Political History of Ancient India, from the Accession of Parikshit to the Extinction of the Gupta Dynasty c20.s2.1

c20.s2.1

The first independent sovereign (*Mahārājādhirāja*)¹ of the line was Chandra Gupta I, son of Ghaṭotkacha, who *may have* ascended the throne in 320 A.D., the initial date of the Gupta Era.² Like his great fore-runner Bimbisāra he strengthened his position at some stage of his career, by a matrimonial alliance with the Lichchhavis of Vaiśālī or of Nepāl,³ and laid the foundations of the Second Magadhan Empire. The union of Chandra Gupta I with the Lichchhavi family is commemorated by a series of coins⁴ having on the obverse standing figures of Chandra Gupta and his queen, the Lichchhavi princess Kumāradevī, and on the reverse a figure of Lakshmī, the goddess of luck with the legend "*Lichchhavayaḥ*" probably signifying that the prosperity of Chandra Gupta was due to his Lichchhavi alliance. Smith suggests that the Lichchhavis were ruling in Pāṭaliputra as tributaries or feudatories of the Kushāns and that through his marriage Chandra Gupta succeeded to the power of his wife's relatives. But Allan suggests that Pāṭaliputra was in the possession of the Guptas even in Śrī Gupta's time.¹