Samudragupta and the Allahabad Pillar Inscription

Samudragupta was the second great king of the Gupta dynasty, ruling northern India from about AD 335 to 375. He is known above all from a long Sanskrit praise poem composed by his official Harisena and carved on an older pillar of the Maurya emperor Ashoka, now in the fort at Allahabad (Prayagraj). The inscription describes his conquests across India and is one of the most important documents of the Gupta Empire.

Background

Samudragupta’s father, Chandragupta I, had raised the Gupta family from local kings to the rank of “great king of kings” in the Ganges valley, partly through his marriage to Kumaradevi, a princess of the Licchavi clan. Samudragupta proudly called himself “son of the daughter of the Licchavis” in his inscriptions.

According to Harisena’s poem, Chandragupta chose Samudragupta as his successor in front of his court, embracing him with tears of joy while rival relatives looked on in dismay. The passage hints that the succession was contested. Samudragupta probably came to the throne around 335, although his exact dates are not certain.

The pillar and its many inscriptions

The pillar is a polished sandstone column about 10.7 metres tall, set up by Ashoka in the 3rd century BC. It probably stood originally at Kausambi, an important city upstream on the Yamuna, because one of its Ashokan edicts addresses the officials of Kausambi. It was later moved to Allahabad, perhaps in the 14th or 16th century, and stands inside the fort built by the Mughal emperor Akbar.

The column is a layered document. It bears Ashoka’s pillar edicts in Brahmi script, Samudragupta’s inscription of the 4th century AD, and a Persian inscription of the emperor Jahangir, who recorded his genealogy on it after coming to the throne in 1605. Travellers and pilgrims added many shorter inscriptions over the centuries. Its original animal capital has been lost.

The prashasti of Harisena

Samudragupta’s inscription is a prashasti, a formal eulogy, in the Sanskrit style known as champu, which mixes verse and ornate prose. Its author, Harisena, held several titles: minister of peace and war (sandhivigrahika), kumaramatya and mahadandanayaka, a senior military rank. He was clearly both a court poet and a high official.

The poem praises Samudragupta’s character as well as his victories. It describes him as generous, learned, merciful to the defeated and skilled in poetry and music, earning the title kaviraja, “king of poets”. It even compares him to the gods, while presenting him in human terms as a ruler who protected the good and destroyed the wicked.

The campaigns

The inscription arranges Samudragupta’s victories by region and by the treatment of each group of rulers.

• Aryavarta (the north): nine kings, including Rudradeva, Nagadatta, Chandravarman, Ganapatinaga and Achyuta, were forcibly uprooted and their lands annexed, greatly enlarging the Gupta core in the Ganges plain.
• Dakshinapatha (the south): twelve kings along the eastern side of the peninsula, from Kosala and the forests of central India to Kanchi in the Tamil country, were captured and then released and reinstated. This policy of capture, liberation and favour made them subordinate allies rather than subjects.
• Forest kings: the rulers of the forest tracts (atavika) of central India were reduced to service.
• Frontier kingdoms: rulers of Samatata (in Bengal), Davaka and Kamarupa (in Assam), Nepala and Kartripura paid tribute and attended his court.
• Republics: tribal states of the west and north-west, including the Malavas, Arjunayanas, Yaudheyas, Madrakas and Abhiras, accepted his authority.
• Distant powers: the inscription claims that the Kushan “son of god, king of kings”, the Shakas, the Murundas and the rulers of Simhala (Sri Lanka) and other islands offered service, gifts or daughters in marriage.

The last claims are almost certainly exaggerated, turning diplomatic contacts into submission. A Chinese source independently confirms one of them: King Meghavarna of Sri Lanka sent an embassy to Samudragupta seeking permission to build a monastery for Sri Lankan pilgrims at Bodh Gaya.

Coins and the horse sacrifice

Samudragupta’s gold coins add to the picture. Their types show him as an archer, a battle-axe bearer, a tiger slayer and a musician seated playing a stringed instrument, the last matching the inscription’s praise of his musical skill.

He also performed the ashvamedha, the ancient Vedic horse sacrifice in which a horse was allowed to roam for a year, followed by the king’s army, before being sacrificed as a sign of unchallenged rule. Special ashvamedha coins show the horse before a sacrificial post. The Allahabad inscription does not mention the sacrifice, which is one reason scholars think it was carved before the ceremony.

Dating and interpretation

The inscription is undated. The 19th-century epigraphist J. F. Fleet thought it was composed after Samudragupta’s death, as a memorial; most later scholars believe it was written during his reign, probably after his main campaigns. Its claims are those of a court poet, and historians test them against coins and other inscriptions. Even so, its geographical precision makes it unusually valuable.

James Prinsep and other scholars studied the inscription in the 1830s, soon after the decipherment of Brahmi. Fleet published the standard edition in 1888 in the Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum, and later readings have refined it.

Key people

• Samudragupta: Gupta king c. 335–375, conqueror, poet and musician.
• Harisena: court poet and high official, author of the prashasti.
• Chandragupta I and Kumaradevi: his parents, founders of Gupta power.
• Ashoka: the Maurya emperor whose pillar carried the inscription, linking the Guptas to India’s earlier imperial past.

Successors and legacy

Samudragupta’s chosen successor was his son Chandragupta II, although a short reign of another son, Ramagupta, probably came first. Chandragupta II built on his father’s work, conquering the Western Kshatrapas of Gujarat and Malwa and extending Gupta influence into the Deccan through a marriage alliance with the Vakatakas. The relatively stable empire that resulted provided the setting for the cultural flowering often called India’s classical age.

In the early 20th century the British historian Vincent Smith called Samudragupta the “Indian Napoleon” because of the range of his campaigns. The comparison became popular in textbooks, but many historians now find it unhelpful. Samudragupta did not try to rule every land he defeated directly; his inscription shows a flexible system of annexation, alliance and tribute that suited the political landscape of ancient India.

The Allahabad pillar itself remains a protected monument inside an army-controlled fort, so access is limited. Rubbings and photographs made in the 19th century, like the one illustrated here, remain essential for scholars studying its text.

Timeline

• 3rd century BC: Ashoka erects the pillar, probably at Kausambi, and inscribes his edicts on it.
• AD 319–320: The Gupta era begins under Chandragupta I.
• c. 335: Samudragupta succeeds his father.
• c. 335–375: Campaigns in the north, the south and the frontier regions; Harisena’s prashasti is most likely carved during the reign.
• c. 375: Samudragupta’s reign ends; Chandragupta II eventually succeeds.
• 1605: Jahangir’s inscription is added to the pillar.
• 1888: J. F. Fleet publishes the standard edition of the inscription.

Why it matters

The Allahabad pillar inscription is the fullest surviving account of how a 4th-century Indian king built an empire, distinguishing between lands annexed, kings reinstated and rulers who merely sent gifts. By choosing a pillar of Ashoka, Samudragupta associated himself with the greatest earlier emperor of India. His campaigns laid the foundations on which Chandragupta II built the height of Gupta power.