History of India, c. 150 A.D. to 350 A.D.: Naga–Vakataka Imperial Period c16.s2.3

c16.s2.3

121. The Vāyu and the Brahmāṇḍa continue the threads of Indian history where the Matsya stops, i.e. at the fall of the Andhras, which, according to their calculation, happened in or about 238 A.D. (J.B.O.R.S., XVI, p. 280).¹ The Vāyu and the Brahmāṇḍa take up the imperial history again and begin it with Vindhyaśakti of the Vindhyaka dynasty. They, parenthetically under Vindhyaśakti—to explain the rise of the dynasty of Vindhyaśakti and particularly his son Pravira—give the history of the Vidiśā Nāgas and their successors, the Nava Nāgas,² i.e. the Bhāraśivas. Then they give a full account of the Vākāṭaka (‘Vindhyaka’) empire, with its component parts, giving the number of the rulers and their totals. In other words, they treat the history up to the reign of Vindhyaśakti's son Pravira along with the Nava Nāgas, whose period they give as past history. And then they begin contemporary history: from the Guptas onwards they neither give the number of rulers nor their rule-periods. From the Guptas onwards, the families were still ruling and those families were therefore contemporaries with the Guptas. As we shall presently see, the Purāṇas undoubtedly imply that they were subordinates and component parts of the Gupta Empire. To this they make a few exceptions, i.e. they note also those contemporaries who were not integral parts of the Gupta Empire. Their details are accurate and territorially specific. They are, therefore, invaluable to the history of the period. And they stop at that, they are to be treated as a Contemporary record, contemporary with the empire of Samudra Gupta. The Purāṇas have taken up the Gupta line as an imperial dynasty as coming after Pravīra the son of Vindhyaśakti. Up to and including the Vākāṭakas, they have dealt with only imperial lines. The Viṣṇu and the Bhāgavata here give some data which are exclusive to them. Here they seem to have preferred some independent materials.