākāṭaka territory (Pampāsara) and crowned him king at the Su-Gāṅga Palace at Pāṭaliputra. The authoress of the Kaumudi-mahotsava exultantly said—'the law of Varna is restored; the royal family of Caṇḍa-sena is abolished.'¹ This happened while Chandra Gupta was on his campaign somewhere between Rohtas and Amarkantak fighting the rebellious Śavaras. The outlandish monarch was ousted in or about 340 A.D., for Kalyāṇa-varmā was of full age to receive Hindu royal coronation at the time.² In the year of his coronation Kalyāṇa-varmā was married to the daughter of the king of Mathurā.

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² Hindu Polity, ii, 50, 189.

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¹ प्रकटित-वर्णाश्रमपद्यसुखित-चण्डसेनराजकुलम् ।—K.M., Act V. ² Taking the capture of Pāṭaliputra at 320 A.D., and the coronation age being 25, the prince having lived in exile for about 20 years, the date of restoration would be c. 340 A.D.

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117. Guptas in Exile and their Moral Transformation. The years 340 A.D. to 344 A.D., the period of exile of the Guptas from Bihar was not very long but it was full of consequence and future, which produced entirely a new history—a new history not only for Bihar but for the whole of India. It turned the Guptas from outlandish usurpers into a dynasty of the Hindu of Hindus, Magadhan, and protectors and upholders of the Dharma, Brahmin and cow, literature and sculpture, national culture and national civilisation of Hindu India. Beginning as a feudatory ruler under the Vākāṭakas with their imperial insignia of the goddess Gaṅgā on his coin and the title of Rājā only and with no marks of royalty on his person (as portrayed on his Tiger-type coin), Samudra Gupta ended with a proud satisfaction as recorded on his imperial gold coins marked with his Garuḍadhvaja, a satisfaction which is a rare luck of a king in history: on his coins which he published after he had built up his empire, he registered the realisation of the ideal of Hindu hero and Hindu king that he after winning the whole country governed it so well that he won the heaven thereby (p. 112). He made Sanskrit, after the fashion of the Vākāṭaka Emperor, his court language; he undertook and performed aśvamedhas, having made good his restoration to the imperial throne of Pāṭaliputra.

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A. Chandra Gupta I who was dying either of wounds or of a broken heart on his expulsion from Pāṭaliputra, addressed Samudra Gupta, one of his younger sons, with tears in his eyes, and with the tacit consent and approval of his Council of Ministers,—'you now, my noble sir, be the king ("protect the kingdom"),' and expired.¹ The death must have taken place on the other side of the Ganges, in the territory of his relations, the Lichchhavis. As a Lichchhavi subordinate and relation, his son at this moment would have obtained the province of Sāketa, i.e. the adjoining territory of Oudh, where at Ayodhyā we find in the next reigns the Gupta Emperors residing as at their second and favourite capital. It was a centre of culture. Ayodhyā had been the home of the poet Aśvaghosha, the Kālidāsa of the preceding epoch. To Ayodhyā belonged the great scholar Sikhara Svāmin who became the Prime Minister of Rāma Gupta and Chandra Gupta II.² Ayodhyā had the orthodox imperial tradition of Rāma's name, a name which was given to the eldest son of Samudra Gupta,³ a name which embodied the whole of the past Hindu civilisation. Samudra Gupta fully imbibed that tradition. Hindu learning became a part of the political cult of Samudra Gupta and his descendants. The rājasa (kingly) bhakti in Viṣṇu moulded their national actions and their political character. Like Viṣṇu they stood solidly to support the kingdom of India. Their bhakti (faith) is intense. They think of Viṣṇu and they think in Viṣṇu. Samudra Gupta and Chandra Gupta II become practically one with their God. Any one who has seen the Viṣṇu image enshrined by Samudra Gupta at Eran, would be reminded of Samudra Gupta himself and see the King's figure and dress in that statue. One who would see the Viṣṇu-Varāha at the Chandra Gupta Cave at

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¹ G.I., p. 6.

