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- SAMUDRAGUPTA.
139
Similarly it is in no way preposterous to suppose that the Guptas might have claimed in those days ancestry with the Mauryas. The fact that Samudragupta was the first imperial sovereign to inscribe his edicts underneath those of the Monk-Emperor Asoka in the famous Allahabad pillar, lends colour to our view of the whole question. Our want of knowledge as regards Gupta ancestry may not prevent us from accepting the commonsense view of the point in dispute. It may be that Māmūlanār himself gives us a bit of the history of the origin of the dynasty by calling the Guptas as the new Mauryas. If even in these days of scientific criticism and elaborate Indian Research, we are not able to know anything about the origin of the Guptas, why should we reject as unsound the view that Māmūlanār failing to distinguish clearly the Mauryas from the Guptas and relying on some such tradition as that of the Guptas of, the 10th century A.D., wrote of the Guptas as new Mauryas ? We do not know enough details of Samudra- More light
required gupta's great march to South India to enable us in regard to
Samudragupto find corroboration mf such incidents as are ta’s march. narrated by the Sangam poets in connection with the invasion, to wit, the coming in of the advance parties headed by Kösar and Vadugar. As more materials are found to fill up the various gaps in the life of one of the greatest of India's sovereigns, Samudragupta, we will be able to realise more and more that the various points