Samudra Gupta. (A Specimen Chapter of the Projected Ancient History of Northern India from the Monuments.) by VINCENT A

ART. II.—Samudra Gupta. (A specimen chapter of the projected Ancient History of Northern India from the Monuments.) By VINCENT A. SMITH, M.R.A.S., Indian Civil Service.

PREFATORY NOTE, THE following history of the reign of the great conqueror, Samudra Gupta, who was emperor of Northern India, and made extensive, though temporary, conquests in the south, about the middle of the fourth century of the Christian era, is offered as a specimen of the author's projected " Ancient History of Northern India from the Monuments." Though that projected historj' may never be completed, I venture to think that fragments of it may not be altogether valueless, and that they may suffice to prove that even now the materials exist for the construction of an authentic and fairly readable " History of Ancient India." The general plan of the projected work requires the exclusion from the text, so far as possible, of all dry archaeological dust, and the banishment of such unpalatable matter to footnotes or separate dissertations. Candid criticism and helpful suggestions will be welcomed by

V. A. SMITH, Gorakhpur, India. 12th July, 1896.

Samudra Gupta, circa A.D. 345-380. The conjecture may be permitted that at the time of the death of Candra Gupta I his favourite son Samudra was absent from court, and that this circumstance had enabled Kacha to seize and hold the throne for a short period,

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which probably did not exceed a year or two. The accession of Samudra Gupta, " the son of the daughter of the Licchavis," may be approximately dated in A.D. 345. The young monarch was fully convinced of the truth of the Oriental doctrine that a king who desires the world's respect cannot rest upon his father's laurels, but is bound to extend his borders, and attack and subdue neighbouring powers. To this task of " kingdom-taking " * Samudra Gupta devoted his long reign and great abilities. He was evidently a ruler of exceptional capacity, and skilled in the arts of peace no less than in those of war. Though the impartial historian cannot accept as sober fact all the magniloquent phrases of the courtly poet Harisena, who was commissioned by the filial piety of Samudra Gupta's successor to celebrate the victories and glories of the conqueror, it is manifest that the hero of the panegyric was a prince of extraordinary accomplishments, and that his career was one of almost uninterrupted success and military glory.2 The laureate's commemoration of the musical accomplishments of his hero is curiously confirmed by the rare and interesting Lyrist coins struck early in the reign of Samudra Gupta, which depict the king seated on a high- backed couch playing the Indian lyre.

1 mulkglrl in Persian. 2 This panegyric (prafastt) is engraved on.the pillar now in the fort of Allahabad, on which a copy of the edicts of As'oka is also inscribed. "The inscription is non-sectarian, being devoted entirely to a recital of the glory, conquests, and descent of the early Gupta king Samudragupta. It is not dated; but, as it describes Samudragupta as deceased, it belongs to the time of his son and successor, Candragupta II, and must have been engraved soon after the accession of the latter [i.e. about A.D. 3§0]. Its great value lies in the abundant information which, in the conquests attributed to Samudragupta, it gives as to the divisions of India, its tribes, and its kings, about the middle of the fourth century A.D." The historical portion of the record is in nearly perfect preservation. The inscription consists of thirty-three lines, of which the first sixteen are in verse and the rest in prose. The language is good classical Sanskrit. The inscription possesses special literary interest, because I it is one of the earliest long compositions in classical Sanskrit to which a definite date can be assigned with confidence. The panegyric was composed by Harisena, who held several high offices at the court of Candra Gupta II, and the inscription was engraved under the superintendence of an official named Tilabhattaka. The metres of the metrical portion are Sragdhard, Cdrdulavik- rtaiia, and Mandakranta. (Fleet, " Gupta Inscriptions," No. 1, pp. 1-17, pi. i.)

