North Indian Inscriptions

POLITICAL HISTORY

information we arrive at the conclusion that the Muruṇḍas were of a foreign origin and ruled over the greater portion of the Ganges Valley in the first three centuries of the Christian era. Now, it is strange, very strange, that not a single inscription or even a coin has been found of these Muruṇḍas, whosoever they were, that is, whether they were a tribe, a clan or a family, although they exercised sway over the greater part of Northern India, for nearly three centuries. What, however, we do find is the supremacy of the Kushāṇas established precisely over this region an during this period, as has now been clearly demonstrated by the find of their coins. That they were a foreign race cannot possibly be denied. It is, therefore, difficult to avoid the conclusion that it is they who are intended by the use of the term, Muruṇḍa. If this position is once accepted, it becomes intelligible why the Jaina books mention them as being stationed once at Kanyākubja and once at Pāṭaliputra. Evidently they were the Satrapies of the Kushāṇa empire. But the question arises: how can we identify the Muruṇḍas with the Kushāṇas ? It is possible to say in reply that Muruṇḍa was the name of the tribe, and, Kushāṇa, of the family. But there is not a shred of evidence in support of it. It thus becomes a mere assumption. On the other hand, Sten Konow has adduced good evidence to show that Muruṇḍa was a Scythic term signifying ‘a lord’ and corresponding to the Sanskrit svāmin.¹ This word is actually found used in Kharōshṭhī inscriptions, more than once, with reference to the Scythian rulers of India. If this suggestion of the Norwegian scholar is accepted, we can easily understand how the Kushāṇa sovereigns, or rather, their Satraps, came to be styled Muruṇḍas. What was originally a designation or title became afterwards a family name, instances of this kind being furnished by the Peshwas of Poona and Nizams of Hyderabad (Deccan) of later history. To come back to our main point, Śaka-Muruṇḍa of the Allahabad pillar inscription had better be thus understood to denote ‘the Śaka and the Muruṇḍas’ and not merely ‘the Śaka lord or lords’. There is nothing to prevent us from taking Śaka- Muruṇḍa in the plural, and perhaps it accords better with what we know about the Śakas of this period, as we shall soon see.

       The question that now confronts us is: who the Śaka rulers could be in the time of Samudragupta ? One such must certainly be a Western Kshatrapa. But the Western Kshatrapas were no longer the kings of Ujjain that they were originally. Their power had been considerably reduced and seems to have been confined, at this period, to Kāṭhiāwāṛ and possibly North Gujarat. The Mahākshatrapas of Surāshṭra are known from their coins have been in existence up till 388 A.D. And as the title Mahākshatrapa shows, they appear to have maintained some sort of independence till then. Nothing, therefore, precludes us from supposing that Śaka of the phrase Śaka-Muruṇḍa denotes, among others, the Mahākshatrapa of Surāshṭra who was a contemporary of Samudragupta. Śaka, again, may designate, as Allan² observes, those Śakas in the north-west who struck coins of Kushāṇa types with Ardokhsho reverse. Some of these, which bear the clan name Shāka, bear also the letters Sayatha, Sita and Saṇa under the arm of the royal figure on the obverse, which must, therefore, be taken to be the names of individual rulers.³ Others, again, contain the clan name Shālada, also read as Pālada, and the individual names Bhadra and Pāsaka.⁴ Of these Shāka looks like a taddhita form of Śaka or Shaka, and means ‘descendants of Śakas’. We meet with similar taddhita forms in later history also. Thus certain clans of South India, when they first rose to power, were known as Chalukya, Kadamba and so forth. Afterwards they lost their power for a time, but later, when their scions re-asserted it, they called themselves Chālukya, kādamba and so on. It is thus perfectly intelligible why the descendants of the earlier Śakas should style themselves Shākas
______________________________________________

¹ Ep. Ind., Vol. XIV, pp. 292-93; CII., Vol. II, pt. i, p. xx.
² Catalogue of the Coins of the Gupta Dynasty, Intro., p. xxviii.
³ V. A. Smith, Catalogue of the Coins in the Indian Museum, Vol. I, p. 89.
⁴ Ibid., pp. 88-89.