The Dynastic History of Northern India (Early Mediaeval Period) v1.c16.4.3

v1.c16.4.3

and it seems likely that whatever influence Tibet had over these tracts, came to an end about the year 703 A.D., when, according to the T'ang annals, Nepal and India threw off the suzerainty of Tibet.³