The allied art of poetry also claimed the sovereign's attention, and, if we may believe the panegyrist, the numerous compositions of the royal author were worthy of a professional poet.1 The works of several princely Indian poets are extant, but unfortunately not a single line of Samudra Gupta's poems has been preserved to enable the modern critic to judge how far they deserved the favourable verdict of the laureate. We are also told that the king delighted in the society of the learned, and employed his acute and polished intellect in the study and defence of the sacred Scriptures, as well as in the lighter arts of music and poetry.2 These statements the historian must be content to accept as they stand, and, while recognizing that they are coloured with the flattery which kings love to receive, and courtly poets love to bestow, he will admit that the panegyric has a basis of fact, and that its subject was a sovereign of no ordinary merit. Whatever may have been the exact degree of skill to which Samudra Grupta attained in the accomplishments which graced his leisure, it is evident that the serious occupation of his life was war and conquest. At an early period of his reign he set up a claim to be the paramount sovereign of Northern India, and revived the ancient and imposing ceremony of the Sacrifice of the Horse, the successful celebration of which proved the validity of the celebrant's claim to universal sovereignty. According to accepted tradition, the termination of the great war of the Mahabharatas, and the final victory of the Pandavas, had been signalized by the celebration of this solemn rite, and no Indian monarch could have a higher ambition than to renew in his own person the legendary glories of the heroes

'LineS. " The fame produced by much poetry." Line 15. "And even poetry, which gives free vent to the mind of poets; all these are his." Line 27. " Who established his title of king of poets by various poetical compositions that were fit to be the means of subsistence of learned people." 2 Lines 5, 15, 27, 30.

of the national epic. The ceremony was after this manner: —" A horse of a particular colour was consecrated by the performance of certain ceremonies, and was then turned loose to wander for a year. The king, or his representative, followed the horse with an army, and when the animal entered a foreign country, the ruler of that country was bound either to fight or to submit. If the liberator of the horse succeeded in obtaining or enforcing the sub- mission of all the countries over which it passed, he returned in triumph, with the vanquished Rajas in his train; but if he failed, he was disgraced, and his pre- tensions ridiculed. After the successful return a great- festival was held, at which the horse was sacrificed, either really or figuratively." 1 The fact that Samudra Gupta successfully renewed this ancient rite, which had long fallen into desuetude, is abundantly proved both by the inscriptions2 and the coins; and is probably commemorated by the statue of a horse now in the Lucknow Museum, and inscribed as being " the pious gift of Samudra Gupta." Possibly the sacrifice took place in the north of Oudh, where that statue was found.3 The commemorative coins, though of the same weight as the pieces issued for ordinary currency, are evidently medals struck on the occasion of the great festival which celebrated the conclusion of the sacrifice, and were probably then distributed to the officiating Brahmans. Samudra Gupta is recorded to have given away vast numbers of cows and great sums in gold, and it may reasonably be assumed that the Horse Sacrifice occasioned an exceptional display of his habitual generosity. The medals exhibit on the

1 Dowson, "A Classical Dictionary of Hindu Mythology," etc., S.Y. Aswa- Medha. 2 The restoration of the practice of the horse sacrifice is referred to in three inscriptions, viz. the Bilsar pillar (No. 10); the Bihar pillar (No. 12); and the Bhitari pillar (No. 13). The passage in line 2 of the last-mentioned record runs thus: " Who was the giver of many millions of lawfully acquired cows and gold ; who was the restorer of the asvarnedha sacrifice, which had been long in abeyance " (" Gupta Inscriptions," p. 54). 3 V. A. Smith, " Observations," p. 97, and frontispiece. The image was found near the ancient fort of Khairigarh, in the Kherl district, on the frontier of Oudh and Nepal.

