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History of India, c. 150 A.D. to 350 A.D.: Naga–Vakataka Imperial Period c16.s4: XIV. The Submission of the Frontier Rulers and the Hindu Republics, and their Purāṇic Description, and the Submission of Farther India

History of India, c. 150 A.D. to 350 A.D.: Nāga–Vākāṭaka Imperial Period c16.s4

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XIV. The Submission of the Frontier Rulers and the Hindu Republics, and their Purāṇic Description, and the Submission of Farther India

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142. After the [Third] Āryāvarta War ending with the fall of Nagādatta and Chandravarman, Samudra Gupta’s period of war ended. The Allahabad inscription (line 22) is clear on the point. There were only five main states on his frontiers and they became part of his empire. (1) Samataṭa, (2) Davāka, (3) Kāmarūpa, (4) Nepāla and (5) Kartṛipura paid ‘all’ imperial ‘taxes’ and their kings presented themselves in person.¹ This line of ‘the Frontier Kings’ runs from the mouths of Ganges through the Lushai-Manipur²-Assam to the Himalayan Mountains covering what we call now Bhutan, Sikkim and Nepal, and thence onwards to the Simla Hills and Kangra (Kartṛipura), i.e. the hills above Bengal [Pauṇḍra], the United Provinces, and up to the E. Punjab [the Mādraka country]. The inclusion of Kartṛipura implies that the result of the [Third] Āryāvarta War was the inclusion of the Eastern Punjab. This is probably also inferable from the Bhāgavata Purāṇa which does not note the Madraka State in its list of the free republican states (§ 146). In the next reign we find the Gupta Era in the year 83 [=403 A.D.] dominant up to Shorkoṭ (old Śivipura) near the eastern bank of the Chenab³. In Nepal, Jayadeva I, the new Lichchhavi king of Nepal, was a relation of Samudra Gupta and his submission meant practically the submission of the whole group of the Himalayan States on the Indian side. The Gupta Era was introduced in Nepal in the reign of Jayadeva I.⁴ The relationship was evidently a great factor in avoiding a mountain expedition. Samudra Gupta seems to have, later on, annexed Samataṭa to the Province of Champā, to have a natural frontier up to the sea, which was a matter of necessity for an easier access to and the administration of Orissa and Kaliṅga, and the sea-trade with Further India (§ 150).

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¹ Allahabad Pillar Insc., l. 22, G.I., p. 8.

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² Col. Gerini, Ptolemy (pp. 55-61) identifies Davāka with Upper Burma.

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³ E.I., XVI. 15.

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⁴ Fleet, G.I., Intro., p. 135; I.A., XIV, 345 (350).

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143. We should note here that the Empire of Samudra Gupta ending with Kangra, leaves out Kashmir and the plains below it. This becomes clear from the Bhāgavata, the original text of which was completed before the submission of the Daivaputra-group whom the text describes as richly deserving suppression. Line 23 of the Allahabad inscription registers the ‘tranquil fame’ of Samudra Gupta ‘pervading the whole land’ and his re-establishing many dynasties ‘fallen and deprived of sovereignty’. The result of this policy of peace is immediately given as the submission of the Daivaputra-shāhi-shāhānushāhi-Śaka-Muruṇḍas—which completes the imperial geography of the North-West and Kashmir. This was the Mlechchha State of the Bhāgavata and the Viṣṇu. The Shāhānushāhi made his submission in person, for the inscription gives the forms of submission which the Daivaputra group and others made respectively, and the order of their enumeration proves his personal submission. The first member of the group is the Daivaputra Shāhi-shāhānushāhi. The words Daivaputra and Shāhi qualify shāhānushāhi, which were probably necessary to distinguish the Kushan emperor from the Sassanian emperor who was at that time the next neighbour of the Gupta Empire. The first form of submission was that of offering themselves (ātmanivedana) and the second consisted of two things: presenting (upāyana) unmarried girls and giving of daughters in marriage (kanyādāna). The third was the request [yāchana] which consisted of two matters: asking for charters for the currency of the Garuḍa coinage within the jurisdiction of their own territories and an application to enjoy the governments of their own respective countries [‘garuḍadaṅka-svaviṣaya-bhukti-śāsana-yāchana:’ asking for charters (śāsana-yāchana) for the use the Garuḍa-coin (garuḍaṅka-bhukti) and for the government of their own territories (provinces or districts, svaviṣaya bhukti)]. We know from the Pālada or Śālada and the ‘Śāka’ coins of the Kushan subordinate kings of the Western Punjab, that they accepted the Gupta coinage.¹ They printed the effigy of Samudra Gupta and his name on their coins, and it was continued up to the reign of Chandra Gupta II when we find his effigy and name also similarly stamped. As to the identity of these Gupta kings there cannot be any doubt, for the kings wear ear-rings or kuṇḍala on these coins, while the Kushans never used them. These coins, have been already described by numismatists as coins allied to the Gupta coinage.² The kanyā-dāna, ‘giving in marriage’ (dāna, as opposed to upāyana, ‘presenting’) of ‘a kanyā’ should refer to the Kushan Emperor, looking at the system current at the time, that, as a rule, it was a big rival ruler who bending his head offered a daughter in marriage to the conqueror.

