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SECTION III. · SKANDA GUPTA. VIKRAMĀDITYA. According to the evidence of the Arya-Mañijuśrī-malakalpa, confirmed by epigraphic testimony, the immediate successor of Mahendra, i.e., Kumāra Gupta I, was Skanda Gupta. In an interesting paper read at a meeting of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Dr. R. C. Majumdar suggested that after Kumāra's death, which apparently took place while the struggle with the Pushyamitras was still undecided, there was a fratricidal war in which Skanda Gupta came off victorious after defeating his brothers including Puru Gupta, the rightful claimant, and rescued his mother just as Krishna rescued Devaki.' Dr. Majumdar observed that the omission of the name of the mother of Skanda Gupta in the genealogy given in the Bihār and Bhitari Stone Pillar Inscriptions indicated that she was not the chief queen and Skanda ‘bad no natural claim to the throne'. The rightful heir of Kumāra was Puru Gupta, the son of the Mahādevi Anantadevi.
We should, however, remember that there was no rule prohibiting the mention of ordinary queens in inscriptions. The mother of Princess Prabhāvati, Kuberanāgā, was not the chief queen of Chandra Gupta II.2 No doubt the title Mahadevî is once given to her in the Poona plates of her daughter in the year 13, but it is not repeated in the Řiddhapur plates of the year 19 where she is called simply Kuberanāgā devī without the prefix Mahadevî, whereas Kumāra-devi, Datta-devi and even her own daughter, Prabhāvati-guptā are styled Mahādevīs. The contrast is full of significance and we know as a matter of fact that the real Mahādevî (chief queen) of Chandra
1 Cf. the Bhitari Inscription, JASB, 1921 (N. S. XVII), 253 ff.
2 JASB, 1924, 58. In IC. 1944, 171. Dr. Majumdar modified his views regarding the omission of the name of the queen mother in the Bhitari ins. and finds the names of Mahādeyi Anantadevi and her son Purugupta in the inscription,
