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No. 7.]
DAMODARPUR COPPER-PLATE INSCRIPTIONS.
121.
For the present the earliest limit for Budha-gupta's time cannot be put later than 157 G.E. (=476-77 A.D.); for the inscription on the pedestal of a Buddha image at Sarnath (No. 39 E.) shows clearly in words that Budha-gupta was the reigning sovereign, when the Gupta year 157 has expired,--thus,
"Guptānāṁ samatikrānte sapta-panchasad-uttarē
fatē samānāin prithivin Budha-guptë prasāsati."
According to Professor K. B. Pathak's calculation this inscription belongs to the current Gupta year 158. Before Mr. Hargreaves' discovery of the Sārnāth inscription and ours of the Dāmodarpur plates the only reference to Budha-gupta that had been known was the mention of him as a king on the Eran stone pillar inscription, bearing the date 165 G.E. (=484-85 A.D.), and on some silver coins, one of which bears the date 175 G.E. (=494-95 A.D.). The existence of this Eran stone pillar inscription with the two most significant and clear expressions mentioned therein, viz.
(1) " Dhüpatau Bredha-gupte," 1. 2 (" while Budha-gupta was the ruler on earth "), and (2) Kalindi-Narmmadayoremmadhyam pālayati loka päla-gunair-jjagati mahāraja-friyam
anubhavati Suraśnichandrē cha," II. 3-4 ("and while Surasmichandra, enjoying in the world the glory of a Mahārāja on account of his qualities as a lokapāla, & regent of one of the quarters, was governing the country lying between the Kalindi
and Narmada"), and the existence of the coins referred to above, imitating the types of the imperial ruler Skanda-gupta's silver central coinage and having on the reverse the portrait of a peacock with wings and tail outspread, as first adopted by the imperial monarch Kumāra-gupta I, and on the obverse the legend, befitting a paramount sovereign, viz." Vijitāvanipatih Sri-Budhu-gupto divi jayati," onght to have been sufficient evidence for historians that Budha-gupta was an imperial Gupta monarch having feudatory chiefs, like Surasmichandra and others, under his dependency, to rule over different provinces of Northern India ; and they (the historians) ought to have examined Cunningham's view that he was on the imperial throne of Magadha and "may have reigned from about 480-510 A.D." Cunningham, following the Chinese traveller Hiuen Tsang's accounts, wrote also thus—"according to whom (Hwan Thsang) Fo-tho-kiu-to, or Budha-gupta, was the fourth prince prior to Silāditya's conquest of Magadha in A.D. 600." He also helds that "there is sufficient evidence to prove that his (Budha-gupta's) away was equally extensive." These remarks of the late great archæologist are now turning out to be approximately true; for the Sārnāth inscriptions and the Dāmodarpur plates of Budha-gupta's time also testify to the fact that this emperor's rule included the eastern as well as the western provinces of the extensive Gupta dominion. We have seen that Budha-gupta held imperial sway over North Bengal, which was governed by his own dependent officers (Plates Nos. 3 and 4) ard that he had in his imperial possession the kingdom of Mālwā (more particularly the vast tract of land between the Kālindi and Narmadā). It is easy to see that the position of maharaja Suraśmichandra, governing the land lying between the Yamunā and the Narmadā, may have been exactly similar to that eujoyed by the aparika-mahārājas Brahmadatta and Jayadatta,
1 ride p. 201 of Professor K. B. Pathak's article," New Light on the Gupta Era and Mihirakula"-Sir R. G. Bhandarkar Commemoration Tolume, Poona, 1917.
2 Fleet, C. I. I., Vol. III, No. 19. 3 Allan, Indian Coins, Gupta Dynasties, p 153, and Introduction, p.cv. • Ibid, p. 153, Coin No. 617.
Cunningham, Bhilsa Topes, p. 162. For the Chinese pilgriin's referring to Budha-gupta ride Watters, Yuan Chrrang, Vol. 11. 1'p. 104-65. "Cuncingham, Bhilsa Toper, p. 141.
8 Ilid, pp. 102.63.
