141 
18G1.] Note on Budhagupta. 
and it is perfectly obvious that he has confounded this later dynasty 
whose realms were confined to the north of the Vindhya, with the 
ancient one, that of Surashtra, which, preceded the kings of Balabhi. 
This view derives corroboration from an unpublished inscription* of 
the Guptas, by which it appears that their domination subsisted from 
the second century to the fifth.”t 
Five years elapse, when, having reached the point where the sub- 
ject in hand, agreeably to his chronological speculations, demands a 
detailed consideration, the Professor returns to it. After complaining 
of the poverty of materials available for constructing a history of 
what are called, by him, the ‘ later Guptas,’ he goes on to say, pre- 
fatorily : 
“ Only a single inscription of any potentate of their dynasty has 
as yet come to light ; that of Buddhagupta, which is dated in his 
hundred and sixty-fifth dynastic year, or A. D. 484. The more -is 
this to be lamented, as it is certain that there exist, in India, inscrip- 
tions of rulers belonging to this family, which lasted from the second 
down to the fifth century. 
The next extract to be made completes almost all that our author 
• has to say, bearing directly on the topic under discussion, which it 
* The authority for the matter of this sentence consists in these words, from 
a letter of the late Major Kittoe to Colonel Sykes : 
“ I have had four valuable copper-plates, from Nagode, in Bundulkund, of Sri 
Hastina, a cotemporary of Samudra Gupta ; for he is named, by the latter, in 
the Allahabad Inscription (see J. A. S. B.), translated by Mill. These plates fix 
the number of years passed of the Gupta Dynasty at that time, viz., 163. This 
will prove the correctness of the Vans' avail, as given on the pillar, and will 
prove, I think, that the Guptas reigned from the second to the fifth century 
A. D.” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Yol. XII., p. 12, foot-note. 
For the actual contents of Hastin’s land-grants, see my paper on them, pp. 
1 — 13, supra. There is not a shadow of proof that Hastin was one with the 
Hastivarman of the Allahabad pillar; the plates— now that we know from what 
event the Gupta era is to be counted— show, unanswerably, that the former came 
long after Samudragupta ; and the Major’s inference, adopted so readily by 
Professor Lassen, that the Guptas enjoyed power to the fifth century, has no 
foundation whatever in his data. 
■j* Indische Alter tliwnslcunde, Yol. II. p. 751. 
J Ibid., Yol. III., p. 652. 
