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The Indian Analyst
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North Indian Inscriptions |
POLITICAL HISTORY ēkēna and kshaṇāt leave no doubt as to this Gupta monarch having met the three foes at one and the same time and on one and the same battle-field. Evidently, Achyuta, Nāgasēna and Gaṇapatināga had formed a coalition to put down Samudragupta, apparently at a time when there were jealousy and dissatisfaction created amongst his brothers and half-brothers at his being promoted to the throne by his father. But Samudragupta broke it down by killing them in a well-pitched battle. It was not, however, a three-membered confederacy. There was a fourth prince also who had joined the coalition. He has no doubt been mentioned in the same stanza, but in the next line (line 14). His name is not given, and he is spoken of merely as “a scion of the Kōta family”. And Samudragupta, we are told, caused him to be captured through his forces while he himself was sporting at a place called Pushpa, that is, at Pāṭaliputra. What this means is that after exterminating the three princes mentioned above, Samudragupta returned to Pāṭaliputra, convinced that he had practically finished the game and won it, but sent part of his army in pursuit of the fourth prince. This last foe was finally made a captive and brought to Pāṭaliputra where the monarch had been amusing himself as before. We thus see that a hostile confederacy had been organised against Samudragupta, apparently when he ascended the throne. His first act, therefore, that turned the scales of political fortune in his favour, was the battle he forthwith gave to the three of the four princes that had formed the coalition. The most important personality of the group is Gaṇapatināga. He has been correctly identified with Gaṇapati or Gaṇēndra whose coins have been found at Narwar, Gohad, Doab, and Besnagar in Centarl India.1 There is a poetic work entitled Bhāvaśataka, or rather Nāgarājaśata which was printed long ago in Kāvyamālā, part iv, pp. 37-52. Verse 2 thereof runs as follows: ..........Nāgarājaśataṁ granthaṁ Nāgarājēna tanvatā |
In the printed text the second half of the Anushṭubh ślōka has Gatavaktra which does not
yield good sense, but, in a Mithilā manuscript, which the late K. P. Jayaswal2 was so fortunate
as to secure, it is Gajavaktra which is obviously the correct reading and becomes identical with
the name of (king) Gaṇapati mentioned in verse 80 of that work. What we thus learn from verse
2 is that the work in question, namely Nāgarājaśata, was composed by Nāgarāja, who thereby
rendered Gajavaktra Nāgarāja, the venerable personage of his praise. Evidently two Nāgarājas are here referred to—one the poet and panegyrist and the other the king who is the
subject of the praise. The first is Nāgarāja by proper name. The second is Nāgarāja by epithet, meaning ‘the king of the Nāga clan’, his proper name apparently being Gajavaktra,
that is Gaṇapati. At the end of the book has been given very briefly the family history of the
poet Nāgarāja. There was one Vidyādhara, who belonged to the Karpaṭi gōtra. His son was
Jālapa, the most praiseworthy of the Ṭāka family.3 From him sprang up Nāgarāja, the ornament of the Ṭāka race. Further information about the king is also supplied by two verses in 1 CASIR., Vol. II, pp. 309-28; JASB., 1965, p. 115; Coins of Med. India, pp. 20-24; V.A. Smith, Catalogue
of the Coins in the Indian Museum, Vol. I, pp. 164 and 178-79; D. R. Bhandarkar, A. R. ASI., 1913-14, p. 214; 1914-
15, pp. 75 and 88.
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