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¹ J.B.O.R.S., XVIII, 208-209.

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² J.B.O.R.S., XVIII, 208-209.

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144. The Sassanian emperor at the time was Shapur II (310-379 A.D.) who was the suzerain of the Kushan king. The Kushans at this time issued from Afghanistan the ‘Kushāno-Sassanian’ coins with the title Shao-nano-shao.³ The protection of the Sassanian Emperor and the close alliance with him could not prevent a virtual annexation of the Indian territories of the Kushans (to the east of the Indus) by the Gupta emperor. The Kushan subordinates of Kashmir, Rawalpindi and Peshawar were practically transferred to the Indian Empire by their adopting the Gupta imperial coinage. The personal submission of the Kushan Shāhānushāhi naturally prevented Samudra Gupta from pursuing a policy of aggression. But the enemy was left with potential power of mischief, for, soon after the death of Samudra Gupta the Śakādhipati raised the banner of revolt, probably with the support of the Sassanian Emperor Shapur II. The ignominy of having to offer a Kushan royal princess suffered in the time of Samudra Gupta was now sought to be avenged by the demand for Dhruva-Devi, which led to the final destruction of the Kushan king and Kushan power by the march of Chandra Gupta II up to Balkh, the farthest seat and centre of the Kushans.¹

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³ Vincent Smith, Catalogue of Coins in the Indian Museum, p. 91.

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¹ J.B.O.R.S., XVIII, 29 ff.

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145. The republics of the Mālavas, Āryunāyanas, Yaudheyas, Mādrakas, Ābhīras, Prārjunas, Sahasānikas, Kākas, Kharparikas and others were not on the frontiers of Samudra Gupta's empire as wrongly supposed by Dr. Vincent Smith, for, in line 22 (Allahabad Pillar Inscription) where 'the frontier kings' are mentioned, they are expressly excluded from that category. They were internal States and had become part of the Gupta empire by agreeing to pay all kinds of imperial taxes and obeying imperial orders. In the enumeration of the tributary republics there is a territorial scheme. The Mālavas, Āryunāyanas, Yaudheyas and Mādrakas are counted from the direct Gupta territory—say, from Mathurā. The first state is the Mālava. Nāgara or Karkoṭa-Nāgara which is situated in the modern State of Jaipur was the capital of the Mālavas whose thousands of republican coins—'as thick as shells on the sea-shore'—have been found there (§§ 42, 46). The Bhāgavata calls them the Arbuda-Mālavas and the Vishnu locates them in Rajputana (Marubhūmi). They were thus decidedly in Rajputana from Mount Abu up to Jaipur. The territorial designation Mālwār (माळवार) seems to me to be based on their name.² To their south, there was the Nāga territory, and with the Nāga coins their coinage bears affinity.³ They were, like the Nāgas, followers of Nāga worship. Their capital was dedicated to Karkoṭa Nāga.

