The King Vikramaditya

The Legendary King Vikramāditya Before we proceed further to study coins

issued by each of the Gupta kings and to better understand the attribution of
coins to specific Gupta kings, it is very important to first and foremost
understand the Legend of the great Indian king Vikramāditya . If you were to
ask ten scholars on Indian history this question - Who was King Vikramāditya? -
You will get ten different answers, and in most cases they would all be partially
correct! The reality is that in the time from the 1st century BC to 8th century
AD, there were many kings who took on the title of Vikramāditya. Some were
major kings who ruled over vast territories, whose domain encompassed vast
tracts of the Indian sub-continent and some were very minor kings who are
mostly known from fleeting references in epigraphs or coins. The memories of
all of these kings synthesized to form a common legendary personality of a
famous Indian king called Vikramāditya whose legends dictated that he was
the Paramabhāgvata - the most devout devotee of Lord Vishnu, Benevolent,
Powerful, Valorous, Charitable, Just and Gifted in the Arts and above all the
Bravest of all the kings.
The earliest use of the name Vikramāditya comes to us from the chief of the
Mālwā tribe of Ujjayinī who is assumed to have initiated the Vikrama Sa vat
(Vikrama era) in 57 BC. However, this Mālwā chief was not big enough or
powerful enough to have been solely accredited with this legendary name. The
actual use of the name 'Vikrama Sa vat' is only first seen in the 9th century AD
in the dated Dhaulpur inscription of King Chandamahasena of 841AD (Goyal
2005: 365-72). However, in this period there ruled one of the greatest
dynasties of India - the Gupta dynasty, which had it's own share of
Vikramādityas! From the 3rd through 6th century AD, multiple Gupta kings
used and reused the titles Śrī Vikrama and Vikramāditya , leading to a
consolidation of the historical facts into the legend of the mighty Vikramāditya
who came to represent not one king but an entire dynasty (Raychaudhuri
1997: 484).
In fact, Goyal suggests that this time period should be called 'The Age of the
Vikramādityas' (Goyal 2005: 367). Raychaudhuri suggested that the
Vikramādityacharita "sums up the historical and traditional achievements of a
dynasty (the Guptas), rather than that of one single individual ruler", a
conclusion I also came to and suggested as such using the coins as examples in
2010 at the Conference on the Gupta Dynasty in Chandigarh. The evolution of
this legend is best seen through the coins issued by the Gupta kings which list
their birudas - the imperial titles on these gold, silver, copper and lead coins
that were widely distributed across northern, western and central India and in
use for approximately 250+ years.
While Chandragupta II is considered as the most famous of the Gupta kings to
have used the titles Śrī Vikrama and Vikramāditya , in fact you will see in the
following pages that this title was used by his grandfather, Chandragupta I,
prior to him as well as many of the later Gupta kings. This fact was mostly
ignored in the past by eminent scholars such as John Allan, A.S. Altekar, P.L.
Gupta, etc., and led each of them to erroneously attribute all coins which
featured the legend Chandra and Śrī Vikrama to just one king: Chandragupta II.
In the following pages you will see coins issued by Chandragupta I,
Samudragupta, Chandragupta II, Kumāragupta I, Skandagupta, Chandragupta
III, Budhagupta, an additional new king known only as Vikramāditya from his
coins, Chandragupta IV, and Vainyagupta, covering a period from 319 AD to
507+ AD, where all of their coins featured biruda, Śrī Vikrama or versions
thereof. Goyal points out that Samudragupta's title Parākramanka also means
Vikramānka or Vikramāditya (Goyal 2005: 242). In addition, the biruda
Vikramāditya was used by both Chandragupta II and Skandagupta on their
coins. We also know of coins issued in the name of Samudragupta and
Kumaragupta I with the biruda Śrī Vikrama on the reverse. Similarly, the
literary works that followed in the coming centuries eulogizing the famous
Gupta kings, added to the confusion by continuing to refer to the different
Gupta monarchs with a singular name, Vikramāditya . The Kathāsaritsāgara
and the Bharatkathāmanjarī narrate the wide conquests of the famous King
Vikramāditya (which matches up quite well with the conquests of
Samudragupta), while the Devi Chandraguptam of Viśaka and the legends
found in Vetālapanchavinśatī and Vikrama-kathā use the title Vikramāditya for
Chandragupta II. Similarly in the Kathāsaritsāgara, the noble King Vikramāditya
is described as the son of King Mahendrāditya (which of course refers to
Skandagupta as son of Kumāragupta I).
The title Śakahari king Vikramāditya applies to Chandragupta II who started the
wars against the Kshatrapa king and also to Kumāragupta I who finally
vanquished the last Kshatrapa king Rudrasi ha III (Goyal 2005: 242).
