North Indian Inscriptions

POLITICAL HISTORY

though so few of them have yet been found, seem to present three or four different varieties, showing that they were struck in different mints. On the other hand, if they had really been intended as largesses to the Brahmaṇa priests who participated in the solemn rite, they would have come from one and the same mint, and presenting one variety only. It is safer to say that they were issued by Samudragupta to signalise the universal sovereignty presupposed in the performance of the Horse Sacrifice and indicated by the new title that he now assumed, namely, Aśvamēdha-parākrama. The memory of this performance has persisted in another way also. As early as 1901, E. J. Rapson brought to our notice a circular seal, containing the representation of a horse looking towards a sacrificial post and the legend Parākrama below.¹ As Rapson remarks, the title Parākrama is distinctive of Samudragupta and occurs alone without any addition on some of his coins. As this seal is a clay impression it is clear that it must have been originally attached to some document despatched from Samudragupta’s Sacrificial Hall. It is, however, a pity that nothing is known about the provenance of the seal. Seals or sealings from sacrificial grounds are by no means unknown. One such was picked up by me during excavations at Besnagar from a site which appears to have been once a Sacrificial Hall.² A third memorial also of Samudragupta’s Aśvamēdha has come down to us. It is the life-size stone figure of a small horse, which was dug many years ago near the ancient fort of Khairīgarḥ in the Khērī District, on the border between Oudh and Nepal. The stone horse bears on the right side of its neck in faintly incised and partly defaced Gupta characters an inscription of which . . . . . .ddaguttassa dēyadhamma are legible.³ The first word must clearly be restored to Samuddaguttassa, and this line translated by “the religious benefaction of (Samu)-dragupta.” It is true that the artistic merits of this sculpture are contemptible. Still the word dēyadhamma used shows that the stone horse was considered to be an object of some religious significance. It is possible that representations of the steed sacrificed and thus hallowed were put up by Samudragupta at important places in his empire as souvenirs of this celebration of extreme politico-religious importance. Again, the fact that this brief mutilated inscription is in Prakrit has puzzled V. A. Smith and even suggested a shade of doubt, because all other Gupta inscriptions are in pure classical Sanskrit. But pure classical Sanskrit must have been the language of the learned, and for the half-literate and the illiterate, Prakrit must have continued to be the medium of expression especially in the earlier part of the Gupta epoch.

       The Gupta inscriptions and coins give us some insight into the royal style of the dynasty. In this respect numismatics is of greater importance than epigraphy. In the Allahabad pillar inscription, we have seen that, whereas Gupta and Ghaṭōtkacha have been called simply Mahārāja, Chandragupta I and Samudragupta are given the suzerain title of Mahārājādhirāja. All other inscriptions follow suit, except one. This exception is the Mathurā inscription of Chandragupta II, dated Gupta year 61, where both this monarch and his father Samudragupta have been styled Mahārāja-Rājādhirāja, doubtless after the Kushāṇa Mahārāja-Rājātriāja prevalent in that locality. But this Kushāṇa formula is not met with in any other Gupata inscription, which invariably calls the Gupta sovereign Mahārājādhirāja. The coins of Samudragupta, however, present the three forms Mahārājādhirāja on the Lyrist type, Rājādhirāja on the Aśvamēdha type, and rājan on the Tiger type. The last two forms may have been forced on the mint-master by the exigencies of versification or shortage of ground in the margin of the coins. So far in regard to the actual titles. But there were many epithets which were borne by Samudragupta, expressive of his multifarious achievements. Such are the appellations (1) Apratiratha, (2) Kṛitānta-paraśu, (3) Parākrama, (4) Vyāghra-parākrama and (5) Aśvamēdha-
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¹ JRAS., 1901, p. 102.
² CASIR., 1914-15, pp. 77-78.
³ JRAS., 1893, pp. 97-98.