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Samudragupta was succeeded by his son Chandra- gupta II, and among his inscriptions there is a short one found at Sanchi, which makes a grant of a village to Buddhist monks, — the " Arya Sanglia in the holy great Vihara of Kakanadabota." Elsewhere in an in- scription on a stone found in Mathura, Chandragupta gives us his mother's name, — describing himself as the son of the Maharajadhiraja Samudragupta " begotten on the Mahadevi Dattadevi." Chandragupta II was succeeded by his son Kum&ra- gupta, who in an inscription found in Bilsad, in Eta District, N.-W. P., gives us the entire genealogy of the family from the first Gupta. And he describes himself as " begotten on Mahadevi Druvadevi of the Maharaja- dhiraja the glorious Chandragupta Another inscription of Kumaragupta in Mankuwar, in Allahabad District, was discovered by Dr. Bhagwanlal Indraji in 1870. The inscription is under an image of Buddha seated, and we are informed that the image was installed by Kumaragupta in the year 1 29(448 A. D.) The celebrated Mandasor inscription discovered by Mr. Fleet was not engraved by order of the Gupta kings, but has reference to Kumaragupta, and may therefore be spoken of here. It is on a stone slab in front of a temple of Mahadeva in the village of Dasa- pura, in Scindia's dominions. The inscription in- forms us that some silk weavers immigrated to this, place froni Gujrat, and that a portion of them formed a Digitized by Google CHAP. V.] GUPTA KINGS. 67 flourishing guild. At the time " when Kumdragupta was reigning over the whole earth," there was a ruler named Visvavarman, and his son Bandhuvarman was ruling in Da^apura when the guild of weavers built a temple there, which was completed " in the season when the sound of thunder is pleasing, when 493 years had elapsed from the tribal constitution of the Malavas." " M&Iavanam gana-sthity& yate sata chatushtaye Trinavatya-dhikahdanam ritau sevya-ghana-svane." And we are further informed in this inscription that the temple was repaired in the year when 529 years of the same Era had elapsed. Mr. Fleet maintains that the particular Kumara- gupta alluded to in this inscription of the Dasapura weavers is Kumaragupta of the Gupta line, and that the Era alluded to in this inscription is the Era of the Malavas, now known as Vikramaditya's Samvat Era beginning with 56 B. C. The temple was therefore built in (493 — 56) = 437 A.D., and repaired in (529 — 56) =473 A. D. This is a startling discovery ; for if Mr. Fleet's sup- position be correct, then the true origin of the Samvat Era is discovered. The Era was not founded by a Vikramaditya who reigned in 56 B. C, as was supposed by earlier scholars. Nor was the Era fixed in 544 A.D. by a Vikramaditya then reigning, and thrown backwards by six centuries, as has been supposed by Dr. Ferguson.* ■ 1 ■ * See Vol. I, pp. 35 to 37. Digiti 68 BUDDHIST PERIOD. [BOOK IV. The Era was originally a national era of the Mdlava tribe, and came subsequently to be contiected with the name of Vikramdditya who about the 6th century A. D. raised the Milavas to the rank of the first nation in India. KumaTagupta's son Skandagupta succeeded him ; and his inscription on the pillar discovered in Ghazipur District, and known as the Bhitari Lat, gives us the genealogy of the Gupta kings given before, and con- tinues it to Skandagupta. More important is the in- scription found in Junagarh, in the Bombay Presidency. After an invocation to Vishnu, it tells us that Skanda- gupta, — who had subdued the whole earth as far as the seas, and whose fame was acknowledged even by his enemies " in the countries of the Mlechchhas," — appointed Parnadatta to govern his kingdom of the Saurashtras. Parnadatta appointed his son Chakrapa- lita. In the year 136 (Gupta Era, 455 A. D.), the lake at the foot of Girnar burst its embankment in con- sequence of excessive reign, and the restoration of the breach after two months' work was effected in 137, and is the cause of the inscription. Skandagupta appears to have been the last great king of the Gupta line. There is an inscription of Buddhagupta in Eran, in the Central Provinces, and dated 165, 484 A. D. It informs us that Surasmi- chandra, the feudatory of Buddhagupta, governed the country between the Kalindi and the Narmadl The object of the inscription is to record the erection Digitized by Google CHAP. V.] GUPTA KINGS. 