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586 - POLITICAL HISTORY OF ANCIENT INDIA Smith and Allan have shown that Skanda ruled over the whole empire including the eastern and the central as well as many of the western provinces. He may have lost some of his districts in the Far West. But the cointypes of the successors of Kumāra Gupta, with the exception of Skanda Gupta and Budha Gupta, show that none of them could have held sway in the lost territories of Western India. Epigraphic and numismatic evidence clearly indicate that there was no room for a rival Mahārājādhirāja in Northern India including Bihār and Bengal during the reign of Skanda Gupta. He was a man of mature years at the time of his death cir. A D. 467.1 His brother and successor Puru Gupta, too, must have been an old man at that time. It is, therefore, not at all surprising that he had a very short reign and died some time before A.D. 473 when his grandson Kumāra Gupta II was ruling. The name of Purn Gupta's queen has been read by various scholars as Sri Vatsadevi, Vainyadevī or Śrī Chandradevi.” She was the mother of Narasimha Gupta Bālāditya.
The coins of Puru Gupta are of the heavy Archer type apparently belonging to the eastern provinces of the empire of his predecessors. Some of the coins hitherto attributed to him have the reverse legend Sri Vikramah and possible traces of the fuller title of Vikramāditya. Allan identifies him with king Vikramāditya of Ayodhyā,
1 When sons succeed a father or mother after a prolonged reign they are usually well advanced in years. In the case of Skanda Gupta we know that already in A.D. 455 he was old enough to lead the struggle against all the enemies of his house and empire in succession.
2 Ep. Ind., XXI, 77: ASI, AR, 1934-35, 63. 3 Allan, pp. 1xxx, xcviii.
4 Mr. S. K. Sarasvati attributes these coins to Budha Gupta (Indian Culture, I, 692). This view, however, is not accepted by Prof. Jagan Nath (Summaries of paper submitted to the 13th All India Oriental Conference, Nagpur, 1946, Sec. IX p. 11). According to Mr. Jagan Nath the reading is definitely Puru and not Budha. As to the title Vikramāditya, see Allan, p. cxxii.
