Ramagupta
| Ramagupta | |
|---|---|
| 5th Gupta Emperor | |
| Predecessor | Samudragupta |
| Successor | Chandragupta II |
Ramagupta was the elder son and immediate successor of Samudragupta and succeeded by his younger brother Chandragupta II. Initially, he was known from the traditional narratives only. But later, three inscriptions on Jaina tirthankara images were discovered from Durjanpur near Vidisha, which mention him as the Maharajadhiraja. A large number of his copper coins also have been discovered from Eran-Vidisha region.
भगवतोर्हतः चन्द्रप्रभस्य प्रतिमेऽयं कारिता महाराजाधिराज-श्री-रामगुप्तेन उपदेशात् पाणिपात्रिक-चन्द्रक्षमाचार्य्य-क्षमण-श्रमण-प्रशिष्य-आचार्य्य सर्प्पसेन-क्षमण-शिष्यस्य गोलक्यान्त्या-सत्पुत्रस्य चेलु-क्षमणस्येति
The modern scholars first became aware about the traditional accounts on Ramagupta, in 1923, when Sylvain Levi published some extracts of a Sanskrit play, named Devichandragupta, now lost, from Natyadarpana, which contains six quotations from this text. Natyadarpana is a Sanskrit work on dramaturgy, written by two Jaina writers, Ramachandra and Gunachandra. In the same year, R. Saraswati also found three passages of Devichandragupta, quoted by Bhoja in his Shringaraprakasha and Sarasvatikanthabharana. In 1924, Rakhaldas Banerjee supplemented it by the information found from a verse of the Sanjan copper plate inscription of Amoghavarsha I dated 1924 and a brief remark made by Banabhatta in his Harshacharita, which was illucidated by the commentator Shankararya.
A.S. Altekar, on the basis of the evidences from the fragments of the Devichandragupta, copper plate inscriptions of Rashtrakuta kings Amoghavarsha I and Govinda IV from Sanjan, Khambhat and Sangli, brief reference of Banabhatta, a stray verse quoted by Rajashekhara in his Kavyamimamsa and the narrative of Rawwal and Barkamaris found in a Persian text, Mujmal-ut-Tawarikh (which is a translation of an Arabic work by Abu-al Hasan Ali, which in turn is a translation of an unknown Sanskrit work), concluded that Ramagupta mentioned in the traditional accounts really existed.
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