North Indian Inscriptions

POLITICAL HISTORY

visible from Vishṇupada. Vishṇupad was thus on a hill near the Vipāśā from where Kāśmīra was not far distant. “It appears that the Vipāśā had her source in the mountains of the Kāśmīra region in the time of the ancient Aryans. On emerging out of Kāśmīra into the country of the Saptasindhavaḥ (Panjab) it has formed a sharp bend in the border of Gurdaspur (Panjab) and Kangra districts.” It is just at this bend that it has been joined by another river, which must be the Śālmalī. Vishṇupada was surely somewhere there.

       Before we dismiss this subject, we have to note again that the passage quoted above from the Rāmāyaṇa associated Vishṇupada with the Vālhīka country and that both these localities are referred to in the Meharauli inscription also. We have further to note that stanza 1 of this epigraphic record speaks of Chandra as having conquered the Vālhīkas after crossing the seven mouths of the Sindhu or the Indus. Evidently, therefore, Vishṇupada was situated in the province subjugated by him. This throws a most welcome light on the line Karma-jit-āvaniṁ gatavataḥ, etc. in stanza 2 of the inscription. Fleet, of course, renders it by “the land ( of paradise) won by (the merit of his) actions.” The proper translation should be “gone to the land (avani) conquered through (his own) deeds.” What it means is that he was then in the country of the Vālhīkas which had been subjugated through his prowess. The question that now remains to be discussed is: Why did Chandra, that is, Chandragupta II, go to Vishṇu-pada? I think, the reply is furnished by the line, Khinnasy=ēva visṛijya gāṁ narapatēr=ggām= āśritasy=ētarām. This means that he quitted one gō, that is, the earth, and repaired to another gō, that is, the mid-region where Vishṇupada was situated, through dejection as it were. We are further told immediately thereafter that he then remained on the soil of the earth (Kshiti) only by fame. If we read between the lines carefully, the impression produced on our mind is that he was at Vishṇupada, not as a temporary pilgrim, but as a permanent resident, that, in other words, he retired from the worldly life and was settled for good at the holy place of Vishṇupada.¹ This is not the first instance of an Imperial Gupta ruler abdicating the throne and becoming a Vānaprastha. His grandfather, Chandragupta I, we have seen, had similarly renounced the householder’s, and embraced the anchorite’s stage of life. When this event most probably came off will be discussed later on.

       We have thus seen how wide the Gupta empire had become in the time of Chandragupta II. It was co-extensive practically with the whole of northern India, omitting, of course, the nominal suzerainty that he may have exercised over the states of Southern India. Such a big empire must have had at least two capitals for its effective administration. At any rate, the hereditary capital of the Gupta kingdom, namely, Pāṭaliputra, was situated a little too far eastward to provide adequate control over the empire. A most welcome light is thrown on this point by the inscription of the Guttas of Guttal. It was Fleet himself² who first drew our attention to certain data furnished by these records though he was unable to deduce the proper conclusions. The family is usually called the Gutta anvaya, kula or vaṁśa. Gutta here is doubtless a Prakrit form of Gupta, because one member of the family is styled Gupta-vaṁśa-Triṇētra, “a very Triṇētra (Śiva) in the Gupta race”; another, Gupt-ānvaya-bhūkānta, “a king belonging to the Gupta lineage”; and a third, Gupta-vaṁśa-vārdhi-vardhana, “increasing (like
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¹ That Vishṇupada was somehow connected with the Imperial Gupta dynasty may be seen from the fact that along with the seals of Dhruvasvāminī, of the Yuvarāja and his officials picked up by Bloch during his excavations at Basāṛh have been found a seal with the inscription: (1) Śrī-Vishṇupadasvāmi-Nā (2) rāya[ṇa], “Nārāyaṇa, Lord of the holy Vishṇupada” (CASIR., 1903-04, p. 110, No. 31). Bloch, however, thinks that this Vishṇupada is perhaps the temple of Vishṇupada at Gayā (ibid., pp. 104 and 111). But there is nothing to show that the famous shrine at Gayā was in existence in the fourth century A.D. Besides, the only Vishṇupada known to exist in the early Gupta period is the Vishṇupada mentioned in the Meharauli pillar inscription.
² B. G., Vol. I, pt. ii, pp. 578-80. Attention to this was later drawn by R. G. Bhandarkar, JBBRAS., Vol. XX, p. 398.