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SECTION II. CHANDRA GUPTA I. The first independent sovereign (Mahārājādhirāja) 1 of the line was Chandra Gupta I, son of Ghatotkacha, who may have ascended the throne in 320 A.D., the initial date of the Gupta Era.? Like his great fore-runner Bimbisāra he strengthened his position at some stage of his career, by a matrimonial alliance with the Lichchhavis of Vaišáli or of Nepāl, and laid the foundations of the Second Magadlian Empire. The union of Chandra Gupta I with the Lichchhavi family is commemorated by a series of coins * having on the obverse standing figures of Chandra Gupta and his queen, the Lichchhavi princess Kumāradevi, and on the reverse a figure of Lakshmi, the goddess of luck, with the legend "Lichchhavayah” probably signifying that the prosperity of Chandra Gupta was due to his Lichchhavi alliance. Smith suggests that the Lichchhavis were ruling in Pāțaliputra as tributaries or feudatories of the Kushāns and that through his marriage Chandra Gupta succeeded to the power of
1 In the Riddhapur plates (JASB, 1924, 58), however, Chandra Gupta I and even Samudra Gupta are called (carelessly) simply Mahārājas.
2 JRAS, 1893, 80 ; Cunningham, Arch. Sur. Rep., Vol. IX, p. 21. The identity of the Gupta king with whom the era (Gupta prakāla, Guptānan kāla) of 320 A. D. originated, is by no means clear. The claims of Mahārāja Gupta (IHQ, 1942, 273 n) or even (less plausibly) of Samudra Gupta, cannot be altogether disregarded.
3 It is not suggested that the marriage took place after 320 A. D. The chronology of the Guptas before A. D. 380 is still in a stage of uncertainty. Nothing definite can be stated about the relative date of the marriage till we know more about the length of Chandragupta'I's reign, and the exact date of bis accession, and that of his son and successor, Samudra Gupta. Some scholars think that Chandra Gupta I's alliance was with the ruling family of Nepāl (JRAS, 1889, p. 55) or of Pataliputra (JRAS, 1893, p. 81).
4 There is difference of opinion among scholars regarding the attribution of these coins, see Altekar in Num. Suppl. No. XLVII, JRASB, III (1937), No. 2, 346, It is difficult to come to any final conclusion till the discovery of coins whose attribution to Chandra Gupta I is beyond doubt,
