Political History Of Ancient India

SR No.: 032292
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Hemchandra Raychaudhari
Publisher: University of Calcutta
Publication Year: 1950
Total Pages: 714
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 17 MB

Page 481

452 POLITICAL HISTORY OF ANCIENT INDIA
suzerain power over the Satrap of the Indus. Christian writers refer to a king of India named Gundaphar or Gudnaphar and his brother Gad who are said to have. been converted by the Apostle St. Thomas and who, therefore, lived in the first century A.D.1 We have no independent confirmation of the story of the biographer of Apollonios. But the "so-called" Takht-i-Bāhi record of the year 103 (of an unspecified era) shows that there was actually in the Peshawar district a king named Guduvhara (Gondophernes). The names of Gondophernes and, in the opinion of some scholars, of his brother Gad, are also found on coins. According to Rapson the two brothers were associated as sub-kings under the suzerainty of Orthagnes (Verethragna). Sten Konow, however, identifies Orthagnes with Guduvhara himself, while Herzfeld suggests that he was the "unnamed son of Vardanes, mentioned by Tacitus, who claimed the throne against Volagases I about A.D. 55." 3 Dr. Fleet referred the date of the Takht-i-Bahai (Bāhi) inscription to the Malava-Vikrama era, and so placed the record in A.D. 47. He remarked "there should be no hesitation about referring the year 103 to the established Vikrama era of B.C. 58; instead of having recourse, as in other cases too, to some otherwise unknown era beginning at about the same time. This places Gondophernes in A.D. 47 which suits exactly the Christian tradition
1 The original Syriac text of the legend of St. Thomas belongs probably to the third century A.D. (JRAS., 1913, 634). Cf. Ind. Ant., 3. 309.
2 Whitehead, pp. 95, 155. Gondophernes = Vindapharna, "Winner of glory'' (Whitehead, p. 146, Rapson and Allan). The king assumed the title of Devavrata. Konow, following Fleet, takes the word Gudana on the coins to refer to the tribe of Gondophernes (Corpus, II. i. xlvi).
3 Corpus, lvi; The Cambridge Shorter History of India, 70.
4 JRAS., 1905, pp. 223-235; 1906, pp. 706-710; 1907, pp. 169-172; 1013-1040; 1913, pp. 999-1003. Cf. the views of Cunningham and Dowson (IA, 4, 307). The discovery of the Khalatse and the Taxila silver vase inscriptions, however,