1855.] On the Coins of the Gupta Dynasty. 515 



Reverse. — Device. Peacock greatly debased and facing more to 

 the left. 



Legend, ^f ^TfTSPlRP^ ^t SnCSTPBT 



It will be remembered that this king Tobamana* is adverted to 

 in the following terms in the inscription on the Varaha image at 

 Eran in Bhopal. " When the great raja Tobamana, the very fa- 

 mous and beautiful, the king of kings, governed the earth ; in the 

 first year of his reign, on the 10th day of Ph&lguna." 



Jas. Prinsep, in noticing this monument, in connexion with the 

 Budha Gupta record on the associate pillar, prefaces his translations 

 with a summary of the relative dates of each inscription as illus- 

 trated by their respective contexts.*^ He observes, " The temple was 

 built by Dhanya Vishnu the confidential minister of Eaja Matri 

 Vishnu, the son of Hari Vishnu, grandson of Varuna Vishnu and 

 great grandson of Indra Vishnu ; in the first year of the reign of 

 Toramana of Surdshtra (?) : and (sic) 



" The pillar was erected by Var'dala Vishnu, the son of Hasti 

 Vishnu, also grandson of Varuna Vishnu, and at the cost of Dhanya 

 Vishnu on the 14th of Asarh in the year 165, in the reign of Bu- 



* Prinsep writes the name Tarapani : I follow Major Cunningham's emendation, 

 which indeed is necessitated by the legend of the coin (Bhilsa Topes, 164). 

 f I also transcribe Major Cunningham's observations on this subject : 

 " We learn from the inscriptions on the colossal Varaha Avatar, at Eran, that 

 the paramount sovereign Toramana possessed all the country about Bhupal and 

 southern Bundelkhand not many years after the elevation of Budha Gupta's pillar ; 

 for the pillar was erected by Vaidala Vishnu, at the expense of his cousin Dhanya 

 Vishnu, while the colossal Boar was set up by Dhanya Vishnu himself. The death 

 of Budha Gupta, and the accession of Toramana, therefore both took place during 

 the life-time of Dhanya Vishnu. But there must have been an interval of some 

 years between the two events, as Dhanya' s elder brother, Matri Vishnu, who is not 

 even mentioned in the pillar inscription, had since assumed the title of Maharaja, 

 and was then dead. Dhanya himself then became regent, apparently to the young 

 prince, Toramana ; for, in another inscription from the Fort of Gwalior, I find 

 Toramana described as the son of Matri Dasa and the grandson of Matri kula, who 

 is probably the same as Matri Vishnu [?] As the celebrated hill of Udayagiri is 

 mentioned in the Gwalior inscription, there can be little doubt of the identity of 

 the two Toramanas, and of the consequent extension of the principality of Eran to 

 the banks of the Jumna." Bhilsa Topes, p. 164. 



3 x 



