History of India, c. 150 A.D. to 350 A.D.: Naga–Vakataka Imperial Period c16.s4.58.1

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.