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Immediately north to them were the Yaudheyas, stretching from Bharatpur [where their republican inscription of a time anterior to Samudra Gupta has been found at Bijaygarh] right up to the lower course of the Sutlej on the border of the Bhawalpur State where Johiyāwār still bears the stamp of their name. This was the biggest republican state also in the time of Rudradāman [c.150 A.D.]; the Yaudheyas were his neighbours, that is, reaching Lower Sindh. Between the Mālava and the Yaudheya States there was the small State of the Āryunāyanas whose exact location is not known but whose coins indicate that they were near Alwar and Agra. The Mā drakas were immediately to the north of the Yaudheyas extending up to the foot of the Himalayas. Madra-deśa was the plain country between Jhelum and Ravi¹, sometimes extending up to the Bias.² In the tract between the Bias and the Jumna lay the Vākāṭaka feudatories the Varmans of Siṃhapura and the Nāga king Nāgadatta. The other republican group of Samudra Gupta’s inscription consists of the Ābhīras, Prārjunas, Sahasānikas, Kākas and Kharparikas. None of these struck their coins before Samudra Gupta, and this for the simple reason that they had been under the Vākāṭaka governor of Western Malwā at Mandhātā (Māhishmatī) and under the Nāgas of Padmāvatī. Gaṇapati Nāga, in fact, is called the overlord of Dhārā [Dhārādhīśa]. We know now that the Sahasānikas and the Kākas were nearabout Bhilsa.

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The modern Kākapur was their town which is within 20 miles from Bhilsa³; the Sāñchi hill was called the Kākanāda. In the time of Chandra Gupta II a Sahasānika Mahārāja, probably a republican chief of the Sahasānikas, built the Chandra Gupta Temple in the Udayagiri rocks. About the Ābhīras, we get great help from the Bhāgavata. The Bhāgavata calls the Ābhīras, ‘Saurāṣṭra’ and ‘Āvantya’ rulers (Saurāṣṭra-Āvanty Ābhīrāḥ), and the Viṣṇu treats the Ābhīras as occupying the Surāṣṭra and Avanti provinces. We know from the Vākāṭaka history that in Western Malwā there were the Puṣyamitras and two other republics with their names ending in -Mitra. These were the Abhira republics and in their place in later Gupta history we find the Maitrakas rising as monarchs. This group beginning with the Abhiras and ending with Kharparikas is almost in a straight line from Kathiawar and Damoh, below the Malava republic and above the Vakataka kingdom. The Abhiras in the time of the Periplus occupy Gujarat, and there is no justification in locating them in Bundelkhand as Dr. Vincent Smith did [J.R.A.S., 1897, p. 30]. He was led to do so on account of a mistaken notion that Kathiawar and Gujarat were at that time governed by the Western Satraps. Both the Puranas and Samudra Gupta's inscription leave no room for the Satraps in Kathiawar or Gujarat. The Western Satraps had been already dispossessed in the Naga-Vakataka period from Kathiawar. The Puranas here throw great light.

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² Mārwār of our maps is pronounced as Mālwār. In Rājputana l is pronounced as in the South. Mālava=Mālava+vāṭaka will be the equivalent of Mārwār. For Vāṭa=wār, 'division,' see Hira Lal, Inscriptions in C.P., pp. 24, 87; E.I. VIII, 285; Both Vāṭaka and Pāṭaka occur with geographical names for 'division'.

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³ Rapson, I.C., sec. 51; V. Smith, C.I.M., 162.

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¹ A.S.R., Vol. II, p. 14.

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² J.R.A.S., 1897, p. 30.

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³ J.B.O.R.S., XVIII, 213.

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146. The Bhagavata treats the Abhiras of Surashtra and Avanti, the Suras and the Malavas of the Aravali as free republics. Their rulers are called janadhipah, 'national' or 'popular' [i.e. republican] 'rulers'. It does not mention the Madrakas. It seems that the Madrakas had already come within the Empire of Samudra Gupta as a sequence of the Aryavarta Wars and were probably the first amongst the republics to own allegiance to the Gupta Emperor when their overlord was conquered. The Suras of the Bhagavata are the famous Yaudheyas. The word Sura ('hero') is a translation of the word 'Yaudheya', their popular title. Rudradaman, 200 years earlier, recorded that the Yaudheyas were popularly known amongst the Kshatriyas by their title 'the heroes'.¹ The Yaudheyas, according to the Puranas, were good and ancient Kshatriyas. They formerly lived, like the Malavas, in the Punjab. It is they and the Malavas who had kept the Kushan power in check, both at its western end on the Sindh borders and the eastern end at Mathura. They were popularly known as ‘Śūra’, ‘Vira’. The Bhāgavata placing them next to the Abhīras and before the Mālavas, puts them between the two, which indicates their position to the north of the Abhīras and to the north-west of the Mālavas, i.e. the western portion of Rajputana. The Viṣṇu reads :—‘Saurāṣṭra-Avanti-Śūrān Arbuda-Marubhūmi-viṣayāṁś ca vrātyā dvijā Abhīra-Śūdra [read Śūra]-ādyāḥ bhokṣyanti’. Its reading Śūdra after Avanti has the variant reading -śūra which is confirmed by the Viṣṇu Purāṇa itself in another place¹ and the Hari-Vaṁśa.² There was, however, a republic of the Śaudrāyaṇas whose name was derived from a proper-name Śūdra, not the caste-name but the personal name of the founder.³ But the texts of the Bhāgavata and Viṣṇu here evidently mean ‘Śūras’ which stands for the Yaudheyas. The Bhāgavata and the Viṣṇu do not mention at all the Prārjunas, Sahasānikas, Kākas and Kharparikas. They had belonged to the Nāga group, being in Eastern Malwā.

