North Indian Inscriptions

THE GUPTA SYSTEM OF ADMINISTRATION

163 Mahārāja Brahmadatta was appointed by Budhagupta as the Uparika of Puṇḍravardhana. According to another Dāmōdarpur plate whose year is not preserved, the same emperor appointed Mahārāja Jayadatta as the Uparika of the same province, who, in his turn, nominated Āyuktaka Bhāṇḍaka as the head of the same Adhishṭhān-ādhikaraṇa, namely, of kōṭivarsha. The last Dāmōdarpur plate bears the date 214, but, unfortunately, the name of the king is gone. Gone also is the name of the Uparika appointed by him for the same province, though this much is certain that he had the title of Mahārāja. The name, however, of the Head of Kōṭi-varsha Adhishṭhān-ādhikaraṇa, appointed by him, is preserved, namely Svayambhudēva who was Vishayapati also. It will be seen from the above account that Puṇḍravardhana in the Gupta period was a province and Kōṭivarsha a district comprised in it. The Uparika of the province was invariably appointed by the sovereign, whether he was Kumāragupta, Budhagupta or some other sovereign, but in every case the Uparika nominated the Head of the Adhishṭhān-ādhikaraṇa of the District. The conclusion is irresistible that the designation Uparika denotes the Viceroy of a province. The same conclusion is further supported by the description given of this officer in the last of these plates. He is there described as running on the administration with hasty-aśva-jana-bhōga, “with the enjoyment (of the rule) consisting of elephants, horses and soldiers.” This exactly describes the status of the Subah or Viceroy such as he flourished in Mediaeval India down to seventy-five years ago. He had at his command not only soldiers but also horses and elephants.

        In this connection may further be considered the administration of the districts upon which the Gupta inscriptions throw some light. The biggest territorial division, we have just seen, was bhukti, the administrator of which is styled Uparika. This Uparika, again, we have seen, was not so much the Divisional Commissioner of the modern day as the Subah of the old regime. Another characteristic of the Uparika was that he was invariably appointed by the Gupta sovereign direct. This is quite clear from the Dāmōdarpur plates, where the Puṇdravardhana bhukti and the Kōṭivarsha vishaya contained in it are mentioned. Another note-worthy thing about the Uparika was that he was not always an individual of ordinary social status. Of the five Dāmōdarpur records, three (Nos. 38, 40 and 47 below) couple the title of Mahārāja with the name of the Uparika. This reminds us of Mahārājā Mānsingh of Amer being nominated the governor of Bengal by the Moghul emperor Akbar.¹ Even long before the Gupta supremacy and during the reign of Aśōka, we known, the Yavana ruler Tushāspa was the provincial governor of Surāshṭra.² The next smaller territorial division is vishaya. This is clear from the fact that Kōṭivarsha is mentioned as a vishaya comprised in the Puṇḍravardhana-bhukti. Both R. D. Banerji³ and R. G. Basak⁴ have remarked on the strength of the Dāmōdarpur inscriptions that the Vishayapati, or officer in charge of the district, was appointed by the Uparika. This is, however, controverted by the Indōr plate (No. 30 below) of Skandagupta which makes mention of a Vishayapati called Śarvanāga ruling over Antarvēdī, that is, Antarabēda, the region of Kanauj between the Ganges and Jumna, and speaks of him as tat-pāda-parigṛihīta “being favoured by that venerable (king),” that is, Skandagupta. This is precisely the expression used in the Dāmōdarpur records with reference to the Uparika, who, for that reason, is taken rightly by all scholars as being directly nominated by the Gupta sovereign. And the Indōr plate may now be taken to indicate that even the Vishayapati was appointed by the same sovereign. The power of appointment which the Uparika possessed was with reference, not to the Vishayapati, but to the President of the District Town Board to which
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¹ D. R. Bhandarkar’s Aśōka (2nd edn.), p. 53.
² Ep. Ind., Vol. VIII, pp. 46-47.
³ The Age of the Imperial Guptas (Manindra Chandra Nandy Lectures, 1924), pp. 77-78.
⁴ The History of North-Eastern India, p. 190.