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558 POLITICAL HISTORY OF ANCIENT INDIA
establish houses for dispensing charity and medicines." The principal port of the empire on the east coast was Tāmralipti or Tamluk in West Bengal from which ships set sail for Ceylon, Java ( then a centre of Brāhmanism ), and China.
Much light is thrown on the character of Chandra Gupta Vikramāditya's administration by the narrative of Fa-hien and the inscriptions that have hitherto been discovered. Speaking of the Middle Kingdom, the dominions of Chandra Gupta in the upper Ganges Valley, the Chinese pilgrim says : "the people are numerous and happy ; they have not to register their households, or attend to any magistrates and their rules; only those who cultivate the royal land have to pay a portion of the gain from it. If they want to go, they go : if they want to stay on, they stay. The king governs without decapitation or other corporal punishments. Criminals are simply fined, lightly or heavily, according to the circumstances of each case. Even in cases of repeated attempts at wicked rebellion they only have their right hands cut off. The king's bodyguards and attendants all have salaries. Throughout the whole country the people do not kill any living creature, nor drink intoxicating liquor, nor eat onions or garlic. The only exception is that of the Chandālas. In buying and selling commodities they use cowries." The last statement evidently refers to such small transactions as Fa-bien had occasion to make.? The pilgrim does not seem to have met with the gold coins which would only be required for large transactions. That they were actually in currency, we know from the references to "dînāras" and "suvarnas" in inscriptions.
1 Legge.
2 Allan. 3 Chandra Gupta II also issued silver and copper coins. The silver coins were mainly intended for the western provinces conquered from the Saka satraps
