Abstract
The Gupta Empire (fourth–fifth centuries
The Allahabad pillar inscription of Samudragupta claims that among other feats of his all forest kings (ātavika-rājas) were reduced to the status of servants (parichārakīkrita) and frontier rulers (pratyanta-nripati) and (heads of) the gana-sanghas (tribal states) were made to pay tribute (kara), obey his orders, visit the royal court for obeisance (pranām-āgamana) and execute royal orders. At the same time, rulers like the Kushānas (Dēvaputra-Shāhi-Shāhānushāhi) and Shakas (of Gujarat) were allegedly made to provide ‘services through such measures as self-surrender, offering (their own) daughters in marriage (kanyōpāyanadāna) and pleading for the administration of their own districts and provinces through the Garuda badge’. 1 Clearly, there were different levels at which contemporary rulers of varying status were dealt with. 2
The frontier rulers and gana-sanghas were made to obey royal orders, pay tribute and attend the paramount ruler’s court. It implies that though treated as subordinates they were still politically powerful, and therefore, a constant and firm control over them was required. It would seem that a direct intervention of the Guptas stimulated a transformation of the political gana-sanghas into monarchies. For instance, the Allahabad Pillar inscription mentions the name Sanakānīka along with the names of gana-sanghas such as Mālava, Ārjunāyana and Yaudhēya. 3 Sanakānīka therefore was a gana-sangha, which had accepted Gupta authority. In the Udayagiri cave inscription of Chandragupta II, Sanakānīka Mahārāja (name not clear) is mentioned as the grandson of Mahārāja Chhagalaga, and the son of Mahārāja Vishnudāsa. 4 The designation Sanakānīka Mahārāja clearly shows that the Sanakārīka gana-sangha had been transformed into a monarchy by the time of Chandragupta II.
In the Allahabad prashasti, Samudragupta is said to have conquered the whole world (sarvva-prithivī-vijaya), and to have assumed the title of Mahārājādhirāja (king of the kings). Likewise, Skandagupta has also been called Mahārājādhirāja in the Junagadh rock inscription (455–56
A perusal of the Gupta inscriptions shows that a distinct set of vocabulary had been created to define the power and status of the king of kings vis-à-vis the lesser rulers, and chiefs.
8
The king of kings was invariably a person like Samudragupta who was able to conquer and rule over a large realm.
9
Likewise, Chandragupta-II in Udayagiri cave inscription is said to have ‘bought by the purchase-money of (his) prowess’ the earth, ‘in which the princes have become humbled with slavery’.
10
According to his Tumain inscription, Kumāragupta-I ‘protected the whole earth, holding her with arms, namely, valour, as if she was (his) chaste lawful wife’.
11
Skandagupta, in the Supia pillar inscription (460–61
In order to distinguish the king of kings from lesser kings and chiefs, superhuman qualities were attributed to him. These superhuman qualities in fact raised him to the status of a god. 14 For instance, in the Allahabad prashasti, Samudragupta is depicted as a superhuman being having phenomenal expertise in the art of warfare and in poetic and literary arts, which made him equal to several Hindu divinities such as Kubēra, Varuna, Indra and Yama. He is depicted as having a superior intellect and greater musical accomplishments than Brihaspati, Tumburu and Nārada. Samudragupta’s depiction as one of a superhuman stature becomes more explicit when Harisena describes him as a god (dēva) dwelling on earth, who is ‘a human being, only as far as he performs the rites and conventions of the world’. 15 He is, indeed ‘Purusha (Supreme Being), being the cause of the prosperity of the good and the destruction of the bad …’ and yet one whose tender heart can be captured by ‘devotion and humility’. 16 The personification of Samudragupta seemingly was more like a benevolent Bhakti god, that is, Vishnu, 17 who in spite of having power to destroy, readily bestowed grace, protection and prosperity upon his devotees, who had readily surrendered themselves and all their wealth to him. 18
The study of the inscriptions of the contemporary central Indian dynasties of the Valkhās, the Aulikaras, the Parivrājakas and the Uchchakalpas also reinforces the impression of a political hierarchy that is put forward so grandly in the Allahabad prashasti from the side of the paramount power. (See Map and Appendix for the sites of the inscriptions of these dynasties.)