obverse an unattended horse, and on the reverse a standing female figure carrying a fly-whisk. The legends are appropriate, and recite the monarch's title as king of kings, and his claims to have conquered the earth, and to have asserted his power to celebrate the sacrifice. Ten or twelve of these curious pieces are known to exist.1 The Lyrist medals, already noticed, are closely related in numismatic details to the horse-sacrifice medals, and were very probably struck on the same notable occasion.2 The beautiful and exceedingly rare medal-like pieces which exhibit the victorious king in the act of slaying a tiger, belong to the same early period of his reign, but were probably struck before the celebration of the imperial sacrifice, for on them the king's title is given simply as Raja.3 Though his father had not hesitated to call himself " king of kings," it would seem that Samudra Gupta was too proud to use that title until he had won the right to it by force of arms, and asserted his right in the face of the world by the ceremony which could only be performed by the successful claimant to universal dominion. The Horse Sacrifice of Samudra Gupta may be approximately dated in A.D. 350. No doubt it was celebrated long before his more distant conquests were achieved. The claims to "universal dominion" and to "conquest of the whole earth" must, of course, be understood with reasonable limitations. We may safely assume that the capital of Samudra Gupta, at least in his early years, was Pataliputra, and that from that city his conquests were pushed westward.4

1 These coins have been very fully described by the author in "Coinage," p. 65; "Observations," p. 97. The obverse legend includes the title Edja- dhiraja, and a boast of the conquest of the earth. The reverse legend is aivamed/ia parakramah, "with the power of the horse-sacrifice." The style of these medals, which connects them with the medal-like Tiger and Lyrist types, indicates an early period in the reign. 2 V. A. Smith, " Coinage," p. 67 ; " Observations," p. 100. 3 V. A. Smith, "Coinage," p. 64; "Observations," p. 96; "Further Observations," p. 6 (168). Only three of these pieces are known. 4 The fact that Pataliputra was the Gupta capital was suggested by Cunningham in 1880 ("Eeports," vol. xi, p. 153), and was distinctly asserted ten years earlier by Mr. Wilton Oldham (" Hist, and Statistical Memoir of the Ghazipur District," part i, p. 38). The detailed proofs of the fact were first given by the author in his essay on the " Gold Coins of the Imperial

The forger who three or four centuries later prepared a grant purporting to have been issued by Samudra Gupta in the ninth year of his reign from the " victorious camp at Ayodhya, full of great ships, and elephants, and horses," was doubtless quite right in assuming that Ayodhya was a very likely place in which to find the ever-moving court of the conquering monarch.1 As his conquests extended, Pataliputra would have lain too far east to be convenient as a basis of operations. The great • panegyrical poem, which is the principal authority for the reign of Samudra Gupta, was almost certainly engraved and published at Kausambi on the Jamna, twenty-seven miles west of Allahabad, and it is probable that in the latter part of the reign this ancient royal city was ordinarily the capital of Samudra Gupta. The capital of an Oriental despotism is the seat of the court for the time being. It is not the practice of Eastern monarchs to erect permanent headquarter offices for the departments of the administration, and so to establish a fixed capital, as distinct from the abiding - place of the sovereign. The permanent buildings on which an Eastern king is prepared to lavish countless treasures are ordinarily gorgeous palaces for his personal residence, vast tombs as memorials of individuals of the royal family, or temples which enable the court to conduct its worship with adequate magnificence, and prove to posterity the devotion and spiritual merit of the monarch. No degree of magnificence in such buildings saves the capital city from desolation once it has ceased to be the ordinary residence of the despot. Such was the fate of Pataliputra. It was difficult to rule Malwa and

Gupta Dynasty" (J.A.S.B., Tol. liii, part i, 1884, pp. 159-163). Dr. Fleet was inclined to throw doubt on the fact ("Gupta Inscriptions," p. 5), and to revert to the earlier and erroneous view that Kanauj was the Gupta capital. He has been answered by Dr. Biihler (" On the Origin of the Gupta-Valabhi Era," p. 13). 1 The forged grant purporting to have been issned by Samudra Gupta from his "victorious camp" at Ayodhya was probably prepared about the beginning of the eighth century. The seal is evidently genuine, and must have at one time been attached to a genuine grant of Samudra Gupta. There is, therefore, reason to hope that other contemporary documents of his reign may yet be found (" Gupta Inscriptions," No. £0, pp. 254-7, pi. xxxvii).

