North Indian Inscriptions

POLITICAL HISTORY

       Let us now study more closely the contents of the Meharauli iron pillar inscription of Chandra. It consists of three stanzas, the first of which describes his exploits. It tells us how far east, west and south he proceeded in his career of conquest. On the east he put down the confederacy of enemies who had gathered and confronted him in the Vaṅga territory. On the west he crossed the seven mouths of the river Sindhu, that is, the Indus, and conquered the Vālhīkas on the battle field. In regard to his conquests on the south we are informed that “the southern ocean is still perfumed by the breezes of his valour”. Let us take the last item first. It merely implies that like his father Samudragupta, Chandragupta played the role of a dharma-vijayin, conquering the various states of Dakshiṇāpatha one after another and collecting tribute, without, however, annexing any one of them to his dominions and that his triumphant march did not end till he actually reached the southern sea. This is clear enough from stanza 1 of the inscription, though we are sorry that no details have been furnished in regard to the actual names of the kings and kingdoms he subjugated. As to the first item of his world conquests mentioned in this record, it seems that kings of the Vaṅga country had formed a conspiracy against him and that he met and vanquished them. It is true that Vaṅga is not mentioned in the Allahabad praśasti of Harishēṇa. Nevertheless, as Samataṭa is mentioned as a frontier province of his empire held by a tributary prince under him, Vaṅga which was to the west of it, not only was included in his dominions but formed part of Āryāvarta.

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It seems that it was re-conquered by Chandragupta II. Vaṅga occupies a position between Suhma and Samataṭa and comprises the modern districts of Bakarganj, Khulna and Faridpur of Bangladesh. It is further worthy of note that the poet Kālidāsa, who was a contemporary of Chandragupta, as we shall see later on, also speaks of Vaṅga chieftains as ruling along the various streams of the Ganges, as being possessed of fleets and as being captured and afterwards reinstated by Raghu.¹ What the first part of the stanza therefore tells us is that Chandragupta vanquished the petty rulers of Vaṅga who had confederated against him and laid the Gupta yoke on them. The second part of the stanza says that he crossed the seven mouths of the Sindhu and defeated the Vālhīkas. What does that mean? What it obviously means is that he crossed Western Rajputana and made himself master of Sind and practically the whole of the Panjab. What it further means is that he inflicted a defeat upon the Vālhikas who must therefore have been living near the source of any one of the well-known tributaries of the Indus. It is true that the Vālhīkas have been mentioned many a time in the Bṛihat-saṁhitā along with the peoples of Northern India and usually identified with the people of Balkh,-an inference supported by the derivation of the word from Bākhl or Bahl which is the Pehlevi form of Balkh. But as Allan correctly remarks, “the inscription cannot mean that Chandra’s arms penetrated to Balkh, the route to which would not be across the mouth of the Indus.”² Where are we, then, to locate these Vālhīkas ? In this connection we have to note a passage in the Rāmāyaṇa, to which our attention was drawn long ago by Chintaharan Chakravarty.³ There, we are told that messengers were sent by Vasishṭha to Bharata who was then at Girivraja, capital of Kēkaya. They start from Ayōdhyā and take a north-western route. They pass through Kuru-Jāṅgala to Pañchāla and cross the Ikshumatī river, which is identified with Kālī-nadī (East) which flows through Kumaon, Rohilkhand and Kanauj.⁴ The messengers then pass through the Vālhīka country to the Sudāman hill and see Vishṇupada and the two rivers Vipāśā and Śālmalī. This is the most apposite reference to Vālhīka, because here it is associated with Vishṇupada, which is specified in the third and last stanza
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¹ Raghuvamśa, IV, 35-36.
² Catalogue of the Coins of the Gupta Dynasty, Intro., p. xxxvi.
³ ABORI., Vol. VIII, pp. 173 ff.
⁴ Nundolal Dey, Geographical Dictionary of Ancient and Mediaeval India, P. 77.