such ruins that the later Saracens erected their citadels, palaces, and mosques. These too are now nothing but magnificent remains. But we can here treat of older conditions alone, and of those only in brief.

LEGENDS OF THE EARLY HEROES

Legends have arisen concerning the immigration of Saka princes to Surashtra or Guzerat, and stories of an alleged liberation from foreign rule. A celebrated hero of such legends is Vikramaditya, a king of Ujjain in Malwa, and another, with whose birth the Saka era was connected, is Salivahana, the opponent of the first, who is not less renowned than he in legend, and defeated him in the struggle. But though legend has so much to say of these two, history has little or nothing to tell us of them.

On the western side of the Girnar rock near Junagarh, whose eastern side bears Asoka's inscriptions, and on whose northern side is engraved that of one Skanda Gupta, we may read that of one Rudra Dama. It tells of the buildings erected by this king, or great satrap, for the protection of the country against the destructive power of the waters of the river Palasini, and another inscription, which extols his name in the midst of those of four others, his predecessors and successors, is found on a pillar at Jasdan in Kathiawar or Surashtra, a part of the present Guzerat. The names of the others are on the one side of his, Chashtana and Jaya Dama — and on the other side Rudra Sinha and Rudra Sena, and the inscription belongs to the year 127 of the era of these princes.

These kings, or great satraps, of whom we possess both inscriptions and coins, beside many others whose names cannot here be given, have been called Sah or Saha or Sinha kings, from a termination added to many of their names. We should perhaps do best in accordance with a good precedent to designate them Xatrapa (Satrap) kings, as not only did they call themselves so, but also actually were, at least in name, governors for the Mauryas and their successors.

The series begins with a certain Nahapana, who with one or two others preceded Chashtana and his sons and grandsons, and ends with one Svami Rudra Sena, the twenty-sixth mentioned. They ruled, roughly speaking, three hundred years from the beginning of the Saka era (in which we may safely place Chashtana) down to somewhere between 284 and 272 of our era. In its best days (which seem to have been under Rudra Dama, as his inscription indicates), their dominions embraced the peninsula of Guzerat, Surashtra, and Malwa, reaching north as far as the middle of the Indus valley and so onward to the sea.

Inscriptions and coins are certainly safe authorities for history: but they are somewhat inadequate when, as here, little else and nothing certain is added to them. Thus we know but little of the history of this great western or Xatrapa kingdom, not much more than the legend which has grown up round its first beginnings and its final overthrow by the Gupta

power.

The Sah or Xatrapa kings, so runs the legend, were overthrown by the Guptas, who ruled between the Jumna and the Ganges. That is, they had independent and viceregal honours, and the man who prepared their downfall is called Kamara Gupta, and was succeeded by his son Skanda Gupta, whose inscription we read on the north side of the Girnar rock. —But we must begin at the beginning.

AN INSCRIPTION OF ASOKA

An inscription on the Asoka pillar at Allahabad, that of Samudra Gupta, mentions the ancestors of his family. Sri Gupta, the "august, noble, great king" and "splendour of the world," was a petty lord who had successfully raised himself to the government from the Vaisya or middle class and, from 319, had his residence at Allahabad or in Ajodhya, and his dominion to the east of the river.

After a reign of fifteen years he was succeeded by his son Ghatotkacha. On the coins of the latter a reference has been found to his namesake the son of Bhima, of the epic legend. He proudly calls himself "Destroyer of all Kings," and was probably really" Augmenter of the Kingdom" westward as far as the territory of the Indus. After another fifteen years he was in his turn succeeded by his son Chandra Gupta, and an inscription belonging to the latter has been found in the Sanchi Stupa at Bilsa, besides coins with his half-length portrait, — the earliest we have belonging to these kings. His realm was subsequently extended to Malwa and his rule was also friendly to the children of Sakya. He must have ruled for the space of thirty years, but his son Samudra Gupta, who is spoken of in the great inscription on the lion pillar of Allahabad, far surpassed him in fame, power, and magnificence.

The inscription is a great historical record, one of the greatest which we have for this period. It speaks by name of kings whom Samudra Gupta deposed, of others whom he made tributary to himself, of the extent and frontiers of his dominion. Since we cannot go into details we will here only mention that he subdued almost the whole Aryavarta between the northern and southern ranges to his immediate rule, made subject the hill princes in the north, the Vaudheya, Madraka, and Abhira in the Land of the Five Rivers and in Malwa, brought kings south of the Vindhya under his protectorate and ruled over the east as far as to the sea. In all this there is probably a good deal of boasting- the inscription was made after his death but it is certain that there is also not a little that is true. He is also renowned as a ruler of high and noble disposition, as a patron of the arts and sciences, of music and poetry, which he himself cultivated. His coins, which have been found in great numbers and scattered over a wide area, some bearing the image of the lion hero and others of the king playing on the vina (harp) confirm to some extent what the long eulogy asserts.

