33 Facts About Samudragupta

Samudragupta performed the Ashvamedha sacrifice to prove his imperial sovereignty and remained undefeated in battle.

Samudragupta's gold coins and inscriptions suggest that he was an accomplished poet, and played musical instruments such as the veena.

Samudragupta was a contemporary of King Meghavarna of Anuradhapura Kingdom, but the regnal period of this king is uncertain.

Samudragupta was a son of the Gupta emperor Chandragupta I and Queen Kumaradevi, who came from the Licchavi clan.

The Gupta inscriptions suggest that Samudragupta had a remarkable military career.

The inscription does not name any of the defeated kings, but it suggests that Samudragupta had subdued several kings by this time.

The early portion of the Allahabad Pillar inscription mentions that Samudragupta "uprooted" Achyuta, Nagasena, and a ruler whose name is lost in the damaged portion of the inscription.

Samudragupta crushed the rebellion, and reinstated them after they sought his forgiveness.

Later, these rulers rebelled once more, and Samudragupta defeated them again.

Samudragupta dispatched an army to capture the scion of the Kota family, whose identity is uncertain.

The inscription states that the Gupta army captured the Kota ruler, while Samudragupta himself "played" in a city called Pushpa.

An alternative interpretation is that Samudragupta dispatched his army on these campaigns, while he himself stayed at the capital.

The inscription states that Samudragupta later released these kings, and favoured them.

Narayanan interprets the word anugraha differently based on its occurrence in the Arthashastra; he theorizes that Samudragupta gave "protection and aid" to these kingdoms in order to secure their alliances.

The inscription mentions that Samudragupta defeated some other kings, but does not mention their names, presumably because the poet saw them as unimportant.

The Allahabad Pillar inscription mentions that rulers of several frontier kingdoms and tribal oligarchies paid Samudragupta tributes, obeyed his orders, and performed obeisance before him.

Samudragupta's empire included a core territory, located in northern India, which was directly controlled by the emperor.

Historian R C Majumdar theorizes that Samudragupta directly controlled an area extending from the Ravi River in the west to the Brahmaputra River in the east, and from the Himalayan foothills in the north to the Vindhya hills in the south.

Historian Ashvini Agrawal notes that a gold coin of the Gadahara tribe bears the legend Samudra, which suggests that Samudragupta's control extended up to the Chenab river in the Punjab region.

Some earlier scholars, such as J F Fleet believed that Samudragupta had conquered a part of Maharashtra, based on the identification of Devarashtra with Maharashtra, and Erandapalla with Erandol, where some Gupta-era remains have been found.

The standard coin type of Samudragupta is highly similar to the coinage of the later Kushan rulers, including the sacrificial scene over an altar, the depiction of a halo, while differences include the headdress of the ruler, the Garuda standard instead of the trident, and Samudragupta's jewelry, which is Indian.

At Eran, an inscription by Samudragupta seems to succeed that of a local Saka ruler named Sridharavarman, already known from the Kanakerha inscription at Sanchi and another inscription in Eran.

The Eran Inscription of Samudragupta is presently stored in Kolkata Indian Museum.

The Nalanda and Gaya inscriptions attributed to Samudragupta explicitly call him a devotee of Vishnu He was tolerant towards Buddhism, and permitted the construction of a Buddhist monastery commissioned by the Anuradhapura king Meghavarna at Bodh Gaya in his territory.

The Allahabad Pillar inscription states that Samudragupta was engaged in the performance of the Brahmanical ceremonies of Sattra and Diksha.

The Eran inscription states that Samudragupta surpassed Prithu, Raghava and other legendary kings in giving gold.

Samudragupta performed the Ashvamedha ritual, which was used by the ancient Indian kings to prove their imperial sovereignty, and issued gold coins to mark this performance.

The copper-plate inscriptions of Samudragupta's granddaughter Prabhavati-Gupta, who was a Vakataka queen, describe him as the performer of multiple horse sacrifices.

Bhandarkar, theorize that unlike the other kings, Samudragupta performed a "full-fledged" Ashvamedha ceremony.

Samudragupta's coins depict him as a man of tall stature and muscular physique.

The inscription states that Samudragupta became famous among the learned people because of his poetical works, and earned the epithet "king of poets".

The inscription boasts that Samudragupta put to shame the celestial musician Tumburu and Narada by his lovely performances of music.

The official records of the Gupta dynasty state that Samudragupta was succeeded by Chandragupta II, who was his son from Dattadevi.