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GUPTA CONQUEST OF KĀȚHIĀWĀR 511 was maintained till the early part of the reign of Shāpār II (A. D. 309-79). The hold of the Persians on the distant Indian provinces became weak in the middle of the fourth century A. D. when Rudrasena III assumed the title of Mahārāja, and Samudra Gupta, the prototype of the Raghu of Kālidāsa, forced the foreign potentates of the north-west borderland to do him homage.
The revived power of the Sakas of Western India did not last long, being finally destroyed by the Guptas. Already in the time of Samudra Gupta the Sakas appear among the peoples who hastened to buy peace by the offer of maidens and other acts of respectful submission. The Udayagiri Inscriptions of Chandra Gupta II testify to that monarch's conquest of Eastern Mālwa. One of the Inscriptions commemorates the construction of a cave by a minister of Chandra Gupta who "came here. accompanied by the king in person, who was seeking to conquer the whole world.” The subjugation of western Mālwa is probably hinted at by the epithet “Simhavikrānta-gāmini,” resorting to (as a vassal of) Simha Vikrama, i.e., Chandra Gupta II, applied to Naravarman of Mandasor.'' Evidence of the conquest of Surāshtra is to be seen in Chandra Gupta's silver coins which are imitated from those of Śaka Satraps. Lastly, Bâņa in his Harsha-charita refers to the slaying of the Saka king
1 Ind. Ant., 1913, p. 162. The small copper coins of Chandra Gupta II bearing a vase as type were probably struck by him in the Mālava territory which may have been under Śaka domination in the second century A. D. (Allan, CICAI, cvi).
