1884.] V. A. Smith— Oold Goins of the Imperial Gupta Dy^iasty. 157 
struck, we may feel confident that we have also discovered the site of the 
capital, or capitals, of those princes. 
Prinsep designated the Gupta gold coinage by the name of the 
‘ Kanauj series.’ Almost without exception later writers on Indian 
archteology have followed him, and it seems to me, have rather blindly 
followed him, in assuming the existence of a special connection between 
the Gupta dynasty and Kanauj. 
Kot to mention other and less authoritative writers, Mr. Burgess 
speaks of “ the Guptas of Kanauj,”^ and Sir E. C. Bayley does not hesitate 
to affirm explicitly that Kanauj was the Gupta capitalf. But what evi¬ 
dence warrants us in asserting that the Gupta kings had their capital at 
Kanauj ? I can find none. 
It will not be disputed that the belief in Kanauj being the Gupta 
capital originated in Prinsep’s designation of the gold coins as the ‘ Kanauj 
series,’ and in his assertion that they were most commonly found at 
Kanauj. But the statistics given in the last preceding section of this 
paper, which are indisputable so far as they go, prove that Prinsep was 
mistaken as to the fact, and that the coins in question are not most com¬ 
monly found at Kanauj. Attention has already been drawn to the 
circumstance that Prinsep subsequently corrected his earlier and less 
guarded assertion, and bracketed Jaunpur and Gaya with Kanauj, as the 
places where the Gupta gold coins were found in greatest abundance ; 
and, from the first, he was careful to note that 710 history connected the 
Guptas and Kanauj. Prinsep’s error, therefore, so far as it was an error, 
was not a grave one, and his statements offer a very slender foundation 
for the categorical assertion that Kanauj was the Gupta capital. 
It seems to me that Prinsep’s misapprehension on the subject can be 
very easily explained. The fine Betreating Lion coin of Chandra Gupta 
II was obtained by Lieut. Conolly at Kanauj; and the fact that the 
publication and study of this coin led to the decipherment of the rest of 
the series appears to have impressed Prinsep’s imagination, and to have 
influenced him in giving the name of ‘ Kanauj Series ’ to this class of 
gold coins. 
However this may be, the solid fact remains that out of 37 coins 
described by Prinsep, the find-spots of 25 are known more or less accu¬ 
rately, and of these latter only 3 can be traced to Kanauj. Kor have I 
been able to find a record of a single hoard of Gupta gold coins found at 
that city, and it need hardly be observed that the occurrence of hoards 
in certain places is more valuable as evidence for the purposes of the his_ 
* Arcliseol. Snrvey of W. India, II, p. 80. 
f Num. Chron. II, 3rd S. (1882) p. 158. 
