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

14 CORPUS INSCRIPTIONUM INDICARUM, VOL III.
In the Êraṇ posthumous pillar inscription of Gôparâja, No. 20, page 91, mention is
made of the family of the Śarabha kings. Two inscriptions of the Râjas of Śarabhapura
are given in No. 40, page 191, and No. 41, page 196. There is nothing to shew the exact
period to which they belong ; much less to identify either of the Râjas mentioned in them
with Gôparâja’s maternal grandfather. But the characters indicate that they may perhaps
be attributed to a period not far distant from that of Gôparâja ; and the present place has
been found a convenient one for introducing them. At the same time, they may possibly
be found hereafter to belong to a period later by a couple of centuries than the time of
Gôparâja. Another inscription of the Râja Mahâ-Sudêvarâja has been published by Dr
Rajendralala Mitra, in the Jour. Beng. As. Soc. Vol. XXXV. page 195 ff. ; but the ori-
ginal plates have disappeared, with several other valuable copper-plate grants that were
presented to the Bengal Asiatic Society ; and the published version is not sufficiently
reliable to be reproduced. I have, therefor not been able to include that inscription in
this collection.
In No. 42, page 200, to No. 46, page 213, we have some inscriptions of the Guptas
of Magadha, a family of which one member at least, the great Âdityasêna, played an
important part in the history of the seventh century A.D., when the Kanauj kingdom was
broken up on the death of Harshavardhana. From the way in which, through the eleven
generations of this family that are recorded, every name, except that of Âdityasêna, has
the termination gupta, there can be little doubt that the family is an offshoot of the ori-
ginal Gupta stock. And, reckoning back from the time of Âdityasêna, for whom the date
of A.D. 672-73 is supplied by the Shâhpur inscription, No. 43, page 208 Krishṇagupta,
from whom the descent is traced, has to be placed between A.D. 475 and 500. He was,
therefore, a contemporary of Budhagupta or Bhânugupta, or of both of them, and came
very shortly after Skandagupta. His exact connection, however, with any of these three
kings, still remains to be determined.
The Aphsaḍ inscription of Âdityasêna, No. 42, page 200, introduces us to two
important contemporaneous families. The first of these is that of the Maukharis, or
Mukharas, of whom we have inscriptions in No. 47, page 219, to No. 51, page 228. The
great antiquity of this family is shewn by a clay seal in General Cunningham’s possession,
obtained at Gayâ, which has on it, in Aśôka characters, the Pâli legend Môkhalinam,
“of the Môkhalis, Maukhalis, or Maukharis.” No. 47, page 219, gives us the names of
three feudatory Mahârâjas, followed by two paramount sovereigns, of one branch of this
family ; and it is probably the Mahârâja Îśvaravarman, of this branch, of whom we have
a record in No. 51, page 228. A connecting link between these aukharis and the Guptas
of Magadha seems to be established in Âdityavarman’s wife, Harshaguptâ, who was probably
the sister of Harshagupta of Magadha. Subsequently, the relations between the two families
were less friendly. Thus, it can hardly be doubted that the king Îśânavarman of this family is
the one who, as recorded in line 6 f. of the Aphsaḍ inscription, was conquered in battle by