Epigraphia Indica Vol 33

SR No.: 032587
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: D C Sircar
Publisher: Archaeological Survey of India
Publication Year: 1959
Total Pages: 514
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 29 MB

Page 143

EPIGRAPHIA INDICA
96
[VOL. XXXIII a crescent within a similar border. The weight of these coins varies between 2.5 and 31.3 grains. It may be pointed out that lion is a familiar device on the Malava coins, although generally they exhibit the animal in a standing posture. The palaeography of the legend on Ramagupta's coins suggests that they were issued sometime in the fourth or fifth century A. D. Another group of four copper coins, similar to the above six, also found at Bhilsa, have been published in the same journal.
There has been a controversy whether Ramagupta of the Bhilsa coins was a local ruler of the Bhilsa region or should be identified with the Gupta king of the same name who, according to literary traditions, succeeded the Gupta emperor Samudragupta (circa 340-76 A.D.) but was ousted by his younger brother Chandragupta II. It is difficult to be definite on this point without further evidence, although the Prakritic form of the name Ramaguta found on some of the coins would suggest a date earlier than the time of Samudragupta who is the first Gupta monarch to have extended his supremacy in the Malwa region. Another point which can scarcely be ignored in this connection is that, if Rämagupta really belonged to the Imperial Gupta dynasty and ruled as an emperor even for a short period, we would have by now discovered at least a few of his gold coins, since the largest number of Gupta coins so far found are gold issues, the Gupta silver and copper coinage being by far less copious. The genuineness of the literary tradition regarding the existence of a Gupta emperor named Ramagupta has not yet been proved by any other evidence, The problem to be solved now is: if Ramagupta is regarded as a local ruler of the Maiwa region unconnected with the Imperial Gupta house and assigned to a date somewhat earlier than the expansion of Gupta supremacy in the said area about the middle of the fourth century A. D., should Harigupta of the Ahichchhatra coin, on which the reading of the name has been doubted by Allan, be regarded as a scion of Ramagupta's family or of any other local ruling house and as flourishing before the middle of the fourth century? The problem of this ruler is, however, rendered more complicated by two factors. In the first place, a newly discovered copper coin of the king not only gives the name quite clearly as Harigupta but is also a very clear imitation of a type of the copper coinage of Chandragupta II. Secondly, we have an inscription testifying to the fact that a king named Hariraja, who claimed to have been a scion of the Gupta dynasty, ruled over the region comprising the present Banda District of U. P. sometime in the fifth century and it is very probable that he is identical with the issuer of the Ahichchhatra coin.
A copper coin, now exhibited in the Allahabad Municipal Museum, was examined by me when I visited Allahabad in December 1957. Dr. S. C. Kala, Curator of the Museum, was kind enough to allow me to take a plaster cast of the coin. There can be no doubt that the prototype from which this coin was imitated is the second variety of the second type of the copper coinage of Chandragupta II described and illustrated by Allan in his Catalogue of the Coins of the Gupta Dynasties. The prototype may be described as follows:
Obverse: King standing to left (three-quarter length), apparently casting incense on altar with uplifted right hand (as on similar gold coins of the Chhatra type); left hand behind on hip; behind the king a dwarf attendant holding the parasol over him.
Smith, op. cit., p. 172.
JNSI, Vol. XIII, pp. 128 ff.
See ibid., Vol. XII, pp. 103 ff.
One of Samudragupta's inscriptions has been found engraved on a pillar at Eran in the Saugor District of Madhya Pradesh (i.e. in East Malwa) and his Allahabad pillar inscription refers to his success against the Aryavarta king Rudradova who is apparently the Saka ruler Rudrasena III of Western India. See Select Inscriptions, pp. 257, 260 ff.; Proc. IHC, Madras 1944, pp. 78 ff.
See p. 53, Nos. 144-47; Plate XI, No. 4.