Person · Gupta emperor
Kumaragupta I
Also known as Kumāragupta I, Mahendrāditya, Mahendraditya, Śakrāditya, Shakraditya
Kumaragupta I, titled Mahendraditya, ruled the Gupta empire from about 415 to 455 CE and held together the realm his father and grandfather had built from Gujarat to Bengal; no conquest of his is securely recorded, but at least eighteen inscriptions from his reign survive. A seal from Nalanda names its founder Shakraditya, and most scholars take him to be Kumaragupta, which makes a Vaishnava emperor, devoted also to the war god Karttikeya, the founder of India's greatest Buddhist monastery.
- Date
- 415–455
- Function
- Authority & administration
- Patron dynasty
- Gupta
- Confidence
- Established / referenced — His founding role at Nalanda rests on an identification most, but not all, scholars accept.
Worth knowing
He issued more coin types than any other Gupta king — the 628 coins of his in the Bayana hoard fall into fourteen types — including a gold issue found only under him, showing the king on horseback attacking a rhinoceros.
The identification of Shakraditya with Kumaragupta I rests on the Indra-name (Shakra, like Mahendra, is Indra) and on Faxian's silence about any monastery at Nalanda; Xuanzang's order of later patrons leaves some doubt. Whether his last years saw defeats by the Pushyamitras or Hunas is uncertain, and P. L. Gupta ends his reign c. 450 CE rather than 455.
Connections (5)
- FoundedNalanda mahavihara
A seal found at Nalanda names a king Shakraditya as founder of a monastery there, and the pilgrims Xuanzang and Prajnavarman also name Shakraditya as the founder. Most scholars identify him with Kumaragupta I, since Shakra and Mahendra are both names of Indra and Kumaragupta's title was Mahendraditya, and since Faxian, who toured the area in 400–411, mentions no monastery at Nalanda. Xuanzang's order of later patrons leaves some doubt about the identification.
- Succession in timeSkandagupta
Skandagupta, whose inscriptions break custom by not naming his mother, succeeded Kumaragupta around 455 CE. His Bhitari pillar inscription says that when his father died he restored the ruined fortunes of the family, fighting the Pushyamitras and the Hunas, and then went to his tearful mother as Krishna went to Devaki. Historians still debate whether this reflects Kumaragupta's own late reverses, a Huna invasion or a disputed succession with his half-brother Purugupta.
- Associated withGupta gold dinara
Kumaragupta issued more varieties of coin than any other Gupta king: 628 of his coins in the Bayana hoard belong to fourteen types. Beside archer, horseman and lion-slayer types modelled on his father's, he introduced new ones, among them a swordsman type, a Karttikeya type showing the king feeding the god's peacock, and a gold rhinoceros-slayer unique to him. Garuda-type coins turn up in western India and peacock types in the Ganges valley, evidence that he held the whole inherited realm.
- Historical linkMandasor (Dashapura)
The Mandsaur inscription of the silk-weavers' guild, dated 473 CE, records weavers who migrated from Lata in Gujarat to Dashapura, notes that Kumaragupta was then ruling the whole earth, and tells how they built a sun temple about 436 under the local Aulikara king Bandhuvarman and repaired it in 473. On one reading Bandhuvarman was Kumaragupta I's feudatory; R. C. Majumdar argued that the Kumaragupta named is Kumaragupta II, and that Dashapura was annexed later in Kumaragupta I's reign.
- Associated withMathura school
Of the eighteen or so inscriptions dated to Kumaragupta's reign, all were set up by private donors for religious ends, and several come from Mathura's workshops: a Jain image of Gupta year 113 (c. 432 CE), a yaksha figure of the same year, a standing Buddha dedicated by the monk Yasadinna in 434, and further Buddha images of 444 and 454. They show Mathura still carving Jain, Buddhist and folk images side by side under a Vaishnava emperor.
Sources
Wikipedia, "Kumaragupta I", "Nalanda mahavihara" and "Aulikaras". R. C. Majumdar, A Comprehensive History of India vol. 3 (1981); Tej Ram Sharma, A Political History of the Imperial Guptas (1989); Ashvini Agrawal, Rise and Fall of the Imperial Guptas (1989).
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