Political History of Ancient India, from the Accession of Parikshit to the Extinction of the Gupta Dynasty c20.2

c20.2

¹ With *Rājasiṁha* may be compared the epithet *Narendra-siṁha* occurring on coins of Chandragupta II (Allan, *Gupta Coins*, 43). All the letters here are rot clearly legible (*ibid*, cxiii), but on many coins we find the analogous epithet *Siṁha-vikrama* (pp. 38 ff.). The reference in the *Dūtavākya* must be to a paramount ruler of Northern India, bounded by the seas and the Himālayan and Vindhyan ranges, who had the epithet ‘lion-like king.’ The ruler who answers best to the description is Chandra Gupta II. The author of the *Dūtavākya* possibly refers to this monarch. If he is identical with Bhāsa, a distinguished predecessor of Kālidāsa, his career as a poet may have begun before the accession of Chandra Gupta II, Vikramāditya, ‘Narendra-Siṁha,’ *i.e.*, in the time of the great patron and ‘king of poets’ (*Kavirāja*) Samudra Gupta.