158 V. A. Smith— Gold Goins of the Imperial Gupta Dynasty. [No, 2, 
torian than the finding of isolated coins, which may have reached their 
resting places in any of a hundred different ways. 
I think, therefore, that the evidence now presented fully warrants 
the assertion that the find-spots of the Gupta gold coins in no way support 
the statement that Kanauj was the Gupta capital. 
I am not aware that evidence of any other kind has ever been ad¬ 
duced in support of that statement, which has been passed from one 
writer to another apparently without examination. 
I do not deny that Kanauj was in existence during the rule of the 
Gupta kings, nor that it was included in their dominions. Little appears 
to be known about its early history, but it has always been reputed one 
of the most ancient of Indian cities, and we know that it was an import¬ 
ant place in 400 A. D. when Fa Hian visited it, and it appears to have 
been known by name to the geographer Ptolemy about A, D. 140. It is 
also certain that it was the capital of the eastern dominions of the great 
Harsha Varddhana in A. D. 634, but all these facts in no wise prove it to 
have been the Gupta capital.* I am quite willing to admit that Sir F. C. 
Bayley is right in calling Kanauj ‘the Dehli of the Hindus,’ if that title 
be restricted to the centuries between 600 A. D. and the Muhammadan 
conquest, but I can find no authority for the antedating of this claim to 
precedence.f 
The conclusion arrived at so far is a purely negative one. I shall 
now consider whether any positive result as to the position of the mints 
and capital may be obtained from a study of the find-spots of the Gupta 
gold coins and other evidence. 
It may safely be affirmed that the records of the localities, both where 
hoards and where individual coins were found, indicate unmistakably 
that the Gupta gold coinage was struck and chiefly current in territories 
far to the east of Kanauj, and that these territories may be roughly de¬ 
scribed as the Province of Benares, with some adjoining districts. It 
seems to me impossible to draw any other conclusion from the evidence 
which has been set forth in the section on find-spots.* 
* These references are quoted from Genl. Cunningham’s Archseol. Rep. I, 280 
Sir E. C. Bayley informs me that in the Basle edition of Ptolemy (1533) the name 
which is supposed to mean Kanauj is written KauaySpa. 
f The phrase ‘ the Delhi of the Hindus ’ is quoted from a letter on this subject 
with which Sir E. C. Bayley favoured me. His theory about the supposed dates in 
the Gupta era on the mediseval coinage of Kabul (Num. Chron. 3rd Ser. Vol. II, pp. 
128-165 and 291-294) is of very doubtful correctness, and even if it were proved, does 
not contribute to the solution of the question discussed in the text. I see no reason for 
supposing that the use of the Gupta era was connected with the sovereignty of 
Kanauj. 
X The scanty evidence as to the provenance of the Gupta copper coins {ante 
