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The Indian Analyst
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North Indian Inscriptions |
POLITICAL HISTORY he had already attained to the rank of paramount sovereign. The Horse Sacrifice must have been celebrated very soon after the record was incised on the column, as the obvious culmination of his assertion of undisputed supremacy over the whole of India. This view is confirmed by a critical study of the coins he issued to signalise this event of extreme political importance. On the obverse of the coin, as Allan1 informs us, is a representation of the sacrificial steed standing before a decorated sacrificial post (yūpa) and apparently bound to it. On the reverse is a female figure standing, wearing loose robe and jewellery and holding chowrie over her right shoulder in her right hand. Presumably she is the mahishī or Chief Queen of Samudragupta, namely, Dattadēvī, who must have played a more important part in the sacrifice than the other wives of the king. On the left is a sacrificial spear bound with fillet. Around her feet is what looks like a chain extending also round the spear. At her feet, again, is an uncertain object which seems to be a gourd. On the reverse, again, is the legend Aśvamēdha-parākramaḥ, which is no doubt the appellation he assumed after the performance of the sacrifice and which signifies “one whose valour is Horse Sacrifice.” This means that when he performed Aśvamēdha, he exhibited valour, that, in other words, it was through his valour that he was able to celebrate the sacrifice. This Aśvamēdha of Samudragupta, therefore, must have been an achievement worthy of a Sārvabhauma. It could not have been performed with a purely secular motive, such, for example, as putra-prāpti, or a purely religious purpose, such as the expiation of sins. This is corroborated also by the distich which occurs on the reverse of his coins, namely, rājādhirājaḥ pṛithivīṁ vijitya divaṁ jayaty=Aprativārya-vīryaḥ, “The overlord of lords, having conquered the earth, being of irresistible prowess, conquers heaven”. This indicates that his conquests all over India have developed into Aśvamēdha which has now enabled him to conquer heaven also.
It has been stated above that though the coins of Samudragupta commemorate his celebration of Horse Sacrifice, no reference to it is traceable in his epigraphic records. The inscriptions of his descendants, however, do refer to it. Thus the Bilsaḍ and Bihār stone pillar inscriptions of Kumāragupta and Budhagupta respectively (Nos. 16 and 41 below) speak of Samudragupta as chir-ōtsann-āśvamēdh-āharttā. This expression Fleet has rendered by “who was the restorer of the aśvamēdha-sacrifice, that had been long in abeyance.” When this English savant
published his classical work Gupta Inscriptions, there was little epigraphical evidence to show
that there was any other king except Sātakarṇi,2 or rather his queen, who performed the Horse
Sacrifice before the time of the Gupta monarch. But their name is now legion. Because now we
know that Aśvamēdha was performed twice by the Śuṅga Pushyamitra,3 once by Pārāśarīputra
Gājāyana Sarvatāta,4 twice by Vēdiśrī Sātakarṇi,5 ten times by the Bhāraśivas,6 four times by
the Vākāṭaka Pravarasēna I,7 and once by the Ikshvāku Vāsishṭhīputra Chāṁtamūla.8
Besides, we have the evidence of a seal that the same sacrifice was celebrated by Vishṇudēva9
about 150 B.C. If, therefore, Harishēṇa gives us to understand that Samudragupta restored
Aśvamēdha which had for long been in abeyance, it is an exaggeration, pure and simple, of a
court panegyrist. But does the phrase chir-ōtsann-āśvamēdh-āharttā necessarily mean this ? Is 1 Catalogue of the Coins of the Gupta Dynasty, Intro., p. lxxvii and f.; and p. 21.
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