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No. 29.]
KING CHANDRA OF THE MEHARAULI INSCRIPTION.
gather from other records that his (Naravarman's) son Visvavarman and his son Bandhuvarman were feudatories of Kumaragupta I"; and in a footnote he refers us to inscriptions Nos. 17 and 18 of Fleet's Gupta inscriptions. These are the Gangdhar inscription of Visvavarman, son of Naravarman, of the year 480 V.E., and the Mandasor inscription of the year 493 V.E. of Bandhuvarman, the son of Visvavarman. A careful scrutiny of the long record found at Gangdhar reveals nothing about a suzerainty of the Gupta Emperors over Visvavarman, and the inevitable conclusion is that at the time of this record (480 V.E.=423-4 A.D.) Visvavarman did not acknowledge the Gupta Emperors of the North as his suzerains. Turning to the Mandasor inscription of the time of Bandhuvarman and his suzerain Kumāragupta I, we find that Bandhuvarman was the ruler or governor of Dasapura when Kumaragupta was ruling and that Visvavarman is mentioned as a king who was the father of Bandhuvarman. The past tense of the verb to be (babhuva) clearly indicates that Visvavarman had ceased to exist. The verses about Visvavarman were introduced as a parenthesis to show the descent of Bandhuvarman. The real connection is between Kumaraguptē prithivim prasāsati (1. 13) and Bandhuvarmmani Dasapuram-idam palayati (1. 16). Consequently it must be admitted that the Mandasor inscription of Bandhuvarman does not contain any reference or proof as to a suzerainty of the Early Gupta Emperors over Visvavarman, king of Western Malava, though the record clearly indicates that Visvavarman's son Bandhuvarman was a feudatory of the Early Gupta Emperor Kumaragupta I. Therefore we cannot accept Mr. Basak's statement that Naravarman's son Viśvavarman was a feudatory of Kumaragupta I. Mr. Basak's idea apparently is that the dynasty of Jayavarman ruled the whole of Malava from Dasapura; but the findspots of inscriptions of Naravarman and his son prove that they were rulers of a portion only of Western Malava. Naravarman's inscription was found at Mandasor, while that of his son Viśvavarman was found at Gangdhar or Gangrar, Lat. 23° 56' N., Long. 75° 41' E., in the Gwalior State (sheet No. 35, Atlas of India, Survey of India Map printed in 1899). The tract of country in which these two inscriptions were found lies along the southern border of Mewar and runs along a range of hills. This country appears to have sheltered the descendants of Simhavarman after the defeat of Chandravarman. The Udayagiri inscription of the year 821 and the Sañchi inscription of the year 93, both of the reign of Chandragupta II, prove that Naravarman and Visvavarman had no hold on this part of Mālava.
We have, therefore, no reason to put any faith in the following statement:-"Samudragupta probably destroyed the independence only of the nine kings of Northern India among whom Chandravarman was one, and allowed them after their utter defeat to rule in their respective States as Gupta feudatories." It is clear from the statement of Harishēņa's Prasasti that the nine kings of Aryavarta were uprooted, i.e. their kingdom assimilated into the Empire (1. 21), while the kings of the south were captured and liberated, i.e. they were reinstated. The inscriptions of Chandravarman's brother Naravarman and his son Visvavarman indicate very clearly that after his defeat by Samudragupta either Chandravarman himself or his brother Naravarman migrated into Malava. There, in the hilly country in the North-West corner, adjacent to modern Mewar, they managed to maintain their independence till 423-4 A.D., and were subjugated by the Early Gupta Emperors at some date between 424 and 437 A.D. There is no doubt about the fact that Bandhuvarman, son of Visvavarman and grandson of Naravarman, had in 437-38 A.D. lost his independence.
1 Ibid., p. 25.
Ibid., pp. 30 and 34.
371
Ind. Ant., Vol. XLVIII, p. 99,
