The Standard Type Coin of Chandragupta II or I

By Prashant P. Kulkarni

Two very rare coins of the standard type of Chandragupta are known so far. Dr P.L Gupta published the first in 1947 in JNSI,vol. IX ,part II, p.146-150. It was illustrated on pl VII, no.3. Which is reproduced here.

R.G. Chandra brought the second stater to our notice several years later in 1968. He published it in JNSI, vol. XXX, p.202,pl X, No. 5. See the plate attached showing # 5 for comparison purposes.

A third specimen has now come to light and is being published here. A private collector who got it very long ago from Mathura area has showed this to me.

It is described below:

Stater, 7.8g  

Obverse:  King standing, wearing coat, trousers, headdress, ear rings and necklace. He is holding a scepter or standard in his left hand with the right hand outstretched for dropping incense into the altar. Beneath the hand is the garudadhvaja or eagle headed standard. Below the left arm is legend: ‘Chandra’. Around traces of circular legend, perhaps parts of  “Vasudham vijitya jayati tridivam prithivisvarah punyaih”.

Reverse: Lakshmi seated on throne facing front, Holds a noose or pasha in the right hand and cornucopiae in the left. A four-pronged symbol is seen to the left with legend to the right, “Parambhagavata”.

P.L. Gupta attributed his coin to the Chandragupta II whereas R.G. Chandra ascribed it to the early part of Chandragupta II’s career. One Dr Chhabra gave long arguments about why this should belong to Chandragupta I, the grandfather of Chandragupta II. (JNSI XI, pp.15 ff.)  Alterkar has given his definitive opinion on this attributing it to CII, rather than CI. (Coinage of the Gupta Empire, pp142ff) 

With the discovery of this new coin we need to examine the following things.

1.      Comparing the existing coin with the other two specimens.

2.      Considering its attribution to C I rather than C II

Let us first compare the three coins. PL Gupta’s and RG Chandra’s coins have suffered beating, cutting and other damages. Chandra’s coin was looped and perhaps repaired. The comparison is as follows:

                     This coin                               PLG coin              RGC coin

 Legend:                       Chandra                                Chandragu                  Chandra and gupta

Rev. Legend:              Semicircular                        Semicircular               Vertical

Symbol:                       Only upper part                       No symbol                   Only upper part

                                    of four prongs                                                             clear.

Trousers                       Decorated with beads             Decorated with beads   Plain

Parambhagavata          Different sharp lettering            Different sharp               Roundish lettering

Lakshmi’s halo            Dotted circle                            Dotted circle                  Normal circle

Noose or pasha            Dotted circular object             Dotted circular               Normal circular   

Throne legs                  Made of dots                          Made of dots                 Made of lines

R.G. Chandra’s coin looks like that of very late period while the first two coins look almost similar and of early period. The similarity between the noose and the dotted semi circular halo around the head and the workmanship of use of dots to create the throne legs matches perfectly. I have not seen all these items engraved in such matching style on any other Gupta coin in all the published sources. This itself means the first two coins are genuine. While RG Chandra’s coin is weird and has suffered too much damage that nothing could be made out of it with great certainty. 

One has to admit that these two coins are different in style than all other Gupta coins. They have a special crudeness just like the King and Queen on couch type of Chandragupta II. This only indicates that they belong to such early periods when the art of die engraving was not much developed in the Gupta Empire.

The legend Chandragupta is mysterious. One has only chandra and the other has chandragu in spite of the fact that there is enough room for pta of Gupta on the flan. The symbol is also very strange as the new coin clearly shows the upper portion only. While PL Gupta’s coin shows no symbol at all, RGC doesn’t talk about the symbol and his illustration too poor to figure out what exactly is there. . PLG says that the coin was beaten but doesn’t say whether he could see the underlying traces of the symbol. I got another better illustration of PLG’s coin in JNSI XI pl III, # 12. This shows no damage of beating and there is enough space to accommodate the symbol as well as the letter pta on the obverse if the die engraver wanted to. There is no case where I have seen only upper part of symbol or the whole thing missing except for # 422 from Baldwin Sale # 30 illustrated here. But even this illustration is not clear.

