Samudragupta: Leading the Gupta Dynasty to Victory
The age of the Guptas has been regarded as the age of all-round progress in India by all historians. For nearly two hundred and fifty years the Gupta empire provided political unity, good administration and economic and cultural progress in North India. The glories of the Gupta age are partly because of the Gupta art, sculpture and architecture.
The Gupta dynasty produced a number of great rulers successively. They were great conquerors, patrons of art and science & they themselves were men of letters. Of them, one great king was Samudragupta, son of Chandragupta. After more than three hundred years of division, Samudragupta united a large part of India and led it under a thread of prosperity.
Samudragupta succeeded in his father’s throne in AD 335 and ruled for about 45 years. He took the kingdoms of Shichchatra and Padmati early in their reign. He then attacked the Malwas, Yaudheyas, Ajunayas, Maduras and Abhiras, all of which were tribes in the area. By his death in AD 380, he had incorporated over 20 kingdoms in his realm and his rule extended from the Himalayas to the river Narmada and from the Brahmaputra to the Yamuna.
Beyond these wide limits, the frontier kingdoms of Assam and the Gangetic delta, as well as those on the southern slopes of the Himalayas and the free tribes of Rajasthan and Malwa, were attached to the empire by bonds of subordinate alliance, while almost all the kingdoms of the south had been overrun by the emperor’s armies and compelled to acknowledge his irresistible might.
Samudragupta maintained diplomatic relations with the Kushan king of Gandhara and Kabul and the greater sovereign of the same race who ruled the banks of the Oxus, as well as with Ceylon and other distant islands.
“All his conquests, the king achieved by his personal prowess and fighting in the front-;ines as a soldier. He was a fearless fighter, possessed of the death and drive of a tiger, the hero of a hundred battles, which left on his body their scars
The Gupta dynasty produced a number of great rulers successively. They were great conquerors, patrons of art and science & they themselves were men of letters. Of them, one great king was Samudragupta, son of Chandragupta. After more than three hundred years of division, Samudragupta united a large part of India and led it under a thread of prosperity.
Samudragupta succeeded in his father’s throne in AD 335 and ruled for about 45 years. He took the kingdoms of Shichchatra and Padmati early in their reign. He then attacked the Malwas, Yaudheyas, Ajunayas, Maduras and Abhiras, all of which were tribes in the area. By his death in AD 380, he had incorporated over 20 kingdoms in his realm and his rule extended from the Himalayas to the river Narmada and from the Brahmaputra to the Yamuna.
Beyond these wide limits, the frontier kingdoms of Assam and the Gangetic delta, as well as those on the southern slopes of the Himalayas and the free tribes of Rajasthan and Malwa, were attached to the empire by bonds of subordinate alliance, while almost all the kingdoms of the south had been overrun by the emperor’s armies and compelled to acknowledge his irresistible might.
Samudragupta maintained diplomatic relations with the Kushan king of Gandhara and Kabul and the greater sovereign of the same race who ruled the banks of the Oxus, as well as with Ceylon and other distant islands.
“All his conquests, the king achieved by his personal prowess and fighting in the front-;ines as a soldier. He was a fearless fighter, possessed of the death and drive of a tiger, the hero of a hundred battles, which left on his body their scars
Bibliography: The Early History of India by Vincent Smith Atlantic Publishers & Dist., 1999 The Gupta Empire by Radhakumud Mookerji Motilal Banarsidass Publ., 2007 India: The Ancient Past by Burjor Avari Published by: Routledge, 2007