Gupta Empire and Harshavardhana

After the Kushanas and the Satavahanas weakened, North India broke into small kingdoms. A strong power was needed to bring them together again, and it came from Magadha, the old heartland of the Mauryas. The Guptas ruled from Pataliputra, with rich iron-bearing land and busy river trade behind them. For about two centuries (roughly 4th to 6th century CE) they gave North India a long spell of political unity, and this is why the period is called the Classical Age of Indian history.

Dates differ by a few years from book to book, so learn them as ‘about’ dates. What never changes is the order: Sri Gupta → Ghatotkacha → Chandragupta I → Samudragupta → Chandragupta II → Kumaragupta I → Skandagupta. Chandragupta I is called the real founder of the empire, because he was the first to rise to the imperial title Maharajadhiraja and he strengthened his position by marrying Kumaradevi, a princess of the powerful Lichchhavi clan. Samudragupta later proudly calls himself Lichchhavi-dauhitra (the daughter’s son of the Lichchhavis).

Why did Samudragupta treat the south differently? In the 4th century, an army marching from Magadha to Kanchi would have found it impossible to hold the lands behind it. So he took the fame and the tribute but did not take the kingdoms. This one idea explains the whole policy and spares you from learning it as two Sanskrit phrases.

Chandragupta II (Vikramaditya) made the empire richer by taking the western coast. He defeated the Western Kshatrapas (Shakas) of Gujarat–Malwa, which opened the busy ports of the Arabian Sea to Gupta trade. Ujjain became a second capital, and he issued silver coins for the western region. He also made marriage alliances: he married Kuberanaga, a Naga princess, and gave his daughter Prabhavati Gupta to the Vakataka king Rudrasena II, which brought the Deccan on his side. The Chinese pilgrim Fa-Hien visited India in his reign.

Kumaragupta I ruled for about forty years in peace, and is remembered for the title Mahendraditya, his Ashvamedha and peacock-type coins. Late in his reign the Hunas (Hephthalites) first pressed on the north-west. His son Skandagupta stopped them around 455 CE; the Junagadh (Girnar) inscription tells us he had the Sudarshana lake, first built under the Mauryas, repaired by his governor’s son Chakrapalita. But the long wars drained the treasury, and Gupta coins became less pure in gold after him. Later kings such as Budhagupta and Narasimhagupta Baladitya could not hold the provinces. The Hun chiefs Toramana and Mihirakula raided deep into India, and Mihirakula was finally beaten around 528 CE by Yashodharman of Malwa (with help from Baladitya, according to Hiuen Tsang). The Eran inscription of Bhanugupta (510 CE) also records the earliest firm evidence of sati.

The Gupta kings took grand titles such as Maharajadhiraja, Parama-bhattaraka and Parameshvara, and some coins show them in a god-like light. But in practice their government was less centralised than the Mauryan one. The king ruled with the help of ministers and a number of officers, many of whom held posts that ran in families. Conquered rulers and local chiefs (the samantas) were allowed to keep their lands if they paid tribute, and this shared power is one reason the empire later broke up so easily.

Land and law. Villages and towns were allowed to run many of their own affairs. A District Board (the Vishaya-parishad) helped the Vishayapati; it included the chief banker (Nagarashreshthi), the caravan leader (Sarthavaha), the chief artisan (Prathamakulika) and the chief scribe (Prathamakayastha). The Damodarpur copper plates from Bengal show that even the sale of land needed the board’s approval. The Guptas gave land grants (agrahara) to Brahmins and temples, often with the right to collect taxes, and this slowly created a class of landed intermediaries. In law, the old Dharmashastra tradition was now written in clear Smritis (Narada, Brihaspati, Katyayana), and civil and criminal cases began to be treated separately.

Army. The Gupta army had foot soldiers, cavalry, elephants and chariots, and its soldiers were described as chata (regular troops) and bhata (irregular troops). Feudatories sent their own troops in war. In the Gupta records, the province of Tirabhukti (Tirhut) in north Bihar is one of the named provinces.

