The Age of the Imperial Guptas c4.163

c4.163

We do not know how the infant king Kumāragupta II came to lose the throne or died. Budhagupta’s relationship with Skandagupta or Puragupta is also unknown to us. There cannot be any doubt about the fact that Budhagupta succeeded Kumāragupta II because the former’s earliest date, the Sarnath inscription of G.E. 157 = 476-77 A.D., is only three years removed from the only known date of Kumāragupta II, the Sarnath inscription of G.E. 154 = 473-74 A.D. Budhagupta is taken by some scholars to be a son of Kumāragupta I because the latter’s biruda Mahendra is equivalent to Śakra in Sanskrit and according to Yuan Chwang Budhagupta’s father’s name was Śakrāditya. The principal difficulties about the chronology of events of the reign of Budhagupta are the want of any official stone inscription like the Allahabad pillar inscription of Samudragupta or the Bhitari pillar inscription of Skandagupta and the want of any gold coins bearing his name. It is quite possible that the coins bearing the biruda Prakāśāditya were issued by him, but his name Budhagupta has not been found on any of them. Budhagupta succeeded in re-uniting the whole of the Gupta empire.