69 of a column to the god Vishnu under the name of Janirdana. Another inscription in Eran alludes toBh&nugupta, and informs us that a chieftain or noble Gopar&ja accompa- nied him, and fought a battle and was killed. Gopardja's " devoted, attached, beloved, and beauteous wife, in close companionship, accompanied him into the funeral pyre." This is one of the earliest instances on record of a widow following her husband to the pyre. We are not told to what race Gopardja belonged, and among what races the practice first prevailed in India. It was a Scythian custom, and it first comes to notice in Indian history among the Rajputs who are believed to be de- scended from Scythian settlers in India. The almost entire silence of the classical authors of the Pauranik Period on this practice would shew that the practice was not adopted by Hindu races generally even in the Pauranik Period. The destruction of the powerful dynasty of the Guptas, which held the supreme power in India for over a century, has formed the subject of much contro- versy. Dr. Fergusson holds that the locust hordes of the white Huns which extended their invasions far and wide in Asia, weakened Persia, and dealt the death blow to the Guptas in India. Mr. Fleet shews some reasons* for believing that the great and relentless • Indian Antiquary vol. XV, p. 245 &c. Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum % vol. Ill, p. II, &c. Digitized by Google 70 BUDDHIST PERIOD. [BOOK IV. Mihirakula of the Punjab and his father Toramana were Huns ; that after the death of Skandagupta (who had once repelled the Huns) Toramana wrested Eastern Malwa from the Guptas about 466 A. D. ; that Mihira- kula began his career of conquest and destruction about 5 1 5 A. D. ; and that he was at last quelled by Yasadharman, the powerful king of Northern India. The sway of the Huns in Central India was thus of short duration, but Cosma Indico Pleustes, writing in the 6th century, tells us that the Huns in his day were a powerful nation settled and holding sway in the Punjab. These and other foreign invaders of whom we have spoken before, settled down among the people, adopted the language, the religion, and the civilization of India, and thus formed new Hindu races destined to play an important part in the political revolution which ensued at the close of the Pauranik Period, in the 9th and ioth centuries. Digitized by Google • . CHAPTER VI. • FA HIAN'S ACCOUNT OF INDIA. IN the last three chapters we have attempted to give our readers an account, unfortunately scanty and meagre, of some of the principal ruling dynasties in India in the Buddhist Period. But an account of ruling dynasties in not a History of India, and it is necessary that we should try to form a more distinct notion of the numerous races which inhabited India, their chief towns, their arts, and their civilization. Happily we have some material at our disposal to help us in this undertaking in the records of the Chinese travellers who visited India about the close of the period of which we are speaking. Three Chinese travellers of note visited India and • • • • have left us their journals. Fa Hian travelled in India * ... about a century before the close of what we have called the Buddhist Period. Sung Yun came immedi- ately at the close of that period ; and Houen Tsang travelled a century after. If then we study the records of these three travellers, we shall have some idea of the political condition of India, at the close of the Bud- dhist Period. Digitized by Google 72 BUDDHIST PERIOD. [BOOK IV. It must be remembered, however, that these travellers were pious and enthusiastic Buddhist pligrims, and a great portion of their accounts is taken up with legends and fables about Buddha and about holy relics and monuments and sites. It is only incidentally that they speak of the people and their civilization, but even these casual notes are valuable towards the elucidation of a subject of which our knowledge is so meagre and poor. Fa Hian came to India about 400 A. D., and begins his account of it with Udyana or the country round Cabul with which he says North India commenced. The language then spoken here was the language of Mid-India, and the dress and food and drink of the people were the same. * Buddhism was then flourishing, and there were five hundred Sangha-Artimas or abodes of monks. He passed through Svat, GandhAra, TaxasIla and Peshawar, in which last place he saw a Buddhist tower of remarkable strength, beauty of con- struction and height. Travelling through Nagarahdra and their countries, and after crossing the Indus, Fa Hian at last reached the Mathura country on the Jumna river. On the sides of the river, both right and left, there were twenty Sanghdr&mas, with perhaps 3,000 priests. The religion of Buddha was progressing and flourishing. " Beyond ♦ Throughout this and the succeeding chapter we rely on Bears trans- lation, " Buddhist Records of the Western World." 2 vols., 1884. Digitized by Google CHAP. VI.] FA HIAN'S ACCOUNT. 73 the deserts are the countries of Western India. The kings of these countries (Rajputana) are all firm believers in the law of Buddha. • * Southward from this is the so-called middle country (Madhyadesa). The climate of this country is warm and equable, with- out frost or snow.