The Gupta economy rested on agriculture. New land was brought under the plough through royal and temple grants, and Gupta inscriptions mention tanks and ponds (tadaga), canals and the Persian-wheel type of lift (ghati-yantra) for irrigation. The most famous repair work is the Sudarshana lake in Kathiawar, first built in Mauryan times and set right again under Skandagupta. Crafts such as weaving, metalwork, ivory and jewellery were organised in guilds (shrenis) headed by a chief, and the guilds also worked as banks. Gold coins (dinaras) were issued in large numbers, but ordinary daily exchange was done with small coins and, as Fa-Hien notes, cowrie shells.

Trade went both ways. Inland routes joined the Ganga plains with the west, and sea routes carried goods from the ports of Tamralipti (Bengal), Bharuch, Sopara and Cambay to Sri Lanka, Southeast Asia, Persia and the Byzantine world. India sold cotton cloth, spices, pearls and ivory, and Indian traders, with their shrenis and caravan leaders (sarthavahas), grew rich. After the Roman trade of the early centuries weakened, the East became more important.

Society. The varna order became stricter, and Brahmins gained the highest standing, helped by land grants. The class of Kayasthas (scribes and clerks) rose in importance, and a number of new jatis took shape. The Chandalas, treated as untouchable, lived outside the towns. Women of the upper classes had little say in property and marriage, and the earliest definite evidence of sati comes from the Eran inscription of 510 CE; at the same time, a princess like Prabhavati Gupta ruled as regent for her sons. The language of the court, poetry and inscriptions was now Sanskrit, which replaced Prakrit.

Bhagavatism is the older devotional faith of the worship of Vasudeva-Krishna. Under the Guptas it merged with Vishnu worship, and the king’s title Paramabhagavata (greatest devotee of the Lord) became a royal label. Remember: bhakti (devotion) and ahimsa are its heart, and its god is Vishnu.

Sanskrit reached its classical peak in this age. Courts supported poets, and the language was polished into a refined literary form. Kalidasa is the brightest name. His best-known play is Abhijnanashakuntalam, the story of King Dushyanta and Shakuntala, which the first European translator, Sir William Jones, brought to Europe in 1789. Kalidasa’s other plays are Vikramorvashiyam and Malavikagnimitram; his epic poems are Raghuvamsha and Kumarasambhava; and his lyric Meghaduta sends a lovesick yaksha’s message through a cloud. Ritusamhara describes the six seasons. By tradition he is linked with the court of Chandragupta II, though his exact date is debated.

Metal-craft. The iron pillar at Mehrauli (Delhi), about 23 feet high and with an inscription of a king named Chandra (usually taken as Chandragupta II), has stood for about 1,600 years without rusting badly. It proves the high skill of Gupta ironsmiths. A copper image of the Buddha, about 7.5 feet tall, found at Sultanganj (Bihar), shows the same skill in copper casting.

Before the Guptas, Indian worship was held in caves, stupas and wooden halls. In the Gupta age, structural temples of brick and stone appeared for the first time, and this is why the period is called the beginning of the Indian temple. The early temple was simple: a flat-roofed, square sanctum (garbhagriha) with a small porch, standing on a raised platform. A tower (shikhara) came later, and the idea of surrounding a main shrine with four smaller ones (panchayatana) was also tried. These small beginnings grew into the great Nagara and Dravida temples of later centuries.

Ajanta (Aurangabad district, Maharashtra, in the gorge of the Waghora river; UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1983) is a group of about 30 rock-cut Buddhist caves cut in two phases: the early phase around the 2nd century BCE (Satavahana times) and the richer second phase in the 5th-6th centuries CE under the Vakatakas and Guptas. The walls carry paintings of the Buddha’s life and the Jataka tales, among which the Padmapani Bodhisattva is the most famous. The caves were rediscovered by a British army officer in 1819. At Bagh (Madhya Pradesh), similar paintings of the same age survive.

Coins. Gupta gold coins (dinaras) are among the finest of ancient India, with beautiful figures and Sanskrit legends. Samudragupta issued several types: the Archer, Battle-axe, Lyrist (playing the veena) and Ashvamedha types. Chandragupta II added the Lion-slayer and issued silver coins (rupakas) for the west. Kumaragupta I issued the Peacock type. Copper coins were used for small transactions. In the later period the gold content fell, a sign of financial stress.

