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... second reading. This means we have 55 years for the reigns of Chandragupta I and Samudragupta. Out of them we are not restricted by any circumstances from allotting to Chandragupta I at least 3 decades. Samudragupta and Devānampiyatissa Even if he reigned for no more than 30 years we should have Samudragupta on the throne in (315-30=) 285 B.C. and continuing for 25 years - that is, down... reasoning a modern scholar proves that both in his temporal and spiritual outlook Samudragupta had followed in the footsteps of Aśoka Maurya.... Aiyangar, with keen insight, has used an argument to show that Samudragupta had read the inscriptions of Aśoka Maurya. He has said that, according to Harisena, Samudragupta has the epithet of Kavirāja, and Kavirāja, according to Rajasekhara, was a title to... North-west. The only proviso would be that we show why Samudragupta would have to deal again with those regions. We may ask a counter-question: "If Chandra is identified with Chandragupta II, why should the latter have to deal again with the Punjāb and the North-west after Samudragupta had dealt with them?" Mookerji 2 believes that, though Samudragupta had exercised sway over the northern Śakas, ...

... and their "Samudra"-coins. Some other Samudragupta, a minor namesake of his, in touch with the Gadaharas but having nothing to do with Kidāra, swims into our ken. And, as if to lend this minor Samudragupta a natural context, coins with "Chandra" on them and similar to the "Samudra"-coins have also been found. 5 So we can think of a second small Samudragupta, the son or the father of a minor third... with them. The intimate connection was by his marriage to the Lichchhavi princess Kumar-adevl who was to be the mother of Samudragupta. So the marriage which must have led to his transfer of the era to himself was most likely in the very year 320 A.D. In that case Samudragupta would be barely 12 years old when he became king. His own Allāhābād Pillar Inscription shows the utter improbability of 12... Samudragupta's twice-proved practice and thereby ring false. Apart from every other hurdle to taking 320 A.D. as the accession era of Samudragupta, there is the "serious objection" noticed by Majumdar 1 himself: "As Kumāragupta I, the grandson of Samudragupta, was on the throne in the year 136 of the Gupta era, it would give a total duration of 136 years to three generations which is far above ...

... revolt against Samudragupta." Even in the life-time of Chandragupta I, Samudragupta had to take up arms. The first two stanzas of his inscription have practically got effaced, but "from whatever remains..., it appears that Samudragupta fought successfully certain battles during the reign of his father". 3 His achievements serve to explain the fourth stanza which "tells us that Samudragupta was nominated... āja ("Supreme King of Great Kings") which none of his ancestors held. "Samudragupta," V. Smith" remarks, "was always careful to describe himself as being 'the son of the daughter of the Lichchhavis', a formula implying the acknowledgement that his royal authority was derived from his mother." Mookerji 5 writes: "Samudragupta first proudly declares himself as Licchhavi-dauhitra in his inscription... socially and politically. At least for Samudragupta, who is definitely known to have expanded his dominions by conquest far beyond the dreams of the Lichchhavis, their political importance could hardly be fundamental. If his father is to be thought of as not a conqueror on his own, this importance might have been for him equal to the social; with Samudragupta himself it was bound to be somewhat subordinate ...

... were predominantly Vaishnavites and Bhāgavatas. C. 285 B.C. The accession of Samudragupta (known to the Greeks as Amitrachates, Sanskrit Amitrachchhettā, meaning "Mower of enemies", akin to the title given to Samudragupta in later Gupta inscriptions, Sarvarājochchhettā, "Mower of all Kings). Samudragupta, though a Vaishnavite, was a great patron of Art, Literature and Philosophy in general... they certainly existed as a republic in the pre-Samudragupta period as they are included in the list of the republican tribes which submitted to the Gupta emperor.... Here it may also be noticed that the Arthaśāstra (III.18.8) refers to the Prājjunikas who have also been mentioned [as Prārjunās] in the Allāhābād pillar inscription of Samudragupta. They are not noticed anywhere else in the entire... C. 304-320 A.D. A minor Samudragupta most probably preceded by a minor Chandragupta, was contemporaneous - towards the beginning of his reign - with a Gadahara chief who, between 230 and 340 A.D., issued coins with the name "Samudra" on them, just as his probable predecessor issued them with the stamp "Chandra". The period concerned cannot hold the great Samudragupta even on the reckoning of the ...

... than the greatest conqueror among the Guptas, the hero of the Allāhābād Pillar Inscription, the overthrower, uprooter or paramount lord of many kings: Samudragupta, son of the dynasty-founder Chandragupta I. Mankad has also shown Samudragupta as fitting very satisfactorily into the chronological sequence conjured up by the Purānas ' list of the kings - Vindhyasakti, Pravīra, etc. - soon after... it from the religio-spiritual angle. But here perhaps we cannot do better than cite some observations of Sircar 2 on Samudragupta from a quite independent context: "The Allāhābād pillar inscription...represents him actually as the god Visnu in human form. Samudragupta is described as equal to the four loka-pālas, viz. Kubera, Varuna, Indra, and Yama, and also as 'one who is a mortal... Inscription to the Glta's yuge-yuge in connection with Samudragupta invests this emperor with the typical Avatar's position and purpose. 1. Op. cit., pp. 269-76. 2."Early History of Vaisnavism", The Cultural Heritage of India, (Calcutta, 1956), IV, p. 131. Page 143 And surely warrior Samudragupta, who is imaged as Vishnu descended on earth, is very much ...

... Samksobha Parivrājaka, 493 Samprati, 28, 343, 594 Samudra, the Venerable. 423 Samudragupta, 9, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 54, 143-4, 145, 189, 205, 206, 212, 213, 214, 224.225, 246, 280, 316, 410-13, 422-3, 440-41, 443, 446, 447, 455, 456, 457. 485.492, 523, 534, 535, 536, 53?, 538, 540, 551, 573 Samudragupta, minor. 227, 413 San-meou-to-lo-kiu-to, 33, 37, 41, 280, 604 Sanakānikas, 424... Alexandreia/Alexandros, 277 Alexandria, 278 Alexandria of Arachosia, 234, 308 Alikasudara, i, 233, 265, 272, 278, 593 Alikayu, 278 Allāhābād Pillar inscription (of Samudragupta), 37, 38, 54-5, 143, 189, 212, 214, 215, 232, 263, 398, 422, 424-7, 437, 443, 485, 523, 535, 538, 550, 573, 597-9 Allan, J., 39-40, 206, 413, 441, 442, 443, 528, 531 Altekar, A. S., i, ...

... been the immediate predecessors of the Guptas whom the Purānas report as rising into imperial power at Māgadha in the period immediately following Chandrāmśa's. Two of the Āryavar-ta kings whom Samudragupta, the second of the Imperial Guptas, is declared in the Allāhābād Pillar Inscription to have "extirpated" 1. Ibid. 2.Ibid., p. 170. 3. Ibid., p. 169. 4. Ibid. ...