Person · Gupta emperor · India
Chandragupta II Vikramaditya
Also known as Chandragupta II, Vikramaditya, Chandra II, King Chandra
Gupta emperor circa 375 to 415 CE, son of Samudragupta, under whom the Gupta state reached its maximum extent after the conquest of the Western Satraps and absorbed Malwa, Gujarat and Kathiawar. His reign is the classical peak that gave Sanskrit literature its canonical court — Kalidasa is traditionally placed at his Ujjain court, and the Navaratna 'nine jewels' of court intellectuals are traditionally dated to his reign. The 'King Chandra' Sanskrit inscription on the Iron Pillar of Delhi (now at the Qutb complex) is almost certainly his, which places the pillar in his reign and makes him the ruler who commissioned the subcontinent's first substantial standing iron monument.
- Date
- 375–415
- Function
- Authority & administration
- Patron dynasty
- Gupta
- Tradition
- Chandra inscription on the Iron Pillar; Udayagiri cave inscriptions; Faxian's Foguoji; Fleet, Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum vol. III.
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
Worth knowing
He took the title Vikramaditya — 'sun of valour' — which was so often reused by later Indian rulers that it became more an epithet than a name. The Faxian travel account of about 405 CE records his reign as the one in which the Chinese pilgrim found India at its most prosperous and well-governed. His Udayagiri cave face at Vidisha carries a Varaha panel that depicts the imperial recovery of lost ground as Vishnu's rescue of the Earth — one of the earliest pieces of political iconography in Indian art.
About the place
Placed at Ujjain, his second capital, and Vidisha where his Udayagiri inscriptions are. Pataliputra remained the formal capital.
Connections (3)
- Commissioned byIron Pillar of Delhi
The Iron Pillar's Sanskrit Brahmi inscription credits a king 'Chandra' who ruled the Vangas, Vahlikas and other peoples and raised the pillar as a standard of Vishnu on a Vishnupada hill. The 'Chandra' is almost universally identified as Chandragupta II Vikramaditya (c. 375–415 CE) on palaeographic and historical grounds. The pillar was originally raised at the Vishnupada site — most likely Udayagiri near Vidisha where Chandragupta II's cave inscriptions survive — and brought to Delhi later.
- PatronageUdayagiri caves, Vidisha
Chandragupta II patronised the Udayagiri cave complex near Vidisha in the first decade of the fifth century CE — the Varaha panel in Cave 5 depicting Vishnu raising the Earth is read as a political iconography of Chandragupta's imperial recovery of lost ground after his victories over the Western Satraps. The Udayagiri inscriptions of his reign are the most substantial Gupta epigraphy; the Iron Pillar of Delhi, bearing the 'King Chandra' inscription, is almost certainly a Chandragupta II dhvaja originally raised at Udayagiri's Vishnupada hill before being brought to Delhi much later.
- Ruled fromUjjain / Avantikā
Chandragupta II made Ujjain his second capital after Pataliputra, after his conquest of the Western Satraps gave him Malwa and the western coast in the 390s CE. The Ujjain court is where Kalidasa is traditionally placed, and where the Navaratna — the nine jewels of Vikramaditya — are traditionally said to have gathered. The move south from Pataliputra reflects the Gupta state's expansion toward the Indian Ocean trade routes through Bharuch and Sopara.