History of India, c. 150 A.D. to 350 A.D.: Naga–Vakataka Imperial Period c16.s4.1

c16.s4.1

142. After the [Third] Āryāvarta War ending with the fall of Nagādatta and Chandravarman, Samudra Gupta’s period of war ended. The Allahabad inscription (line 22) is clear on the point. There were only five main states on his frontiers and they became part of his empire. (1) Samataṭa, (2) Davāka, (3) Kāmarūpa, (4) Nepāla and (5) Kartṛipura paid ‘all’ imperial ‘taxes’ and their kings presented themselves in person.¹ This line of ‘the Frontier Kings’ runs from the mouths of Ganges through the Lushai-Manipur²-Assam to the Himalayan Mountains covering what we call now Bhutan, Sikkim and Nepal, and thence onwards to the Simla Hills and Kangra (Kartṛipura), i.e. the hills above Bengal [Pauṇḍra], the United Provinces, and up to the E. Punjab [the Mādraka country]. The inclusion of Kartṛipura implies that the result of the [Third] Āryāvarta War was the inclusion of the Eastern Punjab. This is probably also inferable from the Bhāgavata Purāṇa which does not note the Madraka State in its list of the free republican states (§ 146). In the next reign we find the Gupta Era in the year 83 [=403 A.D.] dominant up to Shorkoṭ (old Śivipura) near the eastern bank of the Chenab³. In Nepal, Jayadeva I, the new Lichchhavi king of Nepal, was a relation of Samudra Gupta and his submission meant practically the submission of the whole group of the Himalayan States on the Indian side. The Gupta Era was introduced in Nepal in the reign of Jayadeva I.⁴ The relationship was evidently a great factor in avoiding a mountain expedition. Samudra Gupta seems to have, later on, annexed Samataṭa to the Province of Champā, to have a natural frontier up to the sea, which was a matter of necessity for an easier access to and the administration of Orissa and Kaliṅga, and the sea-trade with Further India (§ 150).