Guzerat from the ancient seat of the kings of Magadha, and when Samudra Gupta and his successors were obliged to pitch their victorious camps in cities nearer to the setting sun, all its monuments of kings of the olden time could not save Pataliputra from neglect, and rapid desolation and ruin.1 The exact chronological order of Samudra Gupta's extensive conquests cannot now be determined. The boasts on his coins that " His Majesty is victorious, having vanquished the cities of his enemies in a hundred great battles"; that " His invincible Majesty has conquered and subdued the earth" ; and that " the king of kings is armed with the axe of Death," seem to have but slightly, if at all, exaggerated the facts.2 Samudra Gupta's predecessor, Candra Gupta I, had already, as has been seen, claimed the rank of suzerain, and had probably established his power over all the regions of Magadha or Bihar, both north and south of the Ganges, a considerable part of Oudh, and the eastern districts of the territory now known as the North - Western Provinces. In other words, his rule may be considered to have extended from Oampa (Bhagalpur) on the east, along the valley of the Ganges, to Prayaga (Allahabad) on the west. A definition of the extent of the dominions of an Oriental monarch must not be understood in exactly the same sense in which the definition of the territory of a modern European ruler is understood. The Oriental king rarely attempts to administer in detail the more distant provinces of his dominions. His practice is to make occasional inroads on his neighbour's territories, and if successful to exact from their rulers homage and tribute. So long as such homage and tribute are paid the conqueror reckons his neighbour's territories as his own,

1 The substitution of Kaus'ambi for Pataliputra as the capital of the Gupta empire will be more fully discussed in the next chapter. " The first of the legends quoted is found on the Javelin type coins, the second on the coins of the Archer type, and the third on the Battle-axe coins, which actually exhibit the king as the incarnation of Death, carrying the fatal axe. (Smith, "Coinage," pp. 69-72 ; " Observations," pp. 101-2.)

and is ordinarily content to leave detailed administration in the hands of the local kings and chiefs. Occasionally, as in the exceptional case of Asoka, conquest was more thorough and permanent, and the suzerain could venture to administer even the most distant of his provinces through viceroys appointed by himself. The empire of Asoka was, during the lifetime of that great sovereign and his father, so far consolidated that even the remote provinces of Taxila in the Panjab, and TJjjain in Malwa, could be controlled by viceroys deputed from Pataliputra ; and the emperor's edicts, prepared in the imperial chancery, commanded obedience from the Himalaya to Mysore, and from the shores of the Indian Ocean to those of the Bay of Bengal.1 But such consolidation is rare in Indian history. The Eran (Airikina) inscription of Samudra Gupta (circa A.D. 360) is, unfortunately, mutilated and undated. What remains of the record is sufficient to prove that at some period of his reign Eran, which is now included in the Sagar district of the Central Provinces, formed part of the dominions of Samudra Gupta. The phrase which describes Airikina as "the city of his own enjoyment" probably implies that the king had personally visited the locality.2 The only other contemporary record of Samudra Gupta, besides the coin legends, is a worn inscription on a seal, which is of no historical importance.

1 As'5ka himself was viceroy of Taxila during the reign of his father, Bindusara, and, according to legend, As'oka's son Kumala resided at Taxila (Cunningham, "Beports," vol. ii, pp. 112, 113, 149, quoting Burnouf, "Intro- duction a l'Histoire du Buddhisine Indien," pp. 361 and 4U ; Hiuen Tsiang, in Beal's "Records of "Western Countries," i, pp. 139-143). The Yavana Raja, Tusaspa, was As'oka's governor in Surastra, or Gujarat (Rudradainan's Junagarh inscription, Ind. Ant., vii, p. 262). 2 Fleet, "Gupta Inscriptions," No. 2, p. 18, pi. iia. Eran was one of the most ancient cities of India, and some of the coins found there appear to he older than the time of As'oka. The buildings there seem all to date from the Gupta period (Cunningham, "Reports," vol. vii, p. 88; vol. x, p. 76 seqq.). The coins are described by the same author (" Reports," vol. xiv, p. 149 ; " Coins of Ancient India," p. 99, pi. xi). The coin, of which the legend is read from right to left, is commented on by Biihler in his paper "On the Origin of the Indian Brahma Alphabet," pp. 3, 43 (Sitzunga B. Kais-Akad. der W. in "VVien, Band cxxxii, 1895).

