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CHRONOLOGY OF GUJARAT
Thus Gujarat, for nearly a century remained an integral part of an empire which stood for Aryan culture at its best. The Imperial Guptas were great, not only as conquerors and statesmen, but as patrons of all cultural activities. Their strong and just administration, more than their conquests, brought about the political consolidation of India north of the Narmadā. Architecture, sculpture and painting reached a high level of artistic expression.
"It is difficult to say what was the exact extent of the Gupta rule in Gujarat. However, Kaccha seems to form the north-west frontier of the Gupta empire. The northern as well as the eastern parts of Gujarat would have been under the Guptas, as most likely from there they had entered the province. But if the Southern Gujarat was under them is doubtful. The Traikūţaka ruler Dahrasena, the son of Indradatta, was ruling the south of the Tāpti contemporaneously with Skandagupta ( 450-495 ). This Dahrasena appears to have been independent of the Guptas, as he claims of having performed an Ašvamedha. Furthermore, he, as well as his successor, date inscriptions in his own era, known as the Traikūtaka', later as 'Cedi' or 'Kalacuri'era, commencing on Āśvin Sudi I in A.D. 248."-(H. D. Sankalia, Archaeology of Gujarat, p. 11-12).
Skandagupta died about 467 A.D., and after a decade of disorder, Budhagupta came to the throne of the Imperial Guptas, and ruled for twenty years or more. Bhațārka, a general of the emperor was appointed a governor of Saurāştra, who stayed at Valabhi. His younger son Dronasimha assumed the title of Mahārāja '; and it is claimed that the paramount ruler, possibly Budhagupta, in person installed him in royalty by a regular ceremony at about 500 A.D. This may suggest the continuance of Gupta overlordship cver Saurāṣtra, down to the beginning of the 6th Century A.D. But the allegiance was only a nominal formality, for neither the personal name of the emperor nor the name of the dynasty is mentioned in their records.
It appears almost certain that the Guptas lost all effective control over Gujarat and Saurāṣtra, and also probably over Malwa soon after 470 A.D. Later on the Valabhi rulers set up an independent kingdom; and the provinces of Gujarat and Saurāṣtra were permanently lost to the Guptas.
A.D. A fragmentary copper-plate grant of the 4th Century A.D., from its palaeoC. 400graphy and wording, discovered at Kalacchala near Chhota Udaipur in Central
Gujarat, mentions one Isvararāta, who meditated on the feet of a lord paramount (parama bhattāraka-pād-ānudhyāta) i.e., who was a feudatory of some imperial power, probably the Abhiras, was ruling over a fairly extensive territory; for, among the persons to whom he addressed his order are included such high officials of the State as Kumārāmálya and Uparika, meaning the Councillor of a Prince' and 'the head of a bhukti or Commissioner or a Magistrate', respectively.
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