The Gupta Empire was an ancient Indian empire on the Indian subcontinent which existed from the mid 3rd century CE to mid 6th century CE. It was the seventh ruling dynasty of Magadha. At its zenith, from approximately 319 to 467 CE, it covered much of the Indian subcontinent. This period has been considered as the Golden Age of India by historians, although this characterisation has been disputed by some other historians. The ruling dynasty of the empire was founded by Gupta and the most notable rulers of the dynasty were Chandragupta I, Samudragupta, Chandragupta II, Kumaragupta I and Skandagupta.
Samudragupta (Gupta script: Sa-mu-dra-gu-pta, was the second emperor of the Gupta Empire of ancient India, and is regarded among the greatest rulers of India. As a son of the Gupta emperor Chandragupta I and the Licchavi princess Kumaradevi, he greatly expanded his dynasty's political and military power.
Gupta was the founder of the Gupta dynasty of northern India. He is identified with king Che-li-ki-to, who, according to the 7th-century Chinese Buddhist monk Yijing, built a temple near Mi-li-kia-si-kia-po-no (Mṛgaśikhāvana) for Chinese pilgrims.
Yashodharman was the ruler of the Malava Empire in North India, from 515 until his death in 545. He belonged to the Second Aulikara dynasty. He conquered much of the Indian subcontinent between c. 530–540 according to the Mandsaur pillar inscription.
Vishnugupta Candraditya was one of the lesser-known kings of the Gupta Dynasty. He is generally considered to be the last recognized king of the Gupta Empire. His reign lasted 10 years, from 540 to 550 CE. From the fragment of his clay sealing discovered at Nalanda during the excavations of 1927–28, it is revealed that he was the son of Kumaragupta III and the grandson of Narasimhagupta.
Eran is an ancient town and archaeological site in the Sagar district of Madhya Pradesh, India. It was one of the ancient mints for Indian dynasties as evidenced by the diverse coins excavated here. The site has 5th and 6th-century Gupta era temples and monuments, particularly the colossal stone boar with sages and scholars depicted on the body of the sculpture. The inscription stones found at Eran are important to reconstructing the chronology of Gupta Empire history. Eran or Erakina was the capital of Erakina (Airikina) Pradesha or Airkina Vishaya, an administrative division of the Gupta empire.
Toramana also called Toramana Shahi Jauvla was a king of the Alchon Huns who ruled in northern India in the late 5th and the early 6th century CE. Toramana consolidated the Alchon power in Punjab, and conquered northern and central India including Eran in Madhya Pradesh. Toramana used the title "Great King of Kings", equivalent to "Emperor", in his inscriptions, such as the Eran boar inscription.
NarasimhaguptaBaladitya was the Gupta Emperor from 495 to 530 CE. He was son of Purugupta and probably the successor of Budhagupta.
Budhagupta was a Gupta emperor and the successor of Kumaragupta II. He was the son of Purugupta and was succeeded by Narasimhagupta.
The Aulikaras, were an ancient clan that ruled the Kingdom of Daśapura between the 4th-century CE and 6th-century CE.
Purugupta was an emperor of the Gupta dynasty in northern India. Purugupta was a son of the Gupta emperor Kumaragupta I by his queen Anantadevi. He succeeded his half-brother Skandagupta. No inscription of Purugupta has been found so far. He is known from the Bhitari silver-copper seal of his grandson Kumaragupta III and Nalanda clay sealings of his sons Narasimhagupta and Budhagupta and his grandson Kumaragupta III. From the Saranath Buddha image inscription, it is concluded that he was succeeded by Kumaragupta II. According to Hornell and Raychaudhary, Prakashaditya was another title of Purugupta, although this has now been disproven by Pankaj Tandon, who has definitively shown that Prakashaditya was the Hun king Toramana.
The Gwalior Inscription of Mihirakula is a Sanskrit inscription recording the construction of a Surya temple from stone on the Gopa hill of Gwalior. Though now referred with the name of Mihirakula, the temple and the inscription was commissioned by Matricheta. The original temple is lost, and the inscribed red-sandstone slab was found in 1861 by Alexander Cunningham in the porch of another temple, and published in 1861. This inscribed stone from Gwalior was moved shortly after its discovery to the Kolkata museum for preservation. Several translations of it have been published thereafter. It is damaged, its script is the northern class of ancient Gupta script and the entire composition is in poetic verse.
The Sharabhapuriya dynasty ruled parts of present-day Chhattisgarh and Odisha in India, during 5th and 6th centuries. The dynasty probably served as Gupta vassals in their early days, but became practically independent as the Gupta empire declined. The Sharabhapuriyas were succeeded by the Panduvamshis. The dynasty is known mainly from its copper-plate inscriptions, and a few coins.
The Alchon Huns, also known as the Alkhan, Alchono, Alxon, Alkhon, Alakhana, and Walxon, were a nomadic people who established states in Central Asia and South Asia during the 4th and 6th centuries CE. They were first mentioned as being located in Paropamisus, and later expanded south-east, into the Punjab and Central India, as far as Eran and Kausambi. The Alchon invasion of the Indian subcontinent eradicated the Kidarite Huns who had preceded them by about a century, and contributed to the fall of the Gupta Empire, in a sense bringing an end to Classical India.
The Eran boar inscription of Toramana, is a stone inscription found in Eran in the Malwa region of Madhya Pradesh, India. It is 8 lines of Sanskrit, the first three of which are in meter and the rest in prose, written in a North Indian script. It is carved on the neck of a freestanding 11 feet (3.4 m) high red sandstone Varaha statue, a zoomorphic iconography of Vishnu avatar, and dated to the 6th century. The inscription names king Toramana, ruler of the Alchon Huns, as ruling over Malwa and records that a Dhanyavishnu is dedicating a stone temple to Narayana (Vishnu).
Sridharavarman was a Saka (Indo-Scythian) ruler of Central India, around the areas of Vidisa, Sanchi and Eran in the 4th century CE, just before the Gupta Empire expansion in these areas. He calls himself a general and "righteous conqueror" in an inscription, and Rajan ('King') and Mahaksatrapa in a probably later inscription at Eran, suggesting that he may have been a high-ranked officer who later rose to the rank of a King.
The Second Aulikara dynasty was a royal dynasty that ruled over the Kingdom of Daśapura, and at its peak under Yashodharman Vishnuvardhana controlled a vast area, consisting of almost all of Northern India and parts of Deccan plateau. It was the second royal house of the Aulikara clan.
The Battle of Sondani was a large military encounter fought in 528 CE, between the Alchon Hun king Mihirakula and a confederation of Indian rulers led by King Yashodharman of Malwa and King Narasimhagupta of the Gupta Empire.
The Kingdom of Daśapura was a kingdom in Central India ruled by the Aulikara dynasty during the classical era and the early medieval era. It was established by Jayavarman in 350 AD. The name Malava Empire is applied to the territorial conquests of Yashodharman, who reigned between 515 and 545 AD.
The Kingdom of Valabhi was an early medieval kingdom in Western India from 475 to 776. It was founded by Bhatarka, a warlord in the Magadhan Empire, and ruled by the Maitraka dynasty.
