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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA
[Vol. XXVIII suggest that, even after the disintegration of the empire, there were some members of the family who claimed the status of their imperial predecessors. Whether their position was nominal like that of James III of England or of the Mughal Emperor Shāh 'Alam IT and his successors can hardly be determined in the present state of our knowledge. There is, however, no doubt that till A.D. 569 viceroys like Prithivivigraha-bhatjāraka of Kalinga continued their allegiance to the Gupta emperor. The word bhaffäraka attached to Prithivivigraha's name may suggest that he ruled practically as an independent monarch ; but he did so without officially throwing off the yoke of the Guptas. It is possible to conjecture that he had blood relationship with the Guptas and was eager to display it to improve his own case against those of other rival rulers of the country."
The second problem raised by the record, viz., the expansion of the Gupta rule over Kalinga, is equally interesting. Roughly speaking, Kalinga was the name of the coast land between the Mahanade and the Gödāvart, although it included the valley of the Vaitarant river on the northeast. But this was Kalinga in a wider sense, the name being applied in a narrow sense only to the Puri-Ganjam area of modern Orissa. Kalidasa's Raghuvansa, IV, 38-9, associates the Kalings country especially with the Mahēndra (i.e., the Mahēndragiri peak in the Ganjam District) and locates the Utkala country, comprising the present Balasore District together with parts of the Midnapur and Cuttack Districts, to its north-east.
In the fifth and sixth centuries some rulers, having their headquarters at cities like Simhapura (modern Singupuram near Chicacole or Srikakulam), Vardhamana (modern Vadama in the Palakonda tāluka of the Vizagapatam District), Dévapura (capital of Dēvarāshtra in the Yellamaschili täluka of the same District) and Pishtapura (modern Pithapuram in the East Godavari District) assumed the title " lord of Kalinga".! From the last decade of the fifth century kings of the Eastern Ganga dynasty were ruling from Kalinganagara (modern Mukhalingam in the Ganjam District) and Dantapura (near Chicacole) often with the same title. These Gangas were devoted to the deity Siva-Gökarņēsvara installed in a temple at the top of the Mahendragiri. In the records of the Eastern Chalukya kings of the Andhra country, a portion of the Vizagapatam District was sometimes called Madhyama-Kalinga or Elamañchi-Kalinga. It is interesting to note that the Gupta emperor Samudragupta led an expedition, about the middle of the fourth century, against a number of kings of Dakshiņāpatha, some of whom ruled over different parts of the Kalinga country. The Allahabad pillar inscription of Samudragupta, while giving a list of these kings, mentions kings Svāmidatta of Kõţtūra (possibly Kothur near the Mahendragiri), Mahēndragiri of Pishtapura, Damans of Erandapalla (probably near Chicacole) and Kuvēra of Dēvarashtra. It is said that Samudragupta captured the kings of Dakshiņāpatha including the above rulers of the Kalinga region, but that he let them off. The implication is that the Gupta emperor reinstated the defeated kings in their respective kingdoms. This may be & mild way of saying that Samudragupta failed to establish his supremacy over the countries of the south. But there are some indications of the spread of Gupta influence over many parts of South India. The Guptas are known to have contracted matrimonial alliances with the Vākāțakas of the Berar region and the Kadambas of the Kannada country. The Gupta era seems to be used in an inscription of Käkusthavarman of the Kadamba dynasty. The Arang oopper-plate inscription of Bhimasēna, * ruler of Dakshiņa-Kõsala in the present Chhattisgarh region, is also dated in the Gupta era
1 Cf. the claims suggested by the medals issued by certain Indo-Grook kings (Cambridge History of India, Vol. I, pp. 450-54).
* Soe Successors of the Satavahanas, p. 77; New History of the Indian People, Vol. VI, pp. 76-84. • Select Inscriptions, pp. 256-7 and plate. • Successors of the Satavahanas, pp. 88n, 256
Ibid., p. 234n. • New History of the Inlian People, Vol. VI, p. 85.