PLG’ s coin and the coin published here have great similarities in legend. See the Cha of Chandra curved like a hook to the left on both coins. The way of writing ndra is also different on both coins. See pl 12 to observe an anuswara above the cha to pronounce Chan. While this coin has no anuswara but has n connected to ndra. PLG also mentions that the reverse legend is unusual. Especially the letter bha (of parambhagavata) is  “rather unusual but it is probably due to the instrument having slipped while engraving the top of the left limb”. Now I find that the Bha on our coin is also rather unusual.

Thus the one published here is one of the best specimens of this type. This must be studied carefully to find the answer of the question why this standard types and the king and queen on couch type look cruder than any other coins of Chandra gupta II. The only plausible explanation that I can offer is that this standard type belongs to Chandra gupta I.

 The reasons are as follows:

1.      Altekar has attributed this type to Chandragupta II, but he has ascribed the King and Queen type to Chandragupta I which is now well accepted to have been struck by Samudragupta in the memory of his parents. Thus even Altekar’s view needs to be re-examined.
2.      The coin is question has two interesting things. One is the upper half part of the symbol: This shows an evolutionary stage. And second is the crudeness of the legend. This also shows that the coin belongs to a very early period of the empire.
3.      It has the legend Parambhagavata in place of Shri Vikrama. The absence of Vikramaditya, Ajitavikrama or Simhavikrama itself shows that it does not belong to Chandragupta II.

Dr Chhabra has advocated many points in favor of attribution to Chandragupta I. Altekar has refuted most of them but admits that nothing could be said with certainty. At times Altekar says that there is one more coin which does not have Vikrama and it can be attributed to CII. One needs to read the scores of pages written by these scholars. When we go thorough them we find that most of the scholars are somehow glued to the idea that it was only Samudragupta who started the Gupta coinage. If we have Vikrama on the reverse of a coin then it belongs to C II, as Vikramaditya was his biruda. But if we don’t have Vikrama the scholars argue that even then why should it belong to Chandragupta II.  If we have parambhagavata, Altekar still argues that why should it be C I and not C II. If we reverse the argument and start debating why should it not be C I then the whole paleography and style of coin fits very well and also answers the question of origin of Gupta coinage before Samudra.  

4.      Samudragupta had profuse types of gold coinage. It will be wrong to conclude that any Gupta ruler before him did not strike coins at all. No empire is seen to have grown so large during the rule of an Emperor without the contribution of his predecessors. It is usual to find coins of the earlier rulers in little quantity and encounter profuse quantities of the later rulers. Samudragupta’s mint masters wouldn’t strike the fabulous coins just from the blue. If there were a few standard type coins before Samudra , his mint masters would obviously improve upon them in due proportion to the prosperity of the kingdom. Just as the emperor Akbar had great variety of coinage, but there was no vacuum during that of Babur and humayun. Gold coins of both the earlier rulers are known but in very little quantity. Same theory will hold true for Muhammad bin Sam followed by enormous coinage of Iltutmish. 

5.      It may therefore be appropriate to think that the coin in question was copied from the coinage of the Kushanas that had Ardokso reverse and the standard type was struck by Chandragupta the first during AD 300-330.  The successor ruler Samudragupta made finer varieties of the same, and the standard was replaced by the bow during the time of Chandragupta II. 

6.      The biruda parambhagavata only means follower of bhagavat dharma of Vishnu. Any Gupta ruler could inscribe this on his coin, as they were ardent followers of Vaishnava sect. The biruda of various rulers  written on the reverse of their gold coins are therefore:

            Chandragupta First:                Parambhagavata

            Samudragupta:                       Parakramah

            Chandragupta II:                    Sri Vikramah

            Kumaragupta:                        Sri Mahendrah                                   

Skandagupta:                         Kramadityah

            Bhanugupta:                           Prakashaditya

            Narasimhagupta:                    Baladitya

            Kumaragupta II:                     Sri Kramaditya

            Chandragupta III:                   Dvadashaditya

            Budhagupta:                           Sri Vikrama

            Vainyagupta:                          Dvadashaditya           

Vishnugupta:                          Chandraditya

More debates are necessary on this subject and more evidence will only confirm the attribution. The King and queen on couch types must also be re examined. There has been a tendency to attribute every coin to Chandragupta II in the past. And it is also believed that anything to do with Vikrama is of C II only. While in the later period, Skandagupta assumed the titles of Vikramaditya on his silver coins, and Budhagupta on gold, but there is no evidence to suggest or refute the possibility of  Chandragupta I using the same epithet. It is to be hoped that this controversy will be stirred again with this paper.