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SECTION II. PURU GUPTA AND NARASIMHA GUPTA
BĀLĀDITYA.
We shall now proceed to give an account of Skanda Gupta's successors. The immediate successor of the great emperor seems to have been his brother Puru Gupta. The existence of this king was unknown till the discovery of the Bhitarī seal of Kumāra Gupta II in 1889, and its publication by Smith and Hoernle.' The seal describes Puru Gupta as the son of Kumāra I by the queen Anantadevi, and does not mention Skanda Gupta. The mention of Puru Gupta immediately after Kumāra with the prefix tat-pād-ūnudhyāta "meditating on, or attached to, the feet of” (Kumāra), does not necessarily prove that Puru Gupta was the immediate successor of his father, and a contemporary and rival of his brother or half-brother Skanda Gupta. In the Manabali grant Madanapāla is described as Śri-Rāmapāla-Deva-pādānu thyūta, although he was preceded by his elder brother Kumārapāla. In Kielhorn's Northern Inscription No. 39, Vijayapāla is described as the successor of Kshitipāla, although he was preceded by his brother Deva pāla. 3
1 JASB, 1889 pp. 84-105.
2 The omission of Skanda's name in the Bhitari seal of his brother's grandson does not necessarily imply that the relations between him and Puru's family were unfriendly as suggested by Mr. R. D. Banerji (cf. Annals of the Bhand. Ins., 1918-19, pp. 74-75). The name of Pulakesin II is omitted in an inscription of his brother and Yuvarāja Vishņuvardhana (Sātārā grant, Ind. Ant., 1890 pp. 227f). The name of Bhoja II of the Imperial Pratihāra dynasty is not mentioned in the Partabgarh Inscription of his nephew Mahendrapāla II, but it is mentioned in an inscription of his brother Vināyakapāla, the father of Mahendrapāla. Besides, there was no custom prohibiting the mention of the name of a rival uncle or brother. Mangaleśa and Govinda II are mentioned in the inscriptions of their rivals and their descendants. On the other hand even an ancestor of a reigning king was sometimes omitted, e. g., Dharapatta is omitted in his son's inscription (Kielhorn, N. Ins., No, 464).
3 Kielhorn, Ins. No. 31. 0. P. 90-74.