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¹ 'sarvakshatravishkrita-vira sabda-jatotseka-avidheyanam' (E.I., VIII, 44) : 'the Yaudheyas who were loath to submit, rendered proud as they were by having manifested their title of 'heroes' among all Kshatriyas' (Kielhorn's translation).

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¹ Wilson, V.P., Vol. II, p. 133: ‘Śūra-Abhīrāḥ’ cf. Harivaṁśa, 12, 837, Śūra-Abhīrāḥ.

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² See Hall's note in Wilson's Viṣṇu, II, 133.

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³ See Jayaswal's Hindu Polity, I, p. 156.

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146A. Then comes the Mlechchha State which is described by the Bhāgavata as the next state. This was the Kushan State. To the inscription of Samudra Gupta, the Purāṇa here acts as commentary:

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Sindhos taṭam Chandrabhāgām
Kauntīm, Kāśmira-maṇḍalam
bhokṣyanti śūdrāś ch ānty ādyā (or, vrātyādyā)
Mlechchhāś ch-ābrahmavarchasaḥ. [P.T., 55].

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‘Over the banks of the Indus, and the Chandrabhāgā, Kauntī (Cutch⁴) (and) the principality of Kashmir, there will rule the Mlechchhas—the lowest of the Śūdras, who are opposed to Vedic holiness.’

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⁴ J.B.A.S., 1851, 234.

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The Viṣṇu reads: Sindhuṭaṭa-Dārvīkorvi-Chandrabhāgā-Kāśmīra-viṣayān Vrātyā Mlechchhā śūdrādyāḥ [or, Mlechchhā-dayaḥ śūdrāḥ] bhokṣyanti. The Viṣṇu is anxious here to connect the Indus-Chandrabhāgā valley (the Sindh-Sāgar Doab)

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with the Dārvikorvi (the Dārvika valley), i.e. the Khyber Pass with its hinterland (§ 124), which shows that there was a correct appreciation of the natural frontiers of India. The Chandrabhāgā limit is confirmed by the use of the Gupta Era at Shorkot in its 83rd year¹ when it is employed there without even the specification of the era, which shows that it must have been in vogue there for at least 25 years, i.e. since the reign of Samudra Gupta.

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¹ E.I., XVI, 15.

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146B. The Mlechchhas are called here the lowest of the Śūdras. Here we should recall the Mānava Code and the other authorities which hold the Śakas in India to be Śūdras. Patañjali, c. 180 B.C., discussed the status of the Śakas and Yavanas who in his time had been politically turned out of India yet few of whom remained as subjects in India. The Mahā Bhārata also has discussed the status of such foreigners, Śakas and others, domiciled in India who had become Hinduised.² Early authorities are unanimous in giving the Śakas the status of the Śūdra who was not permitted to interdine with the twice-born Aryans. These ruling Śakas and political antagonists, on account of their political and social policy, have been lowered by the Bhāgavata as lower than the lowest Śūdras, to the position of pariahs (antyajas). The reason is given by the Bhāgavata itself. They not only disregarded the orthodox system (‘the Vedic holiness’) but they imposed a system of social tyranny. The country under them was encouraged or forced to follow their manners, ethics and religious theories: ‘tannāthās te janapadās tach-chhilāchāra-vādinah.’ Politically they did persistently what the Śaka Satrap Rudradāman was made to swear not to do. He, on getting himself elected as king, took the oath that he would not exact taxes except those sanctioned by Hindu Law³. The Mlechchha kings, however, according to the description of the Bhāgavata and the Vishnu, followed the general practice of their race—exacted illegal taxes (prajās te bhakshayishyanti Mlechchhā rājnaya-rūpinah). They killed and massacred even women and children. They killed cows (which had become sacred by that time, as the Vākātaka and Gupta inscriptions prove). They killed Brahmins, they took away wives and wealth of others (strī-bāla-go-dvijaghnās cha, paradāradha-nāhritāh). They were never ‘crowned’, i.e., legal kings according to Hindu Law. They indulged in constant dynastic revolutions amongst themselves [“hatvā chaiva parasparam”; uditoditavamśās tu uditāstamitās tathā]—a condition already guessed by numismatists from their coins. There was thus a national cry, expressed by the Purāna text, practically inviting the Gupta emperors and the Hindus of the time to eradicate this lingering canker in the North-Western corner—an operation which Chandra Gupta II was compelled to perform and which he did perform successfully.

