The Dynastic History of Northern India (Early Mediaeval Period) v1.c14.20.4

v1.c14.20.4

The Licchavi era and the names of Licchavi kings again appear on the charters of Jiṣṇugupta.³ It seems likely that, taking advantage of the confusion that followed the death of Aṁśuvarman, this adventurer, who was probably sprung from an indigenous family, seized the royal power and raised a scion of the Licchavis as his nominal sovereign. From the fact that he mentions his great-grandfather Mānagupta without any honorific, and that the ending of his name is *Gupta*, which is absent in the names of the Licchavi princes, and occurs only in the legendary lists of Gopāla kings, Lévi concluded that Jiṣṇugupta was an Āhīr (Ābhīra = Gopāla = Goāl) of plebeian rank.⁴ By the time his reign ended, the Licchavis, the legitimate sovereigns of Nepal, had fully recovered their power. From the time of Narendradeva, who succeeded Jiṣṇugupta sometime before the year 657 A. D., the date which marks, according to Lévi, the introduction of the cult of Matsyendranātha in Nepal, down to the time of Jayadeva *Paracakrakāma* whose Katmandu inscription is dated in 153 (=748 A.D. ?), the Valley appears to have remained under the control of the Licchavis.¹ Śivadeva, the father of Jayadeva, whose Lagantol inscription is dated in 119 (=714 A. D. ?), married Vatsadevī, the daughter of the Maukhari Bhogavarman and the granddaughter of the *Magadhādhipa*, Ādityasena. This last prince is certainly the later Gupta ruler of that name whose Shahpur image inscription is dated in the Harṣa year 66 (=672-73 A.