THE GUPTA INSCRIPTIONS
ment he quotes the authority of Hiuen Tsiang. But the Chinese traveller does not say that
Kusumapura was another name of Kanyākubja in his time but rather in some pre-historic
period.1 Many instances of old towns bearing many names in pre-historic times are known,
especially from the Pāli Buddhist Jātakas. Thus Bārāṇasī, we are told, was called Surundhana
in the Udaya Birth, Sudassana in the Chullasutasōma, Brahmavaddhana in the Soṇandana,
Pupphavatī in the Khaṇḍahala, and Ramma City in the Yuvañjaya Birth.2 This does not
mean at all that Bārāṇasī was known by all these names in historic times. We may, therefore,
take it that Kanyākubja was never known as Kusumapura in any historic period and that
Kusumapura or its synonym Pushpapura was another name of Pāṭaliputra alone, so far as
we know. The mention of Pushpa in the Allahābād pillar inscription thus points to the natural
inference that Pāṭaliputra was the capital of Imperial Guptas. Up till 1888 when Fleet brought
out his volume of Gupta Inscriptions, it was no doubt true that all the records of this dynasty,
not excluding those of the time of Skandagupta, were found far of the west of Pāṭaliputra,
giving rise to the presumption that their capital was somewhere in the neighbourhood of
Allahābād or Kauśāmbī where the inscription-pillar originally stood. But, since then many
copper-plate inscriptions of the time of Kumāragupta I and Budhagupta have been found
which have been discovered equally far to the east of Pāṭaliputra in such distant districts of
Bengal as Rajshahi and Dinajpur. So, the argument based on the find-spots of the Gupta
epigraphs and urged against Pāṭaliputra being the capital of the Gupta empire has no grounds
to stand upon. And, as a matter of fact, there are two inscriptions of Chandragupta II where
Pāṭaliputra is mentioned, as pointed out by Fleet himself. One of these is the Gaḍhwā inscription of Gupta Year 88 (No. 8 below). It is true that this is a highly fragmentary record, and,
consequently, although line 12 contains the name Pāṭaliputra, nothing has been preserved
there which could have thrown light on this point. Such is not, however, the case with the
other record, namely, the Udayagiri cave inscription (No. 11 below), which introduces to
us Vīrasēna Śāba, Minister for Peace and War. He had come thither, we are told, along with
his lord and master, Chandragupta II, in the course of the latter’s dig-vijaya; and while they
were temporarily encamped there, he caused a cave to be made and dedicated to the god
Śambhu. This is no doubt the Udayagiri cave where the record has been engraved. And it is
while specifying details about this Vīrasēna that the inscription tells us that he was ‘an
inhabitant of Pāṭaliputra.’ “The natural inference is”, says Bühler correctly, “that the town
was the capital of the empire.â3
We have also to take note of two geographical divisions mentioned in this inscription,
namely, Āryāvarta and Dakshiṇāpatha, which correspond roughly to Northern and Southern India. The name Pratyanta also occurs, but it is doubtful whether the Pratyanta States
were then excluded from Āryāvarta. It is possible that geographically they were considered
integral parts of this division though politically they were on the frontier of Samudragupta’s
empire. As regards Āryāvarta, Manu distinguishes it from Madhyadēśa. The latter denotes
the land bounded by the Himālayas in the north, the Vindhyas in the south, Prayāga or
Allahābād in the east, and Vinaśana, or the place where the Sarasavtī disappears, in the west.4
And Āryāvarta is defined as the land between the Himālaya and the Vindhya on the one hand,
and between the eastern sea and the western sea, on the other. Āryāvarta is generally understood to mean “the abode of the noble or excellent ones,” and with this agrees one dictionary
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1 S. Beal, Buddhist Records of the Western World, Vol. I, p. 207; Thomas Watters, On Yuan Chwang’s Travels in
India, Vol. I, p. 341.
2 D. R. Bhandarkar, Carmichael Lectures, 1918, pp. 50-51.
3 VOJ., Vol. V, p. 227.
4 Manusmṛiti, Chapter II, Verses 21-22.
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