The word dinara comes from the Roman gold coin denarius, a sign of the old Indo-Roman trade links. It tells us that the Gupta gold coin was part of an international coin tradition, though the Guptas designed their own images and wrote their legends in Sanskrit.

While the Guptas ruled in the north, a second great power ruled the Deccan: the Vakatakas. Their founder was Vindhyashakti (c. 250 CE). The real builder of their power was Pravarasena I, who took the imperial title Samrat and performed many Vedic sacrifices, including the Ashvamedha. The Vakatakas were closely tied with the Guptas through marriage: Prabhavati Gupta, daughter of Chandragupta II, married the Vakataka king Rudrasena II, and after his early death she ruled as regent for her young sons for about two decades. The last great Vakataka was Harishena (c. 475-500 CE), in whose time many of the finest Ajanta caves were made. Soon after him, the Vakatakas faded, and the Chalukyas of Badami took their place in the Deccan.

What changed after the Guptas? Kings began to give land instead of cash salaries to priests, temples and officers, along with the right to collect taxes from the villages. These grants (agrahara to Brahmins and devadana to temples) were made on a large scale, and the receivers also got power over the local people. Over time this created a society of landed lords (samantas) who owed loyalty to a distant king and ruled as small chiefs. Several historians, among them R. S. Sharma, describe this trend as Indian feudalism. Trade and towns grew weaker, the use of coins fell, and the Brahmins grew stronger. Grants also pushed agriculture into new areas, and tribal groups came into the Brahmanical order.

Why do land grants break an empire? A king who pays his officers in cash keeps control, because he can stop the salary. A king who pays by land cannot take the land back easily, and the officer starts to behave like a small king. One simple idea explains the whole chapter on ‘feudalism’.

After the Guptas, North India fell into small kingdoms until Harshavardhana (Harsha) brought much of it together again. He belonged to the Pushyabhuti (Vardhana) dynasty of Thanesar (Sthanvishvara, in Haryana), founded by Pushyabhuti. His father Prabhakaravardhana was the first strong king of the line. When the Maukhari king Grahavarman of Kannauj (married to Harsha’s sister Rajyashri) was killed by the king of Malwa, and Harsha’s elder brother Rajyavardhana was treacherously killed by Shashanka of Gauda, young Harsha came to the throne in 606 CE at the age of sixteen. He moved his capital to Kannauj and began the Harsha Era (606 CE). He ruled until his death in 647 CE.

Harsha’s wars. He fought for about six years to build his empire. Shashanka of Gauda, his main enemy in the east, held out until his death around 637-38, after which Harsha took Magadha and other eastern lands. He made friendly ties with Bhaskaravarman of Kamarupa (Assam) and defeated the Maitraka king of Valabhi, Dhruvasena II, who later became his son-in-law. His one famous failure was in the south: he was stopped on the banks of the Narmada by the Chalukya king Pulakeshin II, as the Aihole inscription (634 CE) proudly records. After this the Narmada became the southern limit of his empire.

Administration. Harsha’s government was friendlier but looser than the Gupta one. According to Hiuen Tsang, the state revenue was divided in four parts: for the king’s needs, for scholars, for officials and for religious gifts. The land tax was about one-sixth of the produce, and taxes were light. Many officers were paid in land (grants) rather than in cash, which further strengthened feudal tendencies. Two copper-plate grants of Harsha, from Banskhera and Madhuban, and the Sonepat seal are important sources. Harsha often travelled across the kingdom to see the people himself.

Pulakeshin II (c. 610-642 CE) of the Chalukyas of Badami was the greatest rival of Harsha. His court poet Ravikirti composed the Aihole inscription (634 CE) in Sanskrit, which describes how Pulakeshin II defeated Harsha, took the title Parameshvara, beat the Pallava king Mahendravarman I, and made the Kadambas, Gangas and others his subjects. He placed his brother Kubja Vishnuvardhana at Vengi, and from him the Eastern Chalukyas arose. Pulakeshin II was finally defeated and killed around 642 CE by the Pallava king Narasimhavarman I, who captured Vatapi (Badami). More on the Chalukyas follows in the next chapter.