1834.] of the Allahabad Column. 267 



thousand years), might seem to make sufficiently probable, — viz. the third 

 century before the Christian era. And a critic, who chose to maintain 

 this identity, might find abundance of plausible arguments in the inscrip- 

 tion : he might imagine he read there the restoration of the asserted ge- 

 nuine line of Nanda in the person of CnANDRAGupTA.andthe destruction 

 of the nine usurpers of his throne : and in what the inscription, line 

 16, tells of the guardian Giri-Kahlaraka-Svami, he might trace the 

 exploits of Chandra gupta's wily Brahman counsellor Chanakya, so 

 graphically described in the historical play called the Mudra-Rdxasa, in 

 levying troops for his master, and counterplotting all the schemes of his 

 adversaries' able minister Rax as a, until he recovered the throne : nay 

 the assistance of that Raxasa himself, who from an enemy was turned 

 to a faithful friend, might be supposed to be given with his name in line 

 10 of the inscription. And the discrepancy of all the other names beside 

 these two, viz. of Chandragupta's son, father, grandfather, and guar- 

 dian minister, to none of whom do the known Puranic histories of that 

 prince assign the several names of the inscription — might be overcome 

 by the expedient usual among historical and chronological theorists in 

 similar cases, — of supposing several different names of the same persons. 

 But there is a more serious objection to this hypothesis than any aris- 

 ing from the discrepancy of even so many names — and one which I can- 

 not but think fatal to it. In the two great divisions of the Xattriya Rajas 

 of India, the Chandragupta of the inscription is distinctly assigned 

 to the Solar race — his son being styled child of the Sun. On the other 

 hand, the celebrated founder of the Maurya dynasty, if reckoned at all 

 among Xattriyas, (being, like the family of the Nandas, of the inferior 

 caste of Sudras, as the Greek accounts unite with the Puranas in re- 

 presenting him,) would rather find his place among the high-born 

 princes of Magadha whose throne he occupied, who were children of 

 the Moon : and so he is in fact enumerated, together with all the rest 

 who reigned at Pataliputra or Palibothra, in the royal genealogies of 

 the Hindus. It is not therefore among the descendants or successors 

 of Curu, whether reigning (like those Magadha princes) at Patna, 

 or at Dehli, that we must look for the subject of the Allahabad in- 

 scription ; but if I mistake not, in a much nearer kingdom, that of 

 Canyacubja or Canouje. This is well known to have been the seat 

 of an extensive empire on the Ganges, founded by a branch of the 

 Solar family, after the decline of Ayodhya or Oude, the ancient capital 

 of Rama and his ancestors. And this opinion is confirmed by the coins 

 lately discovered at Canouje, in which we find characters exactly cor- 

 responding to those of our inscription — and the same prefix to the king's 

 name on the reverse of the coin, viz. Mahd-raja Adhirdja Sri. One of 

 these, a gold coin, communicated to me by Mr. J. Pkinsbp, and exhi- 

 ii u 2 