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² [I have discussed the Mahā Bhārata passage in my Baroda Lecture (1931).] M Bh., Śānti, LXV; Manu, X, 44; Patañjali on P. II. 4. 10.

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³ E.I., VIII, pp. 33-43 [Junagarh insc., lines 9-10]: sarva-varṇairabhigamya rakṣaṇārtha(m) patitve vṛitena ā-praṇochchhvāsāt puruṣa-vadha-nivṛitti-kṛita-satyapratijñena antyatra saṃgrāmeshu. Then, line 12: yathāvat-prāptair-bali-śulka-bhāgaiḥ

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147. This description is the description of the ‘Yauna’ rule and not of the Yavanas, the Indo-Greeks.¹ The Yauna has been turned into Yavana. The Brahmānda, closing the dynasties and rulers contemporary with the Early Guptas, says in its second half of verse 199:

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¹ Cf. ‘The Yaunas of the Purānas’, J.B.O.R.S., XVIII, 201.

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‘tulyakālam bhavishyanti sarve hyete mahīkshitah’

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and adds by its next verse (200):

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‘alpaprasādā hyanritā mahā-krodhā hyadhārmikāh
bhavishyantiha Yavanā dharmatah kāmato’rthatah.’

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‘There will be the Yavanas in this country propelled by religious zeal, ambition and greed, who will be of short whims, untruthful, of great anger and unrighteous.’

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With this opening verse there follows a description which is a summing-up of the Period. The Matsya, which closed with the end of the Sātavāhanas, also gives the same description, though condensed in three lines:

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*bhavishyantiha Yavanāḥ dharmataḥ kāmato 'rthataḥ*
*tair vimiśrā janapadā Āryā Mlechchhāś cha sarvaśaḥ*
*viparyayena vartante kshayam-eshyanti vai prajāḥ.*" 2

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[The Aryan population would become mixed with the Mlechchhas and the people would decay.] The Bhāgavata applies the same description to the Mlechchhas of Sindhu-Chandrabhāgā-Kauntī-Kāśmīra, and gives great details, as summarised above, up to the end of the chapter (Bk. XII, Chapter ii).² The Bhāgavata is followed by the Viṣṇu in this scheme. It is thus evident that the Yavana of the other Purāṇas is the Mlechchha of the Viṣṇu and the Bhāgavata. The Yavana here could not be the Indo-Greek Yavana who had passed away long before, both according to the Purāṇic treatment of chronology and dynastic details. These Yavanas here are the Yaunas, i.e. the Yauvā or Yauvan rulers who have been shown to be identical with the Kushans.³ The Kushans bore the royal title Yauv or Yauvā, and the Kushans are placed in the Purāṇas as the Tukhāra-Muruṇḍas and Śakas. The Bhāgavata shortly after (XII, iii, 14) actually uses the form 'Yauna'.

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² Ch. 272, 25-26.

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² The next chapter is the description of the liberation of the country by Kalki from the Mlechchhas whom I had identified with Viṣṇu Yaśodharman, the final destroyer of the Huns; but his description in the Mahā Bhārata and the Brahmāṇḍa agrees with the description of the Brahmin Emperor Pravarasena I the Vākāṭaka. [See also p. 46, n. above.]

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³ J.B.O.R.S., XVI, 287, XVII, 201.

