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No. 7.]
DAMODARPUR COPPER-PLATE INSCRIPTIONS.
117
It seems that the position of Chirātadatta, governor of Pandravardhana, and that of Vētravarman, the district officer of Koțivarsha carrying on his administration from the town of the same name, was similar to that enjoyed by the emperor's own feudatory nipa Baudhuvarman, who in 437-38 A.D. (118 G.E.) wielded a combined authority both as ruler of Malwă and as governor of the city of Dasapura. In the light of the evidence now available it may be believed that the copper-plate grant, dated 113 G.E., belonging to Kumära-gapta I's reign and discovered in Dhānāidaha (in the District of Rājshahi), must have referred to the province of Pandravardhana as being under a Gupta governor and that the vishaya of Khăță. (?) pāra, mentioned therein, formed a part of the same province; but unfortunately the plate is a mutilated one and has left us ignorant of the full contents of the inscription which it bore.
We have strong reasons to believe, on the evidence contained in Plates Nos. 1 and 2, belonging to Kumāra-gupta I's time, and in Plates Nos. 3 and 4, belonging to that of Budha-gapta, that the province of North Bengal (Puņdravardhana) must have remained in sole and direct possession of Skanda-gupta (136-148 G.E.), Kumära-gupta I's son and successor, and of Kumāra-gupta II of the Sārnāth inscription, probably Skanda-gupta's son and successor, and that the same system of provincial Government must have continued in Bengal, for at least about a century, as will be shown later on. It is quite plausible that towards the close of Kumara-gupta I's reign-when, as we have shown before, he was ruling without trouble in the eastern provinces of his empire-the Gupta monarch's power began to diminish in the western provinces, in which the peace was disturbed by the attacks and incursions of the greedy Håņas, the Pashyamitras and the Mlèchhas, who were utterly defeated by Skandagupta sometime about 136-138 G.E., the dates of the Junāgadh rock inscription. This rock inscription of Skanda-gupta's time also testifies to the fact that under the Guptas the provincial governors were appointed by the emperors and that the former again had the power to appoint local rulers. We learn from that inscription that after having thoroughly defeated his enemies and having conquered the wholo earth" (jituri prithivim samagrā), i.e. having regained his lost provinces, Skanda-gapta set himself to appoint many provincial governors (aarvvēshıs desēshu ridhaya goptrin (trīn)-1. 6), especially for the western provinces, where the emperor required the services of able and trustworthy persons for the work of administration after the Häņa troubles. His anxiety to appoint a qualified governor for the proper protection of the land of the Saurashtras (Käthiāwar), and his sense of relief and confort when he succeeded in appointing Parnadatta as the governor of that western province (pārvvētarasya ia tiisi Parnaduttan niynjiya rājā lesitimīins=tath=īblat, l. 9), are graphically described in that inscription. This governor Purņadatta again appointed his own son Chakrapalita as the city governor (srayam=ēva pitra yah sunniyukto, 1. 12), just as we see from the Dáms. darpur plates that the rnlers of the province of Pand:avardhana, themselves appointed by the emperors, used to appoint the vishaya putis of Kotivarsha, who had their head-quarters in the town of that name. It is clear then that the position of the governors in the eastern provinces (e.g. Pandravardhana) of the imperial Guptas corresponded to that enjoyed by the governors of the western provinces (e.g. Surashtra, and Malwā). Skanda-gupta, while appoint. ing the governors of his western provinces, did not apparently deviate from the pricoiplo followed by his father with regard to the eastera provinces (Plates Nos. 1 and 2) and perhaps also by his father's ancestors. Similar to the position of the vishayapatis of Kotivarsha was
Fleet, C. I. I., Vol. III, No. 18.
? Vide " Annual Progress Report of the Superintendent, Hindu and Buddhist Monuments, Northern Circle, 1915"; and Professor K. B. Pathak's article on " Nero Light on the Gupta Era and Mikirakula" (pablished in Sir R. G. Bhandarkar Commernoration Volume, Poona, 1917, pp. 202-203).
Fleet, C. I. I., Vol. III, No. 14.