The history of his reign mainly rests on the information supplied by the great panegyrical poem by Harisena, inscribed on the Kausambi (Allahabad) pillar after the death of Samudra Gupta, by order of his son and successor, Candra Gupta II, in or about A.D. 380, as described above.1 The poem classifies Samudra Gupta's conquests under six heads. It affirms (1) that he " violently exterminated " nine named kings of Aryavarta, besides many other unnamed kings of the same region ; (2) that he compelled all the kings of the Forest Countries to become his servants; (3) that he captured and then liberated twelve named kings and other unnamed kings of the South; (4) that he exacted homage and tribute from fire Frontier kingdoms, and (5) from nine named, besides other unnamed, Frontier tribes ; and, lastly, (6) that he received acts of respectful service and complimentary presents from five distant foreign nations, and also from the inhabitants of Ceylon and other islands. Although it is at present impossible to identify all the countries, kings, and peoples enumerated by the poet, enough can be identified to enable the historian to form a fairly accurate notion of the extent of the dominions and alliances of the greatest of the Gupta emperors. Aryavarta means India north of the Narbada river, as distinguished from the South (Dakhan, Deccan), or India beyond that river, and corresponds to the modern word Hindustan.2 In this vast region Samudra Gupta is recorded to have " violently exterminated" nine kings who are specified by name, besides others not named. The nine, arranged in alphabetical order, are as follows: (1) Achyuta, (2) Balavarman, (3) Candravarman, (4) Ganapati Naga, (n) Matila, (6) Nagadatta, (7) Nagasena, (8) Nandi, and (9) Rudradeva.

1 The detailed reasoning on which the identification of the countries and kings conquered by Samudra Gupta is based will be found in the author's dissertation entitled "The Conquests of Samudra Gupta," not yet published. 2 See Fleet's note in "Gupta Inscriptions," p. 13. The name Narbada. is also written Narmada, and, in less precise form, Nerbudda.

There is some reason to suppose that Achyuta was the king of Ahichatra, the modern Ramnagar, in the Bareli district of the North-Western Provinces. Ganapati Naga was certainly the sovereign of Padmavatl, the modern Narwar, situated on the Sindh river between Gwalior and Jhansi. The remaining names in the list have not yet been identified.1 The "kings of the forest countries," who became the conqueror's servants, must mean the chiefs of the wild country on the banks of the Narbada in the hills and jungles of the Vindhyan ranges. A later inscription refers to the existence of eighteen forest kingdoms in this region, which corresponds to the territories known in modern times as Southern Bundelkhand, Rlwa, and portions of the Central Provinces and Central Indian Agency. The court poet's assertion that his master won glory by "capturing and then liberating" the kings of the South implies that the southern conquests of Samudra Gupta were not of a permanent nature. Probably he encountered and defeated a confederacy of the twelve princes of the far south, whose names and kingdoms are enumerated.2

1 Candravarmaa may be, and probably ought to be, identified with the Maharaja Candravarinan, son of Maharaja Siddhavarman, lord of the Puskara lake, who recorded a brief dedicatory inscription on the Susunia hill, in the Bankura district, seventeen miles SSW. from the Ramganj railway station (Proc. A.SB. for 1895, p. 177). The Puskara lake referred to may be the well-known sacred lake of that name near Ajmir, but this is not probable. 2 The enumeration, arranged alphabetically, is as follows:—•

Kingdom. King. 1. Avamukta Nllaraja. 2. Deyarashtra Kuvera. 3. Erandapalla Damana. 4. Kafichi Visnugopa. 5. Kerala Mantaraja. 6. Kosala Mahendra. 7. Kottura Svamidatta. 8. Kusthalapura Dhanamjaya. 9. Mahakantara Vyaghraraja. 10. Palakka (Palakka) LTgrasena. 11. Pishtapura Mahendragiri 12. Vengl Hastivarman.

