The Age of the Imperial Guptas c4.156

c4.156

Kumāragupta II must have been an infant in arms when he was placed on the throne. Though his great-grandfather Kumāragupta I had reigned for 41 years, his grandfather Puragupta must have died about 468-69 A.D., and therefore Narasiṃhagupta must have come to the throne while very young and consequently his son Kumāragupta II must have been an infant. There are parallels of this type in the history of India. Aurangzeb ‘Alamgīr ascended the throne in 1556 and died after a reign of 51 years in 1707. His son Shāh ‘Alam I Bahādur ascended the throne at a very advanced age in 1707 and lived to rule for 5 years only. Shāh ‘Alam’s eldest son Mui’z-zuddīn Jahāndār Shāh had passed the prime of his life when he ascended the throne in 1712 and was murdered in the next year. Jahāndār’s nephew Farrūkhsiyar was very young when he ascended the throne and the sons of his younger uncles Jahān Shāh and Rafia’-ush-shān were still young at that time. There is therefore no reason to be surprised at the fact that Kumāragupta II in the fourth generation after Kumāragupta I was an infant in arms. He assumed the *biruda* of Kramāditya in imitation of the Vikramāditya of his grandfather Puragupta and his great-great-grandfather Candragupta II. There are eighteen of his gold coins in the British Museum and only two in the Indian Museum, Calcutta, which is not strange in consideration of the fact that his short rule was over before G.E. 157 = 476-77 A.D. This is proved by the Sarnath inscription of the time of Budhagupta.