History of India, c. 150 A.D. to 350 A.D.: Naga–Vakataka Imperial Period c16.s4.58
History of India, c. 150 A.D. to 350 A.D.: Nāga–Vākāṭaka Imperial Period c16.s4.58
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c16.s4.58.1
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.
c16.s4.58.2
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.
c16.s4.58.3
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.
c16.s4.58.4
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.