Skandagupta was the Vikramāditya who was supposed to have vanquished the
revolt from the local Nāgās of eastern Mālwā and Śakas/Vākātākās who had
rebelled against the Guptas after the death of Prabhāvatiguptā in 443AD (more
on this will be discussed ahead; the Invasion by the Hūnas, a possible mis-
characterization of the invasion of the Gupta Empire at the end of
Kumaragupta I's reign). Numismatic evidence shows us that, after the death of
Kumāragupta I, Skandagupta issued silver coins using this Vikramāditya title for
himself on his Garuda Type silver coins, a term that is also used on his Supia
pillar inscription of GE141, and concurrently we see another Chandragupta (III)
who uses the same biruda, Śrī Vikrama (Bhandarkar 1981: 318). To add to the
confusion of the legends, other later Gupta Kings like Budhagupta also use this
same biruda Vikrama . From numismatic evidence we find that two additional
later Vikramādityas that follow: a Hū a king who gives himself the title of
Vikramāditya who issued his coins in the chaotic period after Budhagupta but
before Vainyagupta, and another king using the name Chandragupta (IV)
known from his coins of the Archer Fire Altar Type, who also adopts this same
biruda Śrī Vikrama ! This repetitive use of the epitaphs and titles by successive
Gupta kings helped to create this legend. It is clear that over the span of 241
years, the exploits, conquests and victories, marital alliances, historical facts
and events of the Gupta kings all merged into one common legend - the legend
of the powerful king called Vikramāditya . Even after the end of the Gupta
Empire, the title of Vikramāditya was resurrected for Har avardhana (606-647
AD) as chronicled in the Kashmiri text Rājatara gi ī (Stein 1900).
Over the last century, scholars have used the royal titles, biruda's and epitaphs
to make their case of whether a king was in a position to issue coins. A detailed
study of the titles, names, biruda's and epithets used for the Gupta kings
shows us that the Gupta kings did not limit themselves to a singular title as is
the general belief, but rather freely used the most appropriate title or epithet
that suited the occasion. While it is generally assumed that Samudragupta's
biruda was Parākrama and Chandragupta II's biruda was Śrī Vikrama it will be
seen that they were not limited to just these singular titles. Similarly, the
greatest of the Gupta kings, Samudragupta, is given all of these royal
designations: Rājā, Mahārājā, Mahārājādhirāja, as seen in inscriptions and coin
legends. If Rājā and Mahārājā can be used for the mighty Samudragupta, then
why is it assumed that his grandfather, Mahārāja Śrīgupta was just a petty king
who had used the title Rajña? According to Altekar he "was too insignificant to
issue any coinage"! (Altekar 1957: 2), an assertion that is wrong.
Another example of the importance of titles and birudas is the case of
Rāmagupta. He was assumed by scholars to have never ruled as a Gupta king,
till the Jaina sculptures were discovered with inscriptions listing his title as a
Mahārājādhirāja (Gai 1968-69: 250-251). The epigraphical data from the Jain
sculptures clearly confirms that he had assumed the title of a Mahārājādhirāja
a "King of Kings" and finally included him into the list of known Gupta kings.
The identity of Kāchagupta has been debated for the past century with almost
every major Gupta historian offering their opinions: Princep and Rapson
ascribed these coins to Ghatotkacha, Vincent Smith kept changing his views,
Allan, Fleet and Raychaudhuri thought he was the same as Samudragupta,
Bhandarkar thought he was same as Rāmagupta but changed his view later,
Banerji and P.L. Gupta thought he was a brother of Samudragupta (Allan
1914/1967: xxxiii-iv, Fleet 1888: 27, Joshi 1992). The reality is that all of these
debates were strictly conjecture. None of the proposed attributions was based
on evidence. This question of the identity of this king is addressed later in the
book where the coins of Rāmagupta-Kāchagupta are discussed in detail to
prove that both of them were one and the same person. There are many such
quandaries one has to consider when trying to walk through the maze of the
history of ancient India. Our interpretation of the data is only as good as the
next new piece of information that comes to light through new inscriptions,
seals or coins.
The tables in the following pages attempts to summarize the titles, biruda's
and epithets as used for/by the Gupta kings on Inscriptions, seals and sealings,
coins and copper-plates. It will show that so many of the arguments proposed
over the years can be struck down just by a simple review of these tables. The
problem with assuming that a single title applied to a single King has led many
scholars and historians to errant conclusions. For example, the use of
Sarvarājochchhettā as an epithet (assumed by scholars and historians to have
been only used by Samudragupta) seemed to be the reason for scholars to
argue that Kācha coins should be attributed to Samudragupta (instead to the
King Kāchagupta). However, as shown in the biruda table, this epitaph was not
exclusive to just Samudragupta but also used for Chandragupta II, in the Poona
copper plates of Prabhāvatiguptā where on line 5 she uses this title to refer to
her father (Mirashi 1963: 7). Altekar's argument was that the Poona plates
were not "official" gupta records and hence they should be rejected (Altekar
1967), a weak argument as official Vākātākās inscriptions should be considered
as reliable as official Gupta inscriptions, especially one written by
Chandragupta II’s own daughter Prabhāvatiguptā.
In William Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet, Juliet's line "What’s in a
name? That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet"
encapsulates perfectly what the legend of the title Vikramāditya meant to the
common man in ancient India. It was not just a name but also a title that
immediately signified a king who was a brilliant, courageous, faithful and
devout, fearless, and powerful, and above all a statesman who united the land