19. The Gupta Empire in the Sixth and Seventh 
Centuries A.D. 
By Hemcuanpra Raycnaupuuri, M.A. 
Thanks to eminent scholars like Sir R. G Bhandarkar, 
Fleet, Smith, Allan and others the general outlines of the 
history of the Gupta dynasty from the time of Chandra Gupta I 
to that of Skanda Gupta Vikramaditya are no longer open to 
doubt, and trustworthy accounts of the Gupta empire from 
A.D. 320 to A.D: 467 are by no means a rarity. But the later 
Guptas have hardly received the attention they deserve. 
It is now admitted by all scholars that the reign of Skanda 
Gupta ended about A.D. 467.!_ When he passed away the 
empire did not wholly perish. We have epigraphic as well as 
literary evidence of the continuance of the Gupta empire in 
the sixth and seventh centuries A.D. The Betul plates of 
in the year 209, i.e. A.D. 528, proves that the Gupta empire 
included the Central Provinces even in A.D. 528.° Five 
years later the grant of a village in the Kotivarsha Vishaya of 
Pundravardhana bhukti “during the reign of Paramadaivata 
Paramabhattaraka Maharajadhiraja Sri.......+- Gupta” * shows 
that the Gupta empire at this period included the eastern as 
well as the central provinces. Towards the close of the 
sixth century a Gupta king, a contemporary of Prabhakara- 
vardhana of the Pushpabhiti family of Srikantha (Thanésar), 
was ruling in Malwa. Two sons of this king Kumara 
Gupta and Madhava Gupta were appointed to wait upon 
the princes Rajyavardhana and Harsha of Thanésar.6 From 
1 Smith, The Oxford History of India, ‘ Additions and Corrections,’ 
PAE olarophdé: Indlea; ols VIEL, op HS? 
raphia ica, Vol. pe. 3 
8 Flect, ssc Inscriptionum thorns, Vol. Iil, pp. 113-16. 
4 Damodarpur plates, edited by Prof. Radhagovinda Basak. Ep. 
Ind., XV, p. 113. 
6 Cowell ‘and Thomas, Harsa-Carita, p. 119. 
