North Indian Inscriptions

POLITICAL HISTORY

considered. We will now consider the other expression namely, anēk-Āśvamēdha-yājī, which occurs in the Poona plates of Prabhāvatiguptā,¹ who, we have already seen, was the Chief Queen of the Vākāṭaka king Rudrasēna II and daughter of the Gupta sovereign Chandragupta II. What does the word anēka of this expression mean? Does it mean that Samudragupta celebrated more than one Horse Sacrifice? This is practically contradicted by the other expression which we have already considered, namely, chir-ōtsann-Āśvamēdh-āharttā. Surely this new expression cannot be appropriately translated by “the performer of (many) Āśvamēdhas which had for long become dilapidated”. The words chir-ōtsanna are opposed to the idea of Samudragupta having performed more than one Horse Sacrifice. What then becomes of the statement, anēk-Āśvamēdha-yājī, which is made about him in the copper-plate charter of his grand-daughter? In this connection we have to note that epigraphic records credit some princes with the performance of many Āśvamēdhas. If the Śuṅga king Pushyamitra and the Śātavāhana ruler Vēdiśrī Sātakarṇi celebrated Āśvamēdha twice, as reported in their inscriptions, it is intelligible enough, though there is no evidence to show that their might extended over the whole of India as was the case with Samudragupta. But when Pravarasēna I is represented to have performed four Āśvamēdhas, it demands a very high stretch of imagination to believe it, even though in his time the Vākāṭakas were samrāḍs or suzerains, as their inscriptions inform us. When, however, we are told that Vishṇukuṇḍin king, Mādhavavarman I, celebrated no less than eleven Horse Sacrifices,² it becomes as absolutely incredible proposition, if it means that they were performed one after another till they numbered eleven. This Mādhavavarman may have been an independent prince, for aught we know to the contrary, but certainly he must have ruled over a small dominion, occupying scarcely one sixth of South India. Besides, he was not a suzerain. Nevertheless, we can conclude that he was entitled to the performance of an Āśvamēdha. Because the Āpastamba-Śrautasūtra lays down that the Āśvamēdha may be celebrated even by a-sārvabhauma rulers, who must inter alia include ‘feudatory chieftains’. If any proof is needed, it is furnished by Harivaṁśa, which, as was first pointed out by J. C. Ghosh, adduces the instance of Vasudēva, father of Kṛishṇa, who, although a kara-dāyaka or ‘tributary’, is represented as performing a Vājimēdha.³ In later history the case is very well known of Savāī Jayasiṁha, the Kachchāhā founder and ruler of Jaipur in Rajputana, who celebrated an Āśvamēdha, but whose men, we are informed, took care that the stallion did not stray beyond the region of his political influence.

>

James Tod, therefore, rightly says that ‘although, perhaps, in virtue of his office, as the satrap of Delhi, the horse dedicated to the sun might have wandered unmolested on the bank of the Ganges, he would most assuredly have found his way into a Rahtore stable had he roamed in the direction of the desert: at the risk of both jīva and gaddi (life and throne), the Hara would have seized him, had he fancied the pastures of the Chambal.”⁴ This shows clearly that a feudatory could perform this sacrifice, only if his attendants, who escorted the steed, saw that the animal never wandered away from the boundaries of his principality. We are not therefore to be surprised at all if the Vishṇukuṇḍin prince, Mādhavavarman I, celebrated an Āśvamēdha after all. But the most incredible feature of this statement would be that he celebrated as many as eleven such sacrifices, if we understand by it that he performed them all successively. It is incredible first, because, every single performance is of a long duration, and secondly because, the preparations for it are tedious
___________________________________________________________________________

¹ Ep. Ind., Vol. XV, pp. 39-44 and Plate.
² Ibid., Vol. XII, p. 134, line 3.
³ IC., Vol. II, pp. 140-41. A most interesting discussion as to whether a feudatory can perform Āśvamēdha was carried on by Atul Sur, Dinesh Chandra Sircar, Miss Karunakara Gupta and Sushil Kumar Bose in the pages of IC., Vol. I, pp. 114-15; 311-13; 637, note 1; 704-06; Vol. II, pp. 53 ff.
⁴ Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan (S. K. Lahiri and Co.), Vol. II, p. 354.