North Indian Inscriptions

POLITICAL HISTORY

In fact, he was the paramount sovereign of the whole of India except those small provinces held by the Kushāṇa and Śaka rulers on the outskirts. If Harishēṇa has not exaggerated, they were, indeed, afraid of “the onrush of the prowess of his arms (bāhu-vīrya-prasara) and therefore constructed ‘earthen embankments’ (dharaṇi-bandha) to arrest it by way of various diplomatic devices, such as ātma-nivēdana, kany-ōpāyana-dāna, etc. These last we have carefully considered and explained.

       The natural culmination of these India-wide conquests was, of course, the celebration of the Aśvamēdha sacrifice with which Samudragupta is credited. There is, however, absolutely no mention of it in any one of his epigraphic records, above all, in his Allahabad pillar inscription where it would be naturally expected. The reasonable conclusion is that the Aśvamēdha sacrifice must have been performed after this inscription had been put up. It is worthy of note that this record has been engraved on a pillar which had already been inscribed with three different types of Aśōka’s edicts. From one of these it is also quite clear that originally this pillar was standing at Kauśāmbī, identified with Kosam, about 28 miles west by south from Allahabad. Kauśāmbī was then the centre of the main routes that ran from east to west and north to south.¹ And it seems that Samudragupta had just then completed his expedition of conquest in South India and was returning to his capital Pāṭaliputra, via Kauśāmbī. Of all the victories of this Gupta monarch, those of Dakshiṇāpatha must have been the last to achieve. They were not at all needed for the preservation of the Gupta empire, and must have been undertaken at a time, when everything was quiet and firm in North India, and, when as Dharma-vijayin, Samudragupta had only to capture and liberate the different princes of that region to establish his claim to sārvabhaumatva with a view to celebrating the Aśvamēdha which he had now set his heart upon. As Kauśāmbī was the meeting point of the two great arteries of communication in India, Samudragupta must have naturally rested himself for some time along with his sacrificial steed, before he could resume the onward march to Pāṭaliputra. It was here and at this time that the idea of setting up a record of all his multifarious achievements presumably suggested itself to him. And as Kauśāmbī was itself known for a stone column inscribed with the edicts of Aśōka which handed down the name of the Maurya sovereign from one generation to another, Samudragupta must have thought this column to be the fittest place where his panegyric record also could be engraved so that his fame, like that of his Mauryan compeer, could endure from one age to another till the sun and the moon shone in their orbs.

       We have shown that this praśasti of Samudragupta was composed by Harishēṇa, his Minister for Peace and War. The actual work of executing it, that is, of engraving it on the pillar, was done by another officer, called Tilakabhaṭṭa, a Mahādaṇḍanāyaka, who was apparently the officer in charge of Kauśāmbī and the surrounding districts. On reaching Pāṭaliputra Samudragupta must have performed the Aśvamēdha sacrifice.

       â€œVerily,” says the Śatapatha-Brāhmaṇa (XIII. 1.6.3.), “the Aśvamēdha means royal sway; it is after royal sway that those strive who guard the horse. Those of them who reach the end become (sharers in) the royal sway, but those who do not reach the end are cut off from royal sway. Therefore let him who holds royal sway perform the horse-sacrifice; for, verily, whoever performs the horse-sacrifice, without possessing power, is poured (swept) away.”² The late Eggeling, who has translated this Brāhmaṇa rightly says that “the Aśyamēdha . . . . . involved an assertion of power and a display of political authority such as only a monarch of undisputed supremacy could have ventured upon without courting humiliation; and its celebration must
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¹ Cambridge History of India, Vol. I, p. 517.
² SBE., Vol. XLIV, pp. 288-89.