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GUPTA PERIOD
123
A.D. 470
500
The Maitrakas continued the use of the 'Gupta era ' in their edicts; but its years were now adjusted to the Kārtikādi system instead of the Caitrādi system. The name of the modified era is left unspecified in the records of the Maitrakas, but from the nomenclature used in the post-Maitraka records, the era seems to have been known as the Valabhi Era'.
The Sun-temple at Daśapura, built in 437 A.D. but which had fallen into decay during the reign of Kumāragupta I and Bandhuvarman, was restored in the Mālava year ( 473 A.D.) by the members of the same guild.
Skandagupta's inscription opens with an invocation to the Vāmana incarnation, and mentions a temple of Vişnu (Cakrabhrita ) as built by Cakrapālita at Girinagar. Clear indications of the prevalence of Vaisnavism in Gujarat are found after the advent of the Guptas in the fourth and the fifth centuries.
The Traikūțakas in Lāța, who were the contemporaries of the Guptas styled themselves as Parama Bhāgavata, and Parama Vaisnava.-( Hultzsch, Surat Plates of Vyāghrasina, EI, XI, p. 219).
The title of Dhruvasena I of Valabhi has been a Parama Bhāgavata, as is known from the Māliā Copper plates Inscription of Dharasena II-(Fleet, CII, III, p. 168 ).
According to the Pālitānā Plates of Simhāditya, dated 574 A.D. (Hultzsch, EI, XI, p. 18), of the Gārulaka family, a feaudatory ruler to the Maitrakas, there is a record which says that Krşpa lived in Dwarka, which was his capital on the Western coast. This is the first and perhaps the only epigraphical reference to Krsna's Dwarka and its supposed survival upto the beginning of the 7th century A.D.
Mention of the word 'Krsna' in one of the Ten Fragments of the Stoneinscriptions from Valā' suggests a probability of the existence of Vaişņavism during this time.--(Diskalkar, 'Ten Fragments of the Stone-Inscription and a Clay-Seal from Valā ', ABORI, XX, pp. 1-8, No. 1).
From the victorious Aniruddhapura, the Traikutaka Mahārāja Vyāghrasena, son and successor of Dahrasena (C. 465-492) issued the grant of Purohitapallikā in Iksarki āhāra, which may be identified with Achehhāran, about 9 miles north of Surat, to Brāhmaṇa Nāgaśarman of Bhāradvāja gotra.
The grant was issued on Kārttika Sudi. 15 of Kalacuri year 241 ( 490-91 A.D.), and composed by Karka, Minister of Peace and War. The Dūtaka of the grant was Halāhala.-( Surat Plates, EI, XI, 2r9 ff).
Traikūțaka coins are found from Kamrej, near Surat.-(ABIA for 1935, p. 34).
An inscription dated in the Kalacuri year 245 ( 494-5 A.D.), consisting of a single plate, was found inside a Buddhist monastery at Kșşnagiri (modern Kanheri) in North Konkan. It records the construction of a Caitya (i.e., the
490-91
494-5
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