North Indian Inscriptions

POLITICAL HISTORY

about the beginning of the Christian era. There was a time when their might had spread over the whole of Northern India, as is evidenced by the find of their coins as far east as Mayurbhanj. This point we have already dwelt upon. About the beginning of the fourth century, however, their power, and the sphere of their suzerainty, had considerably shrunk up. Let us now see who these foreign rulers were. The whole of this compound is susceptible of a number of divisions. The different divisions proposed by different scholars have been considered else-where. In our opinion, it is practically certain that two distinct rulers only are here adverted to. The first three members of the compound are obviously titles, but the question is: whether they are to be considered jointly as the titles of one great suzerain, or each as the peculiar title of the ruler of a smaller state ? The solution is indicated by its first component, which is Daivaputra, and not Dēvaputra. Daivaputra is Dēvaputrasy=ēdam (padaṁ) =Daivaputraṁ, according to Pāṇini IV. iii. 120. It cannot stand by itself, and so it cannot be taken to denote an individual ruler, as some scholars have done. It has to be taken in conjunction with Shāhi-Shāhānushāhi which follow it. These three components, namely, Daivaputra-Shāhi-Shāhānushāhi, must therefore be taken together as indicating one of these distant monarchs. Who could he be ? He was presumably a Kushāṇa ruler, because the titles Dēvaputra, Shāhi and Shāhānushāhi are found used by the Kushāṇas only. It may be observed that Dēvaputra is the Indian equivalent of the Chinese imperial title tien-tȥu, ‘son of heaven’, which, so far as we know, was adopted from the Chinese by the Kushāṇa rulers only. In the epigraphic records we find it assumed not only by Kanishka I but also by Huvishka and Vāsudēva I.

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It is true that the title Shāhi was not much used by the Kushāṇas. But it is a mistake to say that they never used it. Thus, in a Mathurā inscription of the year 8, we notice Kanishka I adopting this title along with Mahārāja and Rājātirāja.¹ As regards Shāhānushāhi it is obviously an attempt to transliterate the Persian Shāhānshāh, ‘king of kings’, the well-known Iranian title of suzerainty adopted by the Kushāṇas from their Scythian predecessors of Bactria and India. It is true that this title is not traceable in any Kushāṇa epigraphs, but it is exceedingly familiar to us from their coin legends from the time of Kanishka I to that of Vāsudēva I.² Nay, it is traceable in a corrupt form on the coins of Kanishka II and Vāsudēva II also, who were doubtless the Later Great Kushāṇas. It will thus be seen that the three titles Dēvaputra, Shāhi and Shāhānushāhi were used by the Kushāṇas only and regularly correspond to the Indian title Dēvaputra, Mahārāja and Rājātirāja which are invariably and conjointly associated with the names of the Earlier Great Kushāṇas in Sanskrit records. But Samudragupta could not be a contemporary of any one of these Kushāṇas. We know that the latter were succeeded by the Later Great Kushāṇas such as Kanishka II and Vāsudēva II, who seem to be scions of the family of Kanishka I. A Sanskrit epigraph of one of these kings has been discovered at Māṭ near Mathurā. It speaks of a Kushāṇaputra who receives the titles Mahārāja Rājātirāja Dēvaputra exactly as the Earlier Great Kushāṇas do.³ The name Kushāṇaputra reminds us of Bōjaputta and Vidēhaputta of the Pāli Jātakas,⁴ and Kēralalputra and Sātīyaputra of Aśōkan inscriptions.⁵ The ending putta (=putra) obviously denotes new branches or septs of old clans. If Kushāṇa stands for the Earlier Great Kushāṇas, Kushāṇaputra must stand for their descendants, the Later Great
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¹ Ep. Ind., Vol. XVII, p. 11.
² These titles were for a long time not correctly read until Aurel Stein pointed out that Scythic p represented the same letter as the sh of the Indian forms and that the character p was sometimes found as p with a slight up- ward stroke (Ind. Ant., Vol. XVII, pp. 94 ff.).
³ A. R. ASI., 1911-12, p. 124.
⁴ For Bhōjaputta mentioned as a country, see Fausboll, Jātaka, Vol. I, p. 45, line 26; for Vidēhaputta, see ibid., Vol. V, p. 90, line 8.
⁵ CII., Vol. I, 1925, p. 72; D. R. Bhandarkar, Aśoka (2nd ed.), p. 299.