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148. The Sindh-Afghanistan-Kashmir Mlechchhas had about four provinces, including Cutch. It is possible that some subordinate rulers under them were non-Mlechchhas, as the Bhāgavata says that the governors were predominatingly Mlechchhas (*Mlechchha-prāyāś cha bhūbhṛitaḥ*). Kauntī or Cutch was included in Sindh, as the Viṣṇu does not mention it separately. Cutch-Sindh was under the Western Satraps whose coins we get for some 30 years after the Kushan submission, which we may date about 350 A.D.

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149. Thus we have here a trustworthy and accurate account of the Bhārasiva-Nāga-Vākāṭaka Period and the Early Gupta Period in the Purāṇas. It is very full for the Vākāṭaka and the Samudra Gupta Periods. In fact, our literature nowhere else gives such detailed account for any other period of Hindu History before the Rājatarangiṇī takes up the history of the Karkoṭa Dynasty (7th century A.D.).

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FURTHER INDIA.

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149 A. Further India was recognized as part of India in the Bhārasiva-Vākāṭaka Period. In the Matsya Purāṇa for the first time we find that recognition.¹ Between the Himavat and the Sea, Bhāratavarṣa stands, but it covers a larger area on account of Indians [Bhāratī prajā] living in eight more islands or sea-girt lands (dvīpas), ‘which are mutually inaccessible on account of the sea intervening’. India is the ninth in that sea-girt system. This clearly means that the eight dvīpas or islands and peninsulas, inhabited by Indians, were in one direction from the Indian peninsula. The direction

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¹ Matsya, ch. 113. 1-14: [Cf. Vāyu Text, i. ch. 45, 69-86.]

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यददं भारतं वर्ष यस्मिन् खायम्भुवादयः
चतुर्दशैव मनवः (1)
अथाऽहं वर्णयिष्यामि वर्षस्मिन् भारते प्रजाः (5)
न कल्प्यञ्च सत्यानां भूमौ कर्मविधिः स्मृतः ।
उत्तरं यत्समुद्रस्य हिमवदक्षिणञ्च यत् ।
वर्ष यद्भारतं नाम यत्रयं भारती प्रजा ॥ [Vāyu, 75].
भारतस्यास्य वर्षस्य नवभेदास्त्रिबोधत ॥ (7)
समुद्राप्परिता ज्ञेयास्ते त्वगम्याः परस्परम् [Vāyu, 78]
इन्द्रद्वीपः कसेरुश्च ताम्रपर्णी गभस्तिमान् ।
नागद्वीपस्तथा सौम्यो गन्धर्वस्त्वथ वारुणः ॥ (8)
अयं तु नवमस्तेषां द्वीपः सागरसंवृतः । (9)

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Then follows the description of the ninth dvīpa or section of Bhāratavarṣa, which covers the whole of India, called here Mānavadvīpa.

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is indicated by the situation of Tāmraparṇī, one of the eight Hindu dvīpas. All these dvīpas were to the east, that is, they constituted what we call to-day Further India. Indradvīpa, the first dvīpa in the list, has been satisfactorily identified with Burma.¹ The Malay Peninsula was well known to Indians at that time, a fact evidenced by an inscription of the fourth century A.D. inscribed on a pillar [in the present district of Wellesley] by a Hindu sea-captain (Mahānāvika) Budhagupta of Eastern India,² and it is very probable that the Kaseru or Kaserumat dvīpa which is mentioned next to Indradvīpa, meant the Straits Settlements. The next class begins with Tāmraparṇī (the older name of Ceylon): Tāmraparṇa, Gabhastimān, Nāgadvīpa, Saumya, Gāndharva, and Vāruna dvīpas. Nāgadvīpa is Nicobar.³ We know from Cambodian inscriptions that Cambodia (Indo-China) was held by the Nāgas who were superseded by the orthodox Hindu dynasty of Kauṇḍinya from India.⁴ We may take ‘Nāga’ to be the ethnic designation of the pre-Hindu inhabitants of these colonies. Gabhastimān [‘Island of the Sun’], Saumya, Gāndharva and Vāruna represent the Archipelago (Sumatra, Borneo, etc.), out of which Sumatra-Java had certainly settlements of Indians before the fourth century A.D. It is certain that the Purāṇas in the third and fourth centuries are conscious of the Hindu colonies in Further India, and treat them as parts of Bhāratavarsha.⁵ Their Bhāratavarsha, which was primarily India, was at this point of time interpreted as India-cum-Greater India, which latter taking Ceylon, consisted of eight units or divisions, called dvīpas.

