Chandragupta II

Chandragupta II, who took the title Vikramaditya, "sun of valour", ruled the Gupta Empire of northern India from around 375 or 380 until about 415. Under him the empire reached its greatest extent, stretching from the Arabian Sea to Bengal, and he is remembered as one of the most celebrated monarchs in Indian history, a patron of learning whose reign strengthened trade and culture. Much about him must be pieced together from inscriptions, coins and later legend.

Chandragupta was a son of the conquering emperor Samudragupta and Queen Dattadevi, and a grandson of Chandragupta I; he is not to be confused with Chandragupta Maurya, founder of the much earlier Maurya Empire. His birth year is unknown. Official Gupta genealogies name him as his father's direct successor, but a Sanskrit play, the Devichandraguptam, tells a different story. In it his elder brother Ramagupta, besieged by a Shaka king, agrees to hand over his queen Dhruvadevi; Chandragupta goes to the enemy camp disguised as the queen, kills the Shaka ruler, and later replaces his brother on the throne. Historians disagree over whether this tale has any basis in fact. Dhruvadevi is in any case recorded as Chandragupta's queen and the mother of his successor.

His best-attested campaign was against the Western Kshatrapas, Shaka rulers of west-central India. Inscriptions left by his officials in central India, at Udayagiri and Sanchi, show him campaigning there, and the Kshatrapa coin series breaks off in the late fourth century, while Chandragupta's own coins in their style are dated to 409. The conquest, probably between 397 and 409, carried Gupta rule to the coast of present-day Gujarat. Chandragupta then issued the first Gupta silver coins, modelled on Kshatrapa issues but bearing the Gupta emblem of Garuda.

Most scholars identify him with a King Chandra praised in the inscription on the famous iron pillar now at Delhi, which credits Chandra with victories over enemies in Bengal and with crossing the seven mouths or tributaries of the Indus to defeat the Vahlikas, who may have lived around Balkh in present-day Afghanistan. If the identification is right, Chandragupta campaigned through the Punjab, although there is no evidence that he annexed it.

Chandragupta also extended his power by marriage. He married Kuberanaga, a princess of the Naga dynasty of central India, and their daughter Prabhavatigupta married the Vakataka king Rudrasena II in the Deccan. After her husband died around 390 she ruled as regent for about twenty years, and in that time the Vakataka kingdom was, in the view of some historians, practically part of the Gupta Empire. A marriage link with the Kadamba dynasty of Karnataka is also suggested by later inscriptions.

Coins and inscriptions describe him as a devoted worshipper of Vishnu, but his ministers built temples to Shiva and gave gifts to a Buddhist monastery at Sanchi, and the cave shrines at Udayagiri date from his reign. The Chinese pilgrim Faxian, who spent about six years in the Gupta lands at this time, described a peaceful and prosperous country where most crimes were punished only by fines, though modern historians warn that his picture is idealised. Some scholars believe the great Sanskrit poet and dramatist Kalidasa worked at his court. The later tradition of the "nine gems", nine scholars at the court of a King Vikramaditya, is regarded as unhistorical.

His last dated inscription comes from 412 or 413, and his son Kumaragupta I was on the throne by 415 or 416. Many historians think the Indian legends of Vikramaditya, the ideal king who drove out the Shakas and ruled from Ujjain, grew at least partly from memories of Chandragupta II.

Our 400 map shows the Gupta Empire at its height under Chandragupta II, covering much of present-day India, with the Sasanian Empire to the west.