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² J.B.O.R.S., XVIII, 37.

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³ The popular name Rama-pāla='Rawwāl', retained by the Arab author Abu Saleh (J.B.O.R.S., XVIII, p. 21) may be compared with the Rājāvali names of the Guptas which Cunningham found at Ayodhyā. They end in pāla instead of °gupta, e.g. Samudra pāla, Chandra pāla, etc. A.S.R., Vol. XI, p. 99.

Ayodhyā and its Influence

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Udayagiri will be reminded of Chandra Gupta II himself rescuing Dhruva-devi.¹ Without understanding the spiritual and religious currents of the time which bring about royal and national rebirth, one cannot truly appreciate any political reformation. It is for that reason that a proper appraisement of the Gupta cult becomes here necessary.

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¹ Cf. J.B.O.R.S., XVIII, 35.

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118. You would never be able to decipher the dedication of their victories to Vishnu, e.g. at Bhîtari and at Mehrauli, and at the same time the magnificence and munificence conveyed by the aśvamedhas and the Garuḍadaṅka coins, without that key. You would not be able to unlock the mystery of these Hindu Moghuls minus Moghul cruelty and debauchery. You will not get the secret how could Chandra Gupta II abolish capital punishment,² how he could raise the majesty of Hinduism to the very pinnacle of glory, and how he drew the limits of good government which no sceptre could extend further.

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² Fa-Hien, ch. XVI.

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119. From the Bhārasivas up to the Vākāṭakas there was the rule of that God of social asceticism, that aspect of the Almighty which undertakes destruction, the God who though a giver, keeps no wealth, possesses no material splendour, the God who is austere and sombre. But, on the other hand, the second Gupta king and the first Gupta Emperor—Samudra Gupta—invokes that aspect of God whose function is royal and rājasa, who wears gold, not ashes, who builds and reigns, protects and rejoices in plenty, who is the traditional God of Hindu sovereignty. Vishnu is the king amongst gods, is magnificently dressed, stands erect and solid and upholds the kingdom of His men, is a hero and conquering lord in battle—whose emblem is Chakra—the symbol of Empire—which irresistibly destroys the forces of evil against that Empire of Lord Vishnu. There is the conch in one of His hands for announcing battle and for announcing triumph. There is, in the third, the sceptre of rule, and finally there is the lotus in the fourth, the symbol of prosperity, growth and rejoicing for His subjects. The belief in the God-in-royalty, Samudra Gupta made the belief of his dynasty and the belief of his country. His devotion to Vishnu is so great that his personality almost merges in Him:

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साधुसाधूदय-प्रलय-हेतु-पुरुषस्याचिन्त्यस्य भक्तवनतिमान्पायमृदुहृदयस्य¹

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¹ G.I., p. 8, *l.* 25.

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is a description in the language of the Bhagavad-Gita, and a description which, according to the literary practice of the age, has to give a double meaning. The devotee and his God are both described by the same language. This might appear to a non-Hindu reader or to a reader who has not entered into the Hindu mystery of *bhakti* as a blasphemous assumption of God's attributes. But it is not so; there is in the cult of *bhakti* its highest doctrine that there should be unity (*ananyatā*) between the deity and the devotee. The devotee begins to partake of the nature of his deity until he is spiritually fully transformed and finally become one with the deity. He becomes the missionary and the agent of the Lord. He works as the medium, and all his works are dedicated to his Lord. The Guptas felt and believed that they were Vishnu's servants and agents, that they had a mission from Vishnu, that like Vishnu they should conquer the unrighteous and rightless sovereigns, and that like Vishnu they should rule in full sovereignty and bring happiness promised by the lotus in Vishnu's hand, to the people of India. They fully executed this mission and Samudra Gupta felt the consciousness that he had executed that mission well and won the Heaven thereby. Like Vishnu, Samudra Gupta and his successors filled their kingdom of India with gold and plenty, with propserity, elegance and culture.

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