North Indian Inscriptions

POLITICAL HISTORY

of kings whose power was extinct, even the lord of the gods, overwhelmed with fear, ascended the swing of deliberation.” What the verse obviously means is that when Gōvindagupta finished conquering all enemies on earth, Indra feared that Gōvindagupta would next attack him. As Indra has thus been represented as being suspicious of Gōvindagupta’s power, it follows that the latter was a supreme ruler. But as no coins of Gōvindagupta have been found, the conclusion is irresistible that Gōvindagupta and Kumāragupta were names of the same king. This agrees with the fact, as we shall see later on, that Kumāragupta, like Samudragupta, celebrated the Horse-Sacrifice, as is clearly evidenced by their Aśvamēdha Type of coins, when he raised himself to the position of Supreme Ruler by carrying out world-wide conquests. This also explains why not a single coin of Gōvindagupta has been found. If any further proof is required, it is supplied by a type of coins which has on the reverse the epithet Śrī-Kramāditya and on the obverse Ku beneath the left arm of the king and Gō between his feet. If Ku has rightly been taken to stand for Kumāragupta—an inference supported by the Archer Type of that sovereign, it is not at all unreasonable to take Gō between his feet as standing for Gōvindagupta.

        We may thus take it that Chandragupta II was succeeded to the Gupta throne by Kumāragupta, another name of whom was Gōvindagupta. The latest date that we have for the father is Gupta year 93=411-12 A.D. furnished by a Sāñchī inscription, and the earliest for the son and successor is Gupta year 96=414-15 A.D. The latter could not have become a sovereign much earlier than 414 A.D. Again, the latest date for Kumāragupta I, known from inscriptions is Gupta year 129=447-48 A.D. supplied by the Mankuwar stone image. But as early as 1894, V.A. Smith drew our attention to a coin in the possession of Vost which gave the latest date for this king, namely Gupta year 136=454-55 A.D.¹ On the other hand, the earliest date for his son Skandagupta is Gupta year 136 given by the celebrated Junāgaḍh rock inscription. It is, therefore, reasonable to hold that Kumāragupta ruled from ‘Gupta year 96 to Gupta year 136’, or, in other words, that he had enjoyed a reign of at least forty years.

       Many copper-plate inscriptions, not of the nature of ordinary royal grants, but representing a peculiar type of land sale deed between the State and the lay purchaser have been discovered in North Bengal. Three of these are dated in the reign of Kumāragupta I. Of these, one was found at Dhanāidaha (No. 19 below) in the Rajshahi District (now in Bangladesh) and the other two at Dāmōdarpur (Nos. 22 and 24 below) in the Dinajpur District, West Bengal. The Dhanāidaha plate is in such a fragmentary condition that it has to be restored in the light of the Dāmōdarpur plates. The three couple with the name of the king the paramount titles Paramadaivata, Paramabhaṭṭāraka and Mahārājādhirāja. The first component of this royal formulary is noteworthy, namely, Paramadaivata, which clearly indicates that in the Gupta period the king was identified with the supreme divinity.² The Dhanāidaha plate is dated Gupta year 113. And although the name of Kumāragupta has not been preserved, the date clearly shows that his name has disappeared in the lost portion of the plate. It seems that some Āyuktaka Officer, whose name ended in -vishṇu approached certain Brāhmaṇas and the Ashṭa-kul-ādhikaraṇa of the village for the purchase of some land at the rate prevalent in the District (vishaya) of Khādā (ṭā ?) pāra. His application was complied with, and he in turn made a grant of it to a Chhandōga or Sāmavēdin Brāhmaṇa called Varāhasvāmin. Of the Dāmōdarpur plates of Kumāragupta, one is dated 124, and the other, 128. In both the years, the province (bhukti) of Puṇḍravardhana was being administered by Chirātadatta who was
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¹ JASB., Vol. LXIII (1894), pt. i, p. 175; Ind. Ant., Vol. XXXI, p. 261.
² D. R. Bhandarkar, Some Aspects of Ancient Hindu polity (Manindra Chandra Nandy Lectures, 1925), p. 164.