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APPENDIX C.
A NOTE ON THE LATER GUPTAS.1
It was recently urged by Professor R. D. Banerji that Mahasena Gupta of the Aphsad inscription, father of Madhava Gupta, the associate of Harsha, could not have been a king of East Malava, and secondly, that Susthitavarman whose defeat at the hands of Mahasena Gupta, in the Lohita or Lauhitya region, is mentioned in the Aphsaḍ inscription, was not a Maukhari, but a king of Kamarupa.
The second proposition will be readily accepted by all careful students of the Aphsad epigraph and the Nidhanapur plate inscription, though some western scholars are still, I know not why, of a contrary opinion. As to the first point, viz., whether Mahasena Gupta was a direct ruler of East Malava or of Magadha, a student will have to take note of the following facts:
(i) In the Dêô-Baraṇark Inscription of Jivita Gupta II, which records the continuance of the grant of a village in South Bihar, we have reference to Baladitya-deva, and after him, to the Maukharis Sarvavarman and Avanti-varman. Not a word is said about their later Gupta contemporaries in connection with the previous grants of the village. The inscription is no doubt damaged, but the sovereignty of Sarvavarman and Avanti-varman undoubtedly precludes the possibility of the direct rule of their contemporaries of the later Gupta line.
1 Mainly an extract from an article published in JBORS, Sept.-Dec., 1929, p. 561 ff.
2 JRAS, 1928, July, pp. 689f.
3 Dr. R. C. Majumdar's suggestion that the village in question may have been situated in U. P. has been commented upon by Dr. Sircar who points. out that Fleet's reading of the name of the village ( on which Dr. Majumdar bases his conclusions) is tentative and unacceptable.
