1834.] on the Allahabad Incription, No. 2. 343 



eluded as completely as the Lunar race from the character here assigned, 

 of " children of the Sun." The last reason excludes also a more an- 

 cient Chandragupta who, as Colonel Tod informs us, stands before 

 Manikya-Rai, in the long line, (which he has not published) of the 

 Chohans' descent from their remote ancestor Agni-Pala : though this 

 prince, if real, may very possibly be the Lord of Oujein who is the 

 subject of the Jain inscription already alluded to, (T. R. A. S. vol. i. 

 p. 140.) 



The same reason prevents us from profiting by another tradition often 

 repeated by the same learned inquirer, both in his Annals of Rajasthan 

 and his contributions to the R. A. S. Transactions, relating to another 

 celebrated branch of the Agni-kula Xattriyas, the Pramaras. One tribe of 

 this Rajput race, the Mori, is in the habit at this day of claiming for their 

 own the celebrated Chandragupta Maurya, founder of the dynasty so 

 called at Palibothra in the days of Seleucus Nicator. The account given 

 by all the ancient Sanscrit authorities of the origin of that name is very dif- 

 ferent from this, viz. that it is the patronymic noun derived from the Sudra 

 damsel Mura, of whom the kingNANDA Mahapadma became enamour- 

 ed (being himself also of half-blood, the offspring of the Lunar prince 

 Mahananda by a slave girl), and thus became the father of Chandra- 

 gupta, who afterwards succeeded by extirpating, with the Machiavelian 

 Brahman's aid, his nine more legitimate brethren. This account is so uni- 

 versal — and it is so visible also even in the inverted accounts preserved 

 by Diodorus Siculus, Trogus Pompeius, and others in the west, 

 (making Sandracottus the offspring of a queen and a barber, in- 

 stead of a king and a barber's daughter) that it requires no ordinary 

 attachment to the later chroniclers of Rajasthan to set aside these 

 statements by making this king a member of a noble tribe of the 

 purest Rajputs, to make him consequently unconnected altogether 

 with those Nandas whom he succeeded or displaced — and even to sus- 

 pect the word Maurya, (as Colonel Tod does, T. R. A. S. i. 211,) to be 

 an interpolation for Mori. There may however be a Chandragupta to 

 which such a tradition points with partial truth ; and such I should 

 have suspected to be the conquering Chandragupta of our column, 

 but for the objection of family above stated. 



Upon the whole, our researches for the subjects of this inscription 

 in the records of Northern and Central India, seem to be hitherto un- 

 successful, notwithstanding, the various Chandraguptas that have 

 appeared there. Of the name Samudragupta I have not yet seen any 

 trace ; but to facilitate the progress of future inquiries, it may be use- 