The inscriptions of the Valkhā rulers of Bagh, invariably begin with a statement that the reigning Mahārāja ‘meditates at the feet of the Paramabhattāraka’, 19 a formula which clearly displays their acceptance of Gupta paramountcy. In the first inscription of Mahārāja Bhulunda, first in the royal line, he is described as a devout servant of the god Vishnu (svāmi-Nārāyanadāsasya Mahārāja-Bhulunda), and also to have meditated at the feet (pādānuddhyātēna) of his overlord the Gupta king. 20 We know from other sources that the Gupta rulers were Vaishnavites, a fact that ‘is demonstrated by their standard dynastic epithet Paramabhāgavata and the regular depiction of the garudadhvaja’. 21
The Parivrājaka rulers in their inscriptions similarly explicitly acknowledge their subordination to the Guptas. In all the inscriptions the expression, Gupta-nripa-rājya-bhuktau the Gupta kings (nripa), who were enjoying (bhuktau) their territories or sovereignty, has been used. They projected themselves as Brahmanas and the rulers of a territory comprising the kingdom of Dabhālā/Dahālā and the eighteen forest kingdoms (ashtādash-ātavī-rājya). The near contemporary Uchchakalpas do not express their allegiance to the Guptas as clearly. While, none of their inscriptions explicitly acknowledge the paramountcy of the Guptas, the presence of the Uchchakalpas in an area adjacent to that of the Parivrājakas in central India, makes their subordination to the Guptas highly likely.
22
Here it is noticeable that both the Parivrājakas and the Uchchakalpas emerged at a time when Gupta authority had practically withdrawn from Mālava and Gujarat. Nevertheless, the inscriptions of the Valkhās, and the Parivrājakas, as well as the Uchchakalpas, are dated in the Gupta era (epoch, 319
In their inscriptions the Aulikaras of Dashapura (Mandasor) explicitly acknowledge their allegiance to the Guptas. Naravarman is described in his inscription (404/5
Unlike the rulers of other dynasties mentioned above, the Aulikaras employed in their inscriptions the Mālava/Krita era (epoch 57–58
The position of forest rulers, possibly accompanying the transformation of gana-sanghas into monarchical states, was largely well established by the fourth–fifth centuries
The changing fortunes of the Guptas in central India also naturally shaped the nature of their relationship with their subordinates. It is true that whatever information, regarding changes in this relationship we are able to obtain is from the inscriptions of the local dynasties, with no Gupta inscriptions referring to them, if one omits the Kumaragupta-Bandhuvarman inscription of Mandasor. None of these polities in central India was apparently in existence before the arrival of the Guptas, for no inscription has been found emanating from these dynasties that predates the Guptas. An inscription of Samudragupta found at Eran 31 (Sagar district, Madhya Pradesh) recording the construction of a Vishnu temple, attests by its very site the inclusion of eastern Mālava in the realm of the Guptas. 32 However, parts of western Mālava were apparently yet to be conquered by him. It is generally believed that eastern Mālava served as the base for Chandragupta II’s annexation of the Shaka-ruled territories of western Mālava and Gujarat. 33
It is possible though not proven that the forest area, in and around Bagh (Dhar district, Madhya Pradesh), underwent extensive clearing under the Valkhā rulers. The earliest known ruler of the Valkhā dynasty was Mahārāja Bhulunda (c. 357/8 to 378/9
Chandragupta II was succeeded, c. 414
The twin facts of shift of capital and the omission of acknowledgement of allegiance to Gupta suzerainty suggest that a military crisis might have been behind both these changes. The Bhitari stone pillar inscription of Skandagupta (c. 454–67
The Valkhā rulers had emerged from an obscure tribal background, established a monarchical form of polity in the southern parts of western Malava and assumed the title of Mahārāja. 41 Their tribal background is suggested by the first ruler of Valkhā having borne a non-Sanskrit name, viz. Bhulunda, the names of the succeeding rulers being clearly Sanskritised. His reign seems to have thus represented a first step in the transition from a tribal to a formal state society. 42 As noted above, none of Valkhā inscriptions provide a genealogy of the rulers. Therefore, it is not possible to define accurately the relationship between different rulers, who ruled from Valkhā. The mention of several royal officials such as Dauvārika, Arakshika, Prēshanika, bhata, bhōjika, amātya, āyukta, dūtaka and rājyādhikrita in Valkha inscriptions suggests the emergence of a complex bureaucracy. It seems that they tried to emulate the model of a complex polity in the realms of the Gupta and the Vākātakas. 43 Thus the term rāshṭra, used for an administrative division in inscriptions of the Vākātaka rulers, is frequently met with in the inscriptions of the Vālkhā rulers. 44 It is therefore probable that in their construction of a state apparatus, the Valkha rulers could have been influenced by what they saw around them in the Guptas and Vākātaka administrative structures, as well as possibly the state of Shaka kshatrapas of Gujarat.
We now turn to north-western Mālava. The area in and around Dashapura (Mandasor district, Madhya Pradesh) was under the Aulikara rulers, Mahārāja Naravarman of this dynasty issued the earliest known inscription of the dynasty in 397/398
Prabhākara was apparently succeeded by Narēndra Ādityavardhana: his reign belonged to the last quarter of the fifth century.
