History of India, c. 150 A.D. to 350 A.D.: Naga–Vakataka Imperial Period c14.s4.t1.76

c14.s4.t1.76

¹ The Purāṇas are specially full on the Vākāṭaka and Gupta Empires. The chronicles of those periods seem to have been composed in the Vākāṭaka country where, in the Vākāṭaka secretariat, the details of both could be easily available. The imperial system of the Andhras is also attempted in the Purāṇas by recording their feudatories [see Part IV, below], though not in such detail. As in the case of the Vākāṭakas they go back to the early Nāga history from the imperial land-mark of the merging of the Nāgas into the Vākāṭakas, so also in the Andhra history they go back to the origin, from the point of imperial succession to the Magadha throne. The Purāṇas have thus followed a system of going back to the beginning of a dynasty from a critical point and giving the earlier history of the imperial families. This they have done in the case of the Andhras, the Vindhyakas and the Nāgas, and they would have done so regarding the Guptas if they could give their full history. Yet the earlier history of the Guptas is attempted in the Viṣṇu (see Part iii, § 122).