Five of the twelve kingdoms in the poet's list can be identified with certainty. Kailchi comprised the country in the neighbourhood of Madras, and the name is familiar to modern geographers in the corrupt form Conjeveram. Kerala was the ancient name of the Malabar coast between the Western Ghats and .the sea, the fertile strip of country where the Malayalam (Malealam) language is spoken, and which is now divided between the British districts of South Kanara and Malabar, and the native states of Cochin, Travancore, and the Bibi of Cannanore. It extended to Cape Comorin (Kumarin) at the extremity of the peninsula. The kingdom of Kosala, which must not be confounded with the territories of the same name in Northern India, comprised the upper valley of the Mahanadi river and much of the surrounding hilly country. It corresponded with the eastern and central districts of the Central Provinces and parts of Orissa. The capital was Sirpur (Srlpura), in the modern district of Raipur. Kottura may be identified with the Pollachi subdivision of the Coimbatore . district of the Madras Presidency. The beryl mines of Padiyur, which were famous in the Roman world at the beginning of the Christian era, were probably included within the limits of this kingdom. Pishtapura and VengI are now respectively represented by the Pittapuram town and chieftainship in the Godavari district, and by Vegi, or Pedda Vegi, in the same district. The ancient kingdom of VengI consisted of a strip of country extending along the shore of the Bay of Bengal between the Krishna (Kistna) and Godavari rivers. The rulers of five " frontier countries " — Davaka, Kamarupa, Kartripura, Nepala, and Samatata—are recorded to have paid homage and tribute to the emperor. The positions of Davaka and Kartripura are not known. Samatata was the ancient name of Lower Bengal, the region in which Calcutta and Jessore are now the chief cities. Nepala retains its name unchanged, and still

jealously guards its internal independence. Kamarupa was the ancient name of Assam. The mention of Lower Bengal, Nepal, and Assam as frontier kingdoms, outside the limits of the empire, proves that the direct rule of Samudra Gupta did not extend to the mouths of the Ganges, or include the Himalayan ranges. The distinction drawn between the frontier kingdoms and the frontier tribes enumerated in the same verse is interesting. The poet evidently means that the tribes named were, like the kingdoms, located on the frontiers of the empire; and his distinction between tribal territories and kingdoms proves that in the fourth century of the Christian era a large part of India was occupied by tribes which, though far removed from a savage condition, were not organized as kingdoms. This inference, suggested by the language of the poet, is confirmed in the case of three of the tribes named by distinct epigraphic and numismatic evidence that they were organized under special tribal constitutions, and not as monarchies. Nine tribes are enumerated in the poet's list.1 The Abhiras appear to mean the inhabitants of the ancient Hindu province of Ahirwara, the region in which the town of JhansI occupies a central position. The Madrakas dwelt in that portion of the Panjab now known as the Richna Doab, between the Chenab and Ravi rivers. Some authorities extend their territory westward to the Jhelam and eastward to the Bias river. Their tribal capital was the famous city of Sangala or Sakala. The Malavas were the people of the country now known as Malwa. Besnagar, near Bhllsa, was the capital of Eastern, and TJjjain was the capital of Western Malwa. The Yaudheyas were a warlike and powerful people, who occupied the tract still known as Johiya-bar along both banks of the Satlaj on the border of the Bahawalpur state. The limits of their territories may be roughly indicated as probably comprising the cities of Agra, Delhi, Saharanpur,

1 (1) Abhlra, (2) Arjunayana, (3) Kaka, (4) Kharaparika, (5) Madraka, (6) Malava, (7) Prarjnna, (8) Sanakanika, (9) Yaudheya.

