गुप्त अभिलेख संग्रह (जे. एफ. फ्लीट - गुप्त सम्राटों एवं परवर्ती नरेशों के ऐतिहासिक पाषाण व ताम्रलेख)

THE GUPTA INSCRIPTIONS, INTRODUCTION. 135
In Appendix IV. below, I give an account of such of the inscriptions from Nêpâl
as have any bearing on the question now under consideration. The actual dates of them
range from A.D. 635 to 854; and give a fairly clear idea of the history of the reigning
families of the country during that period. They shew two separate houses, ruling con-
temporaneously, and mostly on equal terms; and each preserving certain distinctive cha-
racteristics of its own. One of them was a family, the name of which is not mentioned
in the inscriptions, but which in the Vaṁśâvali is called the Ṭhâkurî family, issuing its
charters from the house or palace called Kailâsakûṭabhavana, and uniformly using the
Harsha era. The other was the Lichchhavi family, distinctly so named in the inscrip-
tions, and in the Vaṁśâvali allotted to the Sûryavaṁśa or solar lineage, issuing its
charters from the house or palace called Mânagṛiha, and uniformly using an era with
the Gupta epoch.
That the Lichchhavi clan or tribe was one of great antiquity and power,
in the direction of Nêpâl, is shewn by the writings of Fa-Hian and Hiuen-Tsiang.¹ which
connect them with events that preceded the nirvâṇa of Buddha. No exception, there-
fore, need be taken to the general outlines of the long account in one of the inscriptions,
which, so far as the Nêpâl branch of the tribe is concerned, gives us the first really
historical member of it in the person of Jayadêva I., who, by the ordinary allowance of time
for each Hindu generation, must be referred to the period A.D. 330 to 355.
Proof of friendly relations between the Early Guptas and the Lichchhavis,
at an early time, is given by the marriage of Chandragupta I. with Kumâradêvî, the
daughter of Lichchhavi or of a Lichchhavi king. And, that the Lichchhavis were then at
least of equal rank and power with the Early Guptas, is shewn by the pride in this alliance
manifested by the latter; exhibited in the careful record of the names of Kumâradêvî, and
of her father or her family, on some of the gold coins of Chandragupta I., and by the uni-
form application of the epithet, “daughter’s son of Lichchhavi or of a Lichchhavi,” to
Samudragupta in the genealogical inscriptions. Again, the Allahâbâd pillar inscription
shews that, even if Samudragupta did not make Nêpâl a tributary province, his kingdom
extended up to the confines of that country.
There can be no doubt that the Early G kings must have known the
nature and origin of whatever era was being used by their Lichchhavi connec-
tions in Nêpâl. And the period established for Jayadêva I. approximates so closely to
A.D. 320-21, that it needs but little adjustment to place the commencement of his reign
actually in that year. This arrangement would give a perfectly intelligible reason for the
origin of the era, which was clung to so persistently by his descendants that they conti-
nued the use of it for at least two centuries after the introduction of the Harsha era into
¹See Legge's Travels of Fâ-Hien, pp. 71, 76; Beal's Buddhist Records of the Western World,
Vol. I. pp. xiii, lii. lv. and Vol. II. pp. 67 note, 70, 73, 77 note, 81.