North Indian Inscriptions

POLITICAL HISTORY

Allan has quoted examples of the use of ‘Gupta’ as a proper name.¹ Gupta was thus the name of the father of the celebrated Buddhist saint, Upagupta. Rapson, again, has published a seal with the legend Gutasya (=Guttasya) in mixed Sanskrit and Prakrit, standing, of course, for the Sanskrit Guptasya.² Similarly, Hoernle possessed a clay seal reading Śrīr-Guptasya and belonging apparently to the third century A.D. Basak is of opinion that not the first, but the second, of these seals belongs to Gupta, the grandfather of Chandragupta.³ Allan points out that I-Tsing, the Chinese pilgrim, who travelled in India in the seventh century A.D., speaks of a ‘great king’ (mahārāja), Śrī-Gupta, who built a temple near Mṛigaśikhāvana for the benefit of Chinese pilgrims and who lived some five hundred years before his own time of pilgrimage in India. This statement of I-Tsing has already been noted by Fleet, who, however, rejects the identification of this Śrī-Gupta with our Gupta, first because the former’s name is Śrīgupta, and not Gupta, and secondly because I-Tsing’s date would place him about 175 A.D. which is too early. “It is not, however, necessary,” says Allan by way of reply, “to regard the śrī here as an integral part of the name (śriyā guptaḥ) ; it is frequently used as an honorific by the Chinese writers. ”⁴ He, however, admits that the chronological difficulty is more serious, but argues that the chronological part of I-Tsing’s statement is vague and may not be taken too literally. He further argues that “it is unlikely that we should have two different rulers in the same territory of the same name within so brief a period.”⁵ “But have we not,” asks H. C. Rayachaudhuri pertinently, “two Chandra Guptas and two Kumāra Guptas within brief periods?”⁶ There is thus no good reason to identify Śrī-Gupta of I-Tsing who lived about 175 A.D. with Chandragupta’s grandfather who flourished a century later.

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It is again very doubtful whether Gupta with which the Gupta lineage begins can really be the proper name of any prince of this dynasty. For his son is Ghaṭōtkacha, his son Chandra, and his son Samudra. As these are genuine proper names, they can be joined to their dynastic names so as to form the complete names, Ghaṭōtkachagupta, Chandragupta, and Samudragupta. If Gupta, the name of the first prince of this family, is a proper name, we ought for the same reason to call him Guptagupta, which, however, sounds fanciful to a degree. Besides, we have in this connection to note what the Poona Plates of Prabhāvatiguptā⁷ have to say on this point. Prabhāvatiguptā, as we shall see later on, was a daughter of Chandragupta II and grand-daughter of Samudragupta. She was thus not far removed from the latter. And yet, her record, while describing her pedigree, distinctly says that the first king of the Guptas is, not Gupta, but the Mahārāja Ghaṭōtkacha. The exact wording of the inscription is: āsīd=Gupt-ādirājō Mahārāja-śrī- Ghaṭōtkachas (lines 1-2), which can mean only “there was the Mahārāja, the illustrious Ghaṭōtkacha, the first king among the Guptas.” No reasonable doubt can thus be entertained as to Ghaṭōtkacha being really the first ruler of this dynasty. And it appears that Gupta has been mentioned at all, because it is customary to introduce an illustrious personage by specifying details about the two generations preceding him. Chandragupta was the first independent king of the Gupta family. His father’s and grand-father’s names had thus to be specified. His father’s name was well-known, namely, Ghaṭōtkacha. But the latter’s father’s name, it seems, was not so. He was practically a nonentity. At any rate, it served no useful purpose to reveal his name, and so he has been mentioned by his family name, Gupta, and the title Mahārāja was appended to it, it seems, by way of courtesy.
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¹ Catalogue of the Coins of the Gupta Dynasty, Intro., p. xiv.
² JRAS., 1905, p. 814, P1. VI. 23.
³ The History of North-eastern India, etc., p. 5
⁴ Catalogue of the Coins of the Gupta Dynasty, Intro., p. xv.
⁵ Ibid.
⁶ Pol. Hist. Anc. Ind., (1932), p. 360.
⁷ Ep. Ind., Vol. XV, pp. 39-44 and plate.