Chandragupta II Vikramāditya (= Sun of Power), who succeeded to the
throne in A.D. 375, extended still further the boundaries of the
empire, and at some time during his long reign, which lasted till A.D.
413, removed the capital from Pāṭaliputra to Ayodhyā. His gold coinage
is even more abundant than his father’s, two of whose types, the Archer
and Lion-slayer (Tiger-slayer), he continued; but on his later Archer
coins (Pl. V, 6) the goddess Lakshmī sits upon a lotus instead of a
throne; and in the second type, besides the substitution of a lion
for a tiger, there is a change on the reverse, Lakshmī being seated
on a lion in various attitudes. The figure of the Lion-slayer on the
obverse is sometimes turned to the right and sometimes to the left; and
a unique coin in the Lucknow Museum shows him attacking the lion with
a sword. The very rare Couch design of Chandragupta is a derivative
of Samudragupta’s Lyrist type. In the new Chattra type coins (Pl. V,
7) we have yet a further variant of the Standard type: on the obverse
of these, behind the “standing king,” appears a boy or dwarf, holding
an umbrella (_chattra_) over his head; the reverse shows the goddess
Lakshmī standing on a lotus. An entirely new design is furnished by
this king’s Horseman coins (Pl. V, 8). A king on horseback was, as
we have seen, employed by the Indo-Greeks, and was characteristic of
the issues of the Śakas. The Gupta rendering of the motif is new and
spirited. The horse is fully caparisoned, facing in some coins to
the right, on others to the left, and the king, either fully clad or
sometimes only in a waistcoat, carries either a sword or a bow; the
reverse resembles that of the Lyrist type.
Kumāragupta I (413-455) struck a few very rare Aśvamedha coins, closely
resembling those of Samudragupta, except that they are far inferior in
execution, and the sacrificial horse on the obverse is standing to the
right instead of to the left.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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