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AUTONOMOUS STATES IN GUPTA INDIA 543
conqueror. Curiously enough, the Allahabad Prasasti refers to Samudra Gupta's victory over Vyāghrarāja of Mahākāntāra.' It is probable that this Vyāgbrarāja is identical with the Vyāghra of the Nāchnā inscription who was the Central Indian feudatory of Prithivishena. As a result of Samudra Gupta's victory the Guptas succeeded the Vākāțakas as the paramount power in Central India. Henceforth the Vākātakas appear in fact as a purely southern power.
The victorious career of Samudra Gupta must have produced a deep impression on the Pratyanta 2 mripatis or frontier kings of North-East India and the Himālayan region, and the tribal states of the Pañjāb, Western India, Mālwa and the Central Provinces, who are said to have gratified his imperious command (prachanda śāsana) - “by giving all kinds of taxes, obeying his orders and coming to perform obeisance." The most important among the eastern kingdoms which submitted to the mighty Gupta Emperor were Samatata (part of Eastern Bengal bordering on the sea, having its capital probably at Karmmānta
d-Kamta near Comilla ), Davāka ( not yet satisfactorily identified )* and Kāmarūpa ( roughly in Assam ). We learn from the Dāmodarpur plates that the major portion of Northern Bengal, then known as Pundravardhana-bhukti, formed an integral part
1 Has the title Vyāghra-parākrama, found on a type of Samudra Gupta's coins that represents the king as trampling on a tiger, anything to do with the emperor's victory over Vyāghra-rāja ? It is not a little curious that the next sovereign, conqueror of Rudrasimha III. the last Satrap, assumed the title of Sinha-vikrama.
2 For the significance of the term, see Divyāvadāna, p. 22.
3 Bhattasali, Iconography, pp. 4f. JASB, 1914, 85 ff. Cf. the position of Mahārāja Rudradatta under the emperor Vainya Gupta early in the sixth century A.D. (Gunaighar Ins).
4 Cf. Dekaka (Dacca ). Hoyland, The Empire of the Great Mogol, 14. Mr. K. L. Barua identifies Davāka with the Kopili Valley in Assam (Early History of Kamarupa, 42 n).
