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588 POLITICAL HISTORY OF ANCIENT INDIA
G4 Balas
Puru Gupta seems to have been succeeded by his son Narasimha Gupta Bālāditya. This king has been identified with king Bālāditya whose troops are represented by Hiuen Tsang as having imprisoned the tyrant Mihirakula. It has been overlooked that Hiuen Tsang's Bālāditya was the immediate successor of Tathāgata Gupta, who was himself the immediate successor of Bud(d)ha Gupta, whereas Narasimha Gupta Bālāditya was the son and successor of Puru Gupta who in his turn was the son of Kumāra Gupta I and the successor of Skanda Gupta. The son and successor of Hiuen Tsang's Bālāditya was Vajra3 while the son and successor of Narasimha was Kumāra Gupta II. It is obvious that the conqueror of Mihirakula was not the son of Puru Gupta but an altogether different individual. The existence of several kings of the eastern part of the Madhyadesa having the biruda Bālāditya is proved by the Sārnāth Inscription of Prakațāditya. Narasiųha Gupta must have died in or about the year
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1 Life of Hiuen Tsang, p. 111. Si-yu-ki. II, p. 168.
2 Fo-to-kio-to. Beal, Fleet and Watters render the term by Buddha Gupta, a name unknown to imperial Gupta epigraphy. The synchronism of his second successor Bālāditya with Mihirakula proves that Budha Gupta is meant. We have other instances of corruption of names. e.g. Skanda is transformed into Skandha in several Purāņic lists of the so-called Andhra dynasty.
3 Yuan Chwang II, p. 165.
4 Drs. Bhattasāli and Basāk, who uphold the identification of Hiuen Tsang's Bālāditya with the son of Puru Gupta do not apparently attach due weight to the evidence of the Life of Hiuen Tsang, p. 111, which, as we shall see later on, is corroborated by the combined testimony of the Sārnāth inscription of Prakatāditya and the Arya-Manju-sri-mula-kalba. The evidence of these documents suggests that Hiuen Tsang's Bālāditya was identical with Bhānu Gupta and was the father of Prakatāditya and Vajra.
5 CII, p. 285. A Bālāditya is mentioned in the Nālanda Stone Inscription of Yasovarman (Ep. Ind., 1929. Jan., 38) and also a seal (Sri Nalandāyām śri Balāditya Gandhakudi, MASI, 66, 38).