After a reign of some thirty years he was followed by another Chandra Gupta, his son, who ruled for about ten years. The dominion of the Guptas then passed to his son, "the far-famed lord of the earth," Kumara Gupta, who, according to the dates on coins and to tradition, reigned twentythree years, to about the year 130 of the era of this line of kings. And after him came his son Skanda Gupta, with whom a certain Buddha Gupta is also mentioned, and who was the seventh and last king of his famous house. This is the Gupta whom we mentioned first, and who attained to a dominion to which an inscription on the western peninsula bears witness. After him there seems to be a reference to one Mahendra Gupta, perhaps his co-ruler or the successor to a part of his empire, and of one Narayana Gupta. But a monolith at Kuhan, in the district of Gorakhpur in the north-west of India, asserts that "in the year, or towards the end of the year 141 (i.e., 470 of our era), the empire of Skanda Gupta, in whose hall a hundred kings bowed the head in homage, the empire of the royal line of the Gupta was taken away from those who had been so far renowned, rich above all men, comparable to Indra, the lord of hundreds of kings."

TRADITIONAL KINGS

Tradition tells of kings in various places in the south and north who had declared themselves independent of the Gupta rule. It tells of a scion of an ancient family, whose forefathers had settled in former times on the banks of the Ganges, a certain Pandu-Sakya, who at that time had established himself on the throne of the Mauryas at Pataliputra (the modern Patna). But it is averred that one of Skanda Gupta's generals, Bhattaraka, of the family of Ballabhi or Valabhi, had overthrown this personage in Kathiawar, i.e., Guzerat, and had seized the reins of government for himself. He became the founder of a new series of Surashtra kings, the third, which was called after him the Valabhi dynasty. We may place the beginning of this dynasty about the year 480 A.D.

Bearing this in mind we might now, of course, again follow the chronicles, and relate something from that of the kings of Kashmir and from the two of Sinhaladvipa. From the former we might tell of one Damodhara who succeeded Turushka, then of a certain Meghavahana, a Sreshta or Pravarasena, and his two sons, Hiranya or Toramana, until a time came when the throne of Kashmir stood empty, and the "noble" Harsha Vikramaditya sent one of his followers, a Brahman named Matri Gupta who was appointed king. But we will not go through the history of dynasties and dynastic lists, at least not when the authorities are so uncertain. And, as to the other two, it is related in a history of Buddhism, how after Vrishabha came a century in which sanctuaries were built and rebuilt, how under King Tishya there arose heresy and strife and divisions, that some short reigns then followed down to Abhayanaga and again down to Mahasena with whom the later chronicle closes. Again we read of more than one Meghavarna, of a Upatishya who succeeded Mahanaman, under whom a certain Fa Hian came to Ceylon and the Buddhist hermits lived and worked. It is sufficient to give here a brief outline of what is important.

A number of brass tablets or copper plates have been found on the ruined site of the ancient Valabhi (the modern Vala), records of donations to Brahman and Buddhist monks, which give fairly authentic information concerning the period and order of the first Surashtra or Valabhi kings. According to these Bhatarka or Bhattaraka was succeeded by his four sons, Dharasena, the eldest, Dronasena who was already called Great King and was solemnly crowned as ruler of the earth, Dhruvasena the third, and Dharapatta the youngest son. They had brought the peninsula and a great part of the coast and the mainland as far as Malwa under their rule, which in the case of the third certainly lasted to the year 534. The youngest was succeeded by his son Guhasena, who bestowed whole villages on the disciples of the Sakya and on their cloisters, he by his son Sri Dharasena, the second of the name and certainly not later than the end of the sixth century (595) and he again by his son Šiladitya or Dharmaditya who continued reigning on into the seventh century. But we need not pursue the series of these kings any further.

During the reign of a nephew of the last named, another Dhruvasena (632-640), the Chinese pilgrim Hwen Tsang came to India (627-645) and to the Valabhi kingdom in the west. His account of his journey has an astonishing amount to say of the riches of the country, of its numerous inhabitants, of the many cloisters with thousands of monks, some of them Buddhist but he also speaks of others, and mentions Jain monks whom he had seen, and of the numbers of columns and the magnificent stupas, etc. The kings of that time, one traveller reports, are Xatriya, all relations of the king

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