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¹ S. N. Majumdar, J.B.O.R.S., 1922 (March), now reprinted in his edition of Cunningham's *Ancient Geography of India* (1924), p. 749. His identification of Kaserumat with the Malay Peninsula is reasonable. But the other proposals are hopeless.

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² *Ibid.*, p. 752, citing Kern, *VG.*, III (1915), p. 255.

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³ Gerini, *Ptolemy's Geography*, pp. 379-383.

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⁴ *Champa* by Dr. R. C. Mazumdar, ii. 18, 23.

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⁵ The Vāyu shows a detailed knowledge of the Archipelago and gives in a new chapter [ch. 48] names current in Gupta times, e.g., Aṅga [Champā], Malaya, Ya[v]a, etc.

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150. In line 23 in the group of Shāhānushāhi and others, i.e., the group of what we should call today the States ‘under the sphere of influence’, we have *Saimhalaka-ādibhiś cha sarva-dvīpa-vāsibhih*, ‘the king of Simhala and all the other islanders (or, Oceanic rulers)’, who made their submission and acknowledged Samudra Gupta as their Emperor. They paid no taxes but brought presents and expressly accepted his headship. Samudra Gupta describes this as uniting the whole land [Prithivī] within his two arms. His India or Prithivī, therefore, embraced within its bounds Further India. ‘All the dvīpas’ here meant all the Indian colonies of Bhāratavarsha (§ 149 A), of the *Bhāratī prajā*. Dr. Vincent Smith thinks that the embassy of Meghavarna of Ceylon, come to obtain permission for erecting a monastery for the Simhalese pilgrims at Bodhgayā, was alluded to by Samudra Gupta in his inscription as presenting tribute.¹ But the two matters seem to be quite independent. In the inscription the reference is not to the king of Ceylon only but also to the rulers of ‘all the’ dvīpas. That there were other Indian colonies at the time which had been in communication with the home-land is a well-known fact. We have in the third century a Sanskrit inscription in Champā [Cambodia] of a king belonging to the dynasty of Śrī Māra Kauṇḍinya², anticipating the favourite Vasantatilakā metre and the language and style of the Vākāṭaka and Gupta inscriptions.

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This inscription establishes that the connection of the colonies with the Bhāraśiva and Vākāṭaka India and with the revivalism of Sanskrit in the home-land had been fully maintained. All official inscriptions in India in the second century A.D., both in the South and in the North, had been in Prakrit.³ B h a d r a v a r m a n *Fan-Hou-la'* of the Chinese] who defeated the Chinese forces [380-410 A.D.], was a contemporary of Chandra Gupta II. His father, a contemporary of Samudra Gupta, was fighting the Chinese Emperor at the time, and would have welcomed connection with the Indian Emperor. Bhadravarman's son, Gangarāja, actually retired to India to pass his days on the Ganges and then went back to Champā and ruled.¹ The connection of the Hindu king of Funan with India since 245 A.D. is also a recorded fact. The impress of the time of Samudra Gupta on the Hindu Colonies is marked in such a degree that the Allahabad inscription is necessarily to be taken seriously--as seriously as it is taken with regard to its Indian matters.

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Samudra Gupta's reign coincides with a new social system on Hindu lines in Funan under Śrutavarman.² About the same time in the Hindu colony of Western Java we find inscriptions being written in Sanskrit in the script of 'the fourth or fifth century A.D.' And Sumatra gets so much of orthodox Hindu culture just before the arrival of Fa Hien that he found: 'various forms of error and Brahmanism flourishing while Buddhism in it is not worth speaking of' (Fa Hien, p. 113). We have the evidence of Fa Hien that Tāmralipti, which, as we have seen, became a Guptan port by annexation in Samudra Gupta's time, was a brisk port for regular communication between India and Ceylon. To Tāmralipti the traveller had to go from Champā [Bhagalpur], which was a capital in his time--a fact fully corroborating the statement of the Purāṇas on the Gupta organisation of the Province of Champā-Tāmralipti. Fa Hien found a large merchant-ship sailing for Ceylon which he calls Simhala [just as in Samudra Gupta's inscription], and embarked for that island. The connection between Ceylon and India had been easy and constant enough to compel the Saimhalaka King to accept the imperial position of Samudra Gupta. Tāmralipti was also the chief port in Northern India for Further India. Its annexation to the Province of Champā was with a view to come in close touch with the colonies in Further India and to control the sea-trade.¹ There was here a well-considered and well-calculated policy.

