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162
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[JUNE, 1918
2 & 3. The second and the third inscriptions were also incised on Buddhist images discovered at Sårnåth. The announcement of their discovery together with a translation of the dated portion was published in the Annual Report of the Archaeological Survey referred to above.
In one of these inscriptions a considerable portion of the line containing the date is quite illegible but enough remains to show that the two inscriptions belonged to the same year and were probably dated in identical words. I read the second inscription as follows:
Gupta nám samatikkrante sapta-paii cha ad-uttare late samanâsia prithivin Budhagupte praisa sati.
"When one hundred and fifty-seven years of the Guptas had passed away, and Budhagupta was ruling the earth."
The third inscription reads: .... pta pa(?)châ(?)a(?)dutare iate saminasi prithivim Budhagu x profasati Vaisakha-mase saptame.
4. A copperplate of the time of Bud hagupta has been discovered at Damodarpur in the district of Dinajpur, Bengal. It records a grant of land in the Puncravardhana-bhukti. It is now in the possession of the Varendra Research Society along with four others belonging to the Gupta period. Short notices of these inscriptions have been published in p. 273 of the Indo-Aryan Races by Rama Prasad Chanda.
Now the question arises about the identity of Kumâragupta mentioned in No. 1. We know of three kings of this name belonging to the Gupta Dynasty. The first Kumâragupta must have died before A.D. 456-7, the earliest recorded date of his son and successor Skandagupta. Kumâragupta of the later Gupta Dynasty is said in the Aphsad Inscription to have defeated så navarmman, whose reign is placed beyond all doubt in the middle of the 6th century A.D. by the recently discovered Hârâhâ Inscription. Kumâragupta of Inscription No.1 with a date in 154 G. E. (A.D. 473-4) cannot, therefore, be identified with any of these, and must be identified with Kumaragupta II. of the Bhitari Seal. For it cannot be maintained, without positive cvidence, that a new ruling dynasty had sprung up within the home territories of the Guptas in less than six years after the death of Skandagupta.
If this is once admitted, the chronological scheme proposed by Dr. Hoernle and accepted by Mr. V. A. Smith and others at once falls to the ground. The invalidity of their chronological assumption is also definitely established on independent grounds. Inscription No. 4 plainly indicates that Budhagupta was not merely a local ruler of Malwa as has hitherto been supposed but that his empire extended to Fur (ravardhana-bhukti or Northern Bengal. This conclusion is supported by the Sârnâth Inscription of the same king (Nos. 2 and 3). Now the latter places bis reign in the year 158 (current) of the Gupta Era or A.D. 477-8. According to the accepted scheme of chronology, either Skandagupta or Puragupta must have been the Gupta Emperor at that time and there is no place for Buchagupta, king of Magadba, before A.D. 530, the date of Kumâragupta II, the last king in an unbroken line of succession that ruled over Magadha.
It is generally assumed, on the authority of the Jungadh Rock Inscription (Fleet's No. 14) that the earliest recorded date of sk ndagupta is 126 G. E. or A.D. 465-6 (Allan's Catalogue of Gupta Coins, CXXXVIII). This view, however does not ecem to be quite correct. The inscription says that Chakrapalito, an officer of Skandagupta, renewed, in the year 137, the embankment of the Sudarhana Jake which had burst in the year 136 in consequence of excessive rain. It does not necesarily follow from this that Chakrapalita was already an cfficer under Skandagupta, when the dom of the lake had actually burst, and there remains, therefore, no ground for the supposition that Skandagupta had Ascended the throne as early as 138 G. E. Or A.D. 466-6.