Ludiana, Lahore, Bahawalpur, Bikanir, and Jaypur. Their power appears to have lasted for several centuries, from probably B.C. 100 to A.D. 400. The positions of the other tribes mentioned are not known with certainty. Notwithstanding our inability to understand in all its details the contemporary record, the information available is amply sufficient to warrant the definition with approxi- mate accuracy of the limits of Samudra Gupta's Indian empire. On the north that empire extended to the base of the mountains of Nepal. The eastern limit must have been either the KosI (KusI) river, or the Brahmaputra, more probably the former.1 The southern frontier must have run a short distance south of the Ganges, nearly parallel to that river, excluding the wilder parts of the hilly country of Chutia Nagpur, thence along the Kaimur Hills to Jabalpur, and thence along the Narbada to the Betwa river, the boundary of the Malava country. The western boundary was approximately marked by the Jamna and Betwa rivers, and by a line connecting the cities of Agra, Mathura, Delhi, Ambala, and Ludiana. To express the same result in other words, the empire included the whole of the North-Western Provinces, Oudh, and Bihar, Northern and Central Bengal, part of Rlwa, the northern districts of the Central Provinces, and the south-eastern corner of the Panjab between the Jamna and the Satlaj. The emperor received tribute from, or exercised influence in some form over, all the kingdoms and tribes which touched this extensive frontier. His political intercourse and alliances extended over a still wider circle, and brought him into relation with distant foreign powers. We are told that, in addition to the inhabitants of Ceylon and other islands, the nations, or dynasties, named Daivaputra,

1 For a discussion of the vast changes during historical times in the courses of the Bengal rivers see Mr. Shillingi'ord's valuable paper " On Changes in the Course of the KusI River" in J.A.S.B., vol. lxiv, pt. i (1895), p. 1, and Proc. A.S.B. for Feb. 1895.

Shahi, Shahanusbahi, Saka, and Murunda acknowledged the power of the conqueror by offering him presents of fair maidens and " garuda tokens,"l and by tendering other acts of homage. The allusion to Ceylon and the other islands is probably mere rhetoric; but reduced to its narrowest and most prosaic dimensions, the poet's statement may be taken to mean that Samudra Gupta enjoyed friendly relations with the other powers named, and exchanged complimentary presents with them, after the ordinary manner of Oriental princes. The list of foreign powers enumerated is differently interpreted by the authorities. In my opinion the Shahanushahi of Harisena were the Kushan princes who then governed the provinces of Balkh and Kunduz on the Oxus, north of the Hindu Kush. These princes issued coins imitating the early Sassanian mintage, and were probably tributaries of the Sassanian monarchy. The Kushan chief who sent an embassy to Samudra Gupta was probably Grumbates, king of the Chionitse, who aided Shahpur (Sapor) II in his war with Rome, and was present at the siege of Amida in A.D. 358.2 The princes who assumed the Sanskrit title Daivaputra certainly ruled territories on the confines of India proper, and may safely be interpreted to mean the Kushan kings of Gandhara, whose kingdom included the western Panjab and the Kabul valley, and of which the capital was Peshawar. The title Shahi was used by so many dynasties for many centuries that it is impossible to decide with certainty who the Shahi king was with whom Samudra Gupta corresponded. I am disposed to regard him as one of the Kushan chiefs who occupied territory in the direction of Kandahar.

1 Dr. Fleet supposes the term garutmad-anlca to refer to the Gupta gold coins, or dinars, of which some types exhibit, among other devices, a standard surmounted by the fabulous bird, garuda, which appears to have been the special cognizance of the Gupta family. 2 Cunningham gives the date as A.D. 358. Gibbon, while admitting that the chronology offers some difficulties, prefers A.D. 360.

The Sakas who sent ambassadors to Samudra Gupta may with tolerable certainty be identified with the Saka Satraps of Surastra, or Katbiawar, on the extreme west of India. The reign of the Satrap Rudrasena (A.D. 348-376) was almost exactly conterminous with that of Samudra Gupta. The conquest and annexation of Surastra by the eon and successor of Samudra Gupta will be narrated in the next chapter. There is some reason to suppose that the Murunda tribe was settled on the southern frontier of the empire.

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