Book review: Kunal Chakrabarti and Kanad Sinha,eds.,State,Power and Legitimacy: The Gupta Kingdom

This massive volume of nearly a thousand pages contains as many as 49 previously published articles (here termed chapters), dealing with not only the political history of the Guptas, but also religion and culture of the time (p. 655 onwards). Almost every important historian who has written on the Gupta times is represented, except, rather strangely, J.F. Fleet, whose edition of the Gupta-period inscriptions in the Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum volume (1888) is not really supplanted by that of D.R. Bhandarkar, B. Chhabra and G.S. Ghai (1981). This grouse expressed, both editors of the volume under review are to be congratulated on their effort to bring together contributions published in such a variety of books and journals (including the present journal), and arranging them in a fairly rigorous logical order. Controversies are not eschewed; and in the inevitable one over the Rāma Gupta story, both sides are well represented; so also in the case of the identity of ‘Chandra’ of the Mehrauli iron pillar inscription.

Thinking of the Mehrauli inscription, I have always wondered why the phrase of that inscription, sapta mukhani yena samare Sindhor, continues to be rendered as ‘seven mouths of this Indus’ (Fleet, pp. 139–42; Bhandarkar & c., p. 259), as if the Sanskrit word mukha represents a deltaic channel, just as the English word ‘mouth’ does, rather than a feeder, which, of course, is the main function of one’s mouth; and so here the reputed seven feeders of the Indus (the ‘Sapta Sindhva’) must surely be meant. One is happy that K.P. Jayaswal in 1932 (at p. 309 of the present volume) has most cogently established this point, though it is true that J.A. Page in a monograph on the Qutb monuments (1926) had already credited J.Ph. Vogel with this view. Perhaps, the second editor, Kanad Sinha, in his piece on the same inscription should have taken note of this correction rather than simply recording the claim that ‘Chandra’ crossed ‘the seven mouths of the river Indus’ (p. 165): the deltaic fixation is so well-grounded that it does not simply go away.

On the Guptas in the late fifth century, our knowledge keeps growing as fresh inscriptions are discovered. These now show that Buddhagupta ruled from Gupta era 157 to 166 or 168 (ad 477–488) and that he was recognised as a ruler over Malwa and the whole Gangetic basin from Mathura to Bangladesh. It is a pity we do not know more about him beyond what S.R. Goyal (pp. 431–32) and Michael Wills (pp. 449–50) have provided us with. For Vainyagupta there are two copperplates of Gupta 184 and 188 (ad 504 and 508) from Bangladesh, which have been studied by Ryosuke Furui. ¹ This paper, perhaps, came too late to be considered for inclusion by the editors. The survival of Ājīvikas in Bengal attested by these copper plates is certainly a curious fact of religious history and so certainly worth notice.

Let me now turn to some papers which have important points to make. Representations of kingship in contemporary literature such as the Abhijanasakuntalam and Raghuvamsam have been vividly captured by Kumkum Roy. She examines the extent to which the conceptions of kingship coincide, and also vary in these texts. The question of their audiences is also addressed. Overall, the institution emerges as being essentially a product of Brahmanical ideology, insofar as the king was located in terms of varṇāśrama, gender and other hierarchies familiar to Brahmanism. Upinder Singh draws attention to the importance of the Raghuvaṁsam in terms of its detailed political and/or cultural mapping of the subcontinent. War and violence were inextricably tied to state societies, but interestingly, the victor after his success and its acknowledgement did not necessarily seize the territories of the vanquished. Could we say that renouncing fruits of victories as victors were expected to do aestheticised war and violence? Romila Thapar’s essay touches on an important dimension by suggesting that the creative plays of Visakhadatta, namely Devicandragupta and Mudraraksasa, in drawing attention to historical events provide a perspective of the past, and in the process seem to be in synergy with the Guptas’ interest in times past.

The inclusion of the essays by R.S. Sharma, D.N. Jha and K.M. Shrimali, among others, gives us a sense of the features of a social order that had begun to show feudal features. F.M. Asher’s article on Gupta art is significant for its focusing on the early portrayal of historical and political allegory and its implications for royal legitimisation. I also find the contribution to art under the Vakatakas by Hans Bakker to be particularly instructive. Like Asher he too starts with Udayagiri, near Sanchi, and its great Varaha panel, but soon shifts to the Vakatakas’ patronage of all the four major religions—Viṣnuism, Śivaism, Jainism and Buddhism—and to the practice of religious tolerance under the Guptas. The continued manifestation of these tendencies is also visible under the Eastern Vakatakas at Mandhal, Ramagiri and Mansar.

Perhaps, it would have much assisted the reader had a map been provided showing the various Gupta epigraphic and archaeological sites as also towns mentioned in the sources of the time.

One’s wish-list should not, however, imply any lack of appreciation for the labour and discrimination the editors have shown in gathering such a rich collection of articles on the Gupta age. Though misprints occur, there is no doubt that texts of all the articles have been carefully proof-read, and for this also we should be grateful to the editors. Above all, they deserve warm congratulations for having provided such a comprehensive book of reference to students of India’s ‘classical’ age.