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The Indian Analyst
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North Indian Inscriptions |
POLITICAL HISTORY dynasty at all. Thus, the late Haraprasad Sastri held that he was identical with Chandravarman who is mentioned as ‘the lord of Pushkaraṇa’ in a rock inscription1 found at Susuṇiā
in the Bankura District of West Bengal.2 But we have to remember that Chandra of the
Meharauli pillar inscription is represented as having attained to the supreme sovereignty of
the world and enjoyed it for a long time and as having up till then ‘perfumed the southern
ocean with the breezes of his prowess’. This description cannot possibly apply to Chandragupta I in whose time, as we have seen above, the Gupta dominions included Magadha and
extended as far westward as Sākēta (Ayōdhyā) only. It cannot suit Chandravarman of the
Susuṇiā rock inscription, as proposed by Sastri. It is true that this scholar tries to make of
Chandravarman a supreme ruler of India by indentifying his capital Pushkaraṇa with Pōkarṇā
in the Jodhpur District, and showing thereby that, although he was originally a ruler of
Mārwāṛ, his conquests had spread so far and wide as to include the western part of Bengal as
is indicated by the fact that his inscription is engraved on the Susuṇiā rock. But, as we have
already pointed out, it is a mistake to identify his capital town Pushkaraṇa with Pōkarṇā in
Mārwāṛ so far away from Susuṇiā, when there is a place called Pōkharaṇ about 25 miles from
Susuṇiā itself, as K.N. Dikshit has informed us. Where is the evidence, again, that this Chandra
of the Susuṇiā record enjoyed sovereignty for a long time? One sure sigh of it is the find of
coins. But no coins of this Chandra are found in any part of India although he is supposed to
have been an emperor of India and to have reigned long as such. Again, whatever evidence
there is points to the conclusion that this Chandravarman of Pushkaraṇa was a mere feudatory, because he, like his father Siṁhavarman, is simply called a Mahārāja, whereas the title
indicative of paramount sovereignty at this time was Mahārājādhirāja. And what is most
singular is that H. P. Sastri asseverates that Siṁhavarman was a chieftain but that his son
Chandravarman was a supreme ruler, though both have been designated Mahārāja ! It is
therefore entirely absurd to identify Chandra of the Meharauli inscription with Chandravarman of the Susuṇiā epigraph. The only recourse left is to identify him with Chandragupta II
of the Imperial Gupta dynasty. We have seen that his father Samudragupta ruled over an
empire which on the east was bounded by a line running from the mouths of the Ganges
through Tripurā-Cachar-Assam up to the Himālayas through East Panjab and east Rajputana down to the Vindhyas. And even a little study of the Meharauli pillar inscription is
enough to tell us that Chandra, whosoever he was, ruled over an empire whose boundary,
though on the east it was practically the same as that of Samudragupta's dominions, extended
much beyond on the west. These considerations leave no reasonable doubt as to this Chandra
being the Gupta monarch Chandragupta II.
Contd. from page 54.
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