48
Thus, he was a contemporary of the Gupta monarch Budhagupta (c. 476–96/500
The Aulikara rulers’ inscriptions suggest the presence of a hierarchy of officials/subordinate to them. According to the inscription of Vishvavarman (423–24
Unlike the Aulikaras, we do not have much information regarding the antecedents of the Parivrājakas, and the Uchchakalapas. The region where Parivrājakas and Uchchakalpa states emerged is presumably the one designated in Ashoka’s Kalinga edicts as that of ātavikas (forest folk). By the time of Samudragupta, there had emerged the ātavika-rājas that are mentioned in his Allahabad inscription. But the Parivrājaka rulers themselves traced their origin from a kingly ascetic Susharman, of the Bharadvāja gōtra. He is mentioned as an expert in all the fourteen sciences, like the sage Kapila. 53 In Romila Thapar’s view, land grants possibly big enough to establish a kingdom, comprising some parts of a forest in Bundelkhand (in eastern Madhya Pradesh), had been made to this ancestor of Parivrājakas. Moreover, in her view, such emergence of a kingdom in forest refers to ‘the conversion of the Vindhyan region from forest to kingdom, from vana to kshetra’. 54 Hastin’s ‘royal ascetic’ (nripati-parivrājaka) lineage has been similarly interpreted by D. D. Kosambi, who opines that ‘some ascetic’ who had gone ‘into the wilderness’ gradually ‘acquired special respect from the tribesmen, married into the tribe, aggrandized its power as king, and so founded the dynasty’. 55 But for such a development to occur some political institutions including segments of administration should have already come into existence within the tribal order. 56
Sometime before 475–76
Apparently, some kind of struggle between the Guptas and the Vākātakas began during the reign of Kumāragupta I, and continued during the reign of Skandagupta for mastery over central India. The Bhitari pillar inscription of Skandagupta informs us about a political crisis towards the end of Kumāragupta I’s reign, when Gupta supremacy was challenged by the Pushyamitras and the Hūnas. Skandagupta claims to have successfully defeated the Pushyamitras and thwarted the incursions of the Hūnas. He also kept in check the advances of Narēndrasēna in Mālava and Mekalā. After Skandagupta, whose reign ended in 467, Prithivīshēna II seems to have occupied parts of eastern Madhya Pradesh, where, as just mentioned, inscriptions of his subordinate Vyāghradēva are found.
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The brief period, after the death of Skandagupta and before the accession of Budhagupta in 476
The earliest known inscription of Parivrājaka Mahārāja Hastin, as we have already mentioned, belongs to 475–76
The Uchchakalpa kingdom was established adjacent to that of the Parivrājakas. The two dynasties emerged in eastern Madhya Pradesh, when the Gupta authority was permanently shaken in western Mālava and Gujarat, due probably mainly to Hūna incursions. However, the Guptas retained at least nominal control over the region in the last quarter of the fifth century, by recognising these two local dynasties in the region. The inscriptions of only two Uchchakalpa rulers, viz. Mahārāja Jayanātha and Mahārāja Sharvanātha, have been found so far. However, according to the genealogical list recorded in these inscriptions, four rulers (Mahārājas), viz. Ōghadēva, Kumāradēva, Jayasvāmin and Vyāghra, preceded Jayanātha. The earliest inscription of Mahārāja Jayanātha is dated 493/94
The Uchchakalpa Mahārāja Vyāghra, father of Mahārāja Jayanātha, has been identified by V.V. Mirashi with Vyāghradēva, a subordinate of the Vakataka ruler Prithivīshēna.
70
However, there is no conclusive evidence, in support of this identification. The last known inscription of Mahārāja Jayanātha is dated 501/502
It is also noticeable that Jayanātha was married to Mahādēvī Murundadēvī or Murundasvāminī, and from her was born Sharvanātha. 79 Her name was surely derived from the term Murunda. Now the Allahabad pillar inscription records Samudragupta’s claims of precedence over ‘Daiva-putra-Shāhi-Shāhānushāhi-Shaka-Murunda’. ‘Shaka Murunda’ seems to refer to western Mahākshatrapas of Gujarat. The satraps of the Kushānas were titled ‘Murunda’ (a Scythian term meaning ‘lord’, Sanskrit ‘svāmin’); later this title became ‘a family name’. 80 The Uchchakalpas seem thus to have forged a marriage alliance with what could have been a well-reputed Shaka ruling lineage. 81
The inscriptions of the Parivrājakas and the Uchchakalpas provide us with a long list of officials and administrators: Bhōgika, amātya, dūtaka, mahāsāmdhivigrahika, mahābalādikrita and uparika, who looked after different state functions. Under the Parivrājakas, one family appears to have occupied state offices hereditarily at least between 475–76 and 510–11
Footnotes
Appendix
Particulars of Inscriptions at (or recovered from) Sites shown on Map, and here arranged alphabetically
Kr = Krita / Mālava era (= Vikrama era) G = Gupta era Kr. 529; Gauri/Adityavardhana; Yasodharman, Kr. 589.