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The inscription is not a vague record of accidental visits from Ceylon and other islands, but is a record of the results of a conscious imperial policy.

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¹ E.H.I., pp. 304-305.

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² *Champā* by Dr. R. C. Mazumdar: Inscription No. 1. *Cf.* also J.R.A.S., 1912, 677, where Fan Ye (d. 445 A.D.) is cited as describing [Gupta] India from Kabul to Burma or Annam.

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³ With the single exception of the Junagarh inscription of Rudradāman who was particularly learned in Sanskrit and who tried to make himself an orthodox Hindu king, having come in by election.

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¹ Champā, pp 25-29.

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² Coomaraswamy: History of Indian and Indonesian Art, p. 181 [see authorities cited therein]; Finot in Indian Historical Quarterly, 1925, Vol. I, p. 612.

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¹ Influx of gold was probably more from Further India, than from the South. F. India produced much gold.

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151. Evidence of A r t further establishes a Guptan connection with Indian Colonies. Pieces of sculpture going back to the fourth century A.D. have been noticed as bearing the stamp of the Vākāṭaka-Gupta Art, and temples of the Gupta type have been found in Cambodia.² Similarly the introduction of the Gupta script and its adaptation in Burma, and the large finds of Gupta terracottas in Burma are to be noted.³ The history of Art in subsequent centuries in Indonesia is so indissolubly knit with the Gupta art that it is to be regarded as bearing solid testimony to the introduction of Gupta influence beginning with Samudra Gupta’s time. Samudra Gupta, if not politically, yet culturally, did cause the unity of Further India with the Motherland within his two arms⁴.

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² Coomaraswamy: 157, 182, 183.

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³ Coomaraswamy, Ibid., p. 169. V. Smith, Early History, 4th ed., p. 297, n., asserts the introduction of the Gupta Era in Burma. I learn from Mr. Umya, Superintendent, Archæological Survey, Burma, that no record in the Gupta Era has been found in Burma. But see Führer's APR., for June, 1894. On the adaptation of the Gupta script to Burmese phonetics in the Pyu inscriptions see the forms in E.I. XII. 127.

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⁴ ‘bāhu-vīryya-prasara-dharaṇi-bandhasya’; L. 24, All. Insc., G.I., p. 8.

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151A. Samudra Gupta in every respect carried out the Hindu ideal of imperialism.⁵ According to the Mahā-Bhārata, Siṃhala [Ceylon] and the Hindu Dvīpas or colonies were integral parts of the Indian Empire of the Hindu Samrāṭ.⁶ According to that ideal the whole of India including Afghanistan¹ must be comprised in that empire. But the empire must not go further west and be at the cost of the liberties of the countries beyond Afghanistan. The traditional international morality of Hindu India was noted by the Greek writers and the Arab Sulaiman.² The Law of Manu, which fixes the western boundary of India, was scrupulously observed by Samudra Gupta. The Sassanian king, who was troubled and weakened by the Roman emperor at the time, could have been invaded and probably easily conquered by Samudra Gupta, who in the art of war had no equal in his time. But Samudra Gupta had a law laid down to him by his dharmaśāstra—the code, ‘the rule (śāstra) of civilisation’ (dharma). And that dharma was followed: that dharma limited a Hindu monarch's actions, both international and imperial. The history of Samudra Gupta's conquests shows that his actions were well-regulated by that law, and that he did not become a militarist.

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⁵ M.Bh., Sabhā, XIV, 9-12, XXXVII, 20.

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⁶ Ibid., XXXI, 73-74; [see also Southern Text, C. XXXIV].

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¹ Ibid., XXVII, 25, where the frontiers of Seistan peopled by ‘the Parama Kambojas’ and their allied tribes the ‘Northern Rishikas’ [the Ārśī people] are described. On Rishika and Ārśī, see Bhāratabhūmi by J. Vidyālaṅkāra, pp. 313-315; J.B.O.R.S., XVIII, 97.

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² Hindu Polity, ii, 190-191.

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