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Section IV. The Nägas and the Later KUSHÃNS.
The successors of the Great Kushāns in Mathurā and certain neighbouring tracts were - the Nāgas. The prevalence of Nāga rule over a considerable portion of northern and central India in the third and fourth centuries A.D., is amply attested by epigraphic evidence. A Lahore copper seal inscription of the fourth century A.D. refers to a king named Maheśvara Nāga, the son of Nāgabhatta.? The Allahabad Pillar inscription refers to King Ganapati Nāga, while several Vākāțaka records mention Bhava Nāga, sovereign of the Bhārasivas, whose grandson's grandson Rudrasena II was a contemporary of Chandra Gupta II, and who accordingly must have flourished before the rise of the Gupta Empire. Some idea of the great power of the rulers of Bhava Nāga's line and the territory over which they ruled may be gathered from the fact that the dynasty performed ten Ašvamedha sacrifices and “were besprinkled on the forehead with the pure water of (the river) Bhagirathi (Ganges) that had been obtained by their valour.' The valiant deeds of the family culminating in the performance of ten Ašvamedha sacrifices indicate that they were not a feudatory line owing allegiance to the Kushāns. We learn from the Purūnas that the Nāgas established themselves at Vidiśā (Basnagar near Bhilsa), Padmāvati
1 A Yūpa Inscription from Barnāla (in the Jaipur state) discloses the existence of a line of kings, one of whom bore a name that ended in--Varddhana. They belonged to the Sohartta or Sohartri gotra. But the dynastic designation is not known (Ep. Ind. xxvi. 120). The record is dated in Krita 284 corresponding to A. D. 227-28.
2 Fleet, CII, p. 283 3 CII, p. 241 ; AHD, p. 72.
