History of India, c. 150 A.D. to 350 A.D.: Naga–Vakataka Imperial Period c15.s4.10

c15.s4.10

93. Narendrasena seems to have had two sons. The elder Prithivīsheṇa II succeeded him and was followed by Devasena, who on his abdication was followed by his own son Harisheṇa. Devasena preferred a life of ease and pleasure to the duties of kingship. Prithivīsheṇa II found it necessary on the break-up of the Gupta Empire to make a heroic effort to raise his family from a ‘sunken’ condition, and he succeeded, for we find the next king in possession of all the Vākāṭaka Empire including Kuntala, Trikūṭa and Lāṭa. The trying period in the reign of Prithivīsheṇa II (470-485), on the chronology proposed above, coincides with the second Hun invasion, c. 470 A.D. His family must have ‘sunk’ along with the Guptas. Great credit is due therefore to Prithivīsheṇa II for its rehabilitation. Within twenty years or so, while the Huns were still powerful, we find the Vākāṭakas next-door to them and stronger than before, having under their sway Kuntala, Avanti, Kaliṅga, Kosalā, Trikūṭa,² Lāṭa and Andhra, that is, the whole of the Vākāṭaka dominions in the south, the Central Provinces and Western India up to Koṅkaṇa and Gujarat. A new dynasty just then founded by a Maitraka general at Valabhī covered the next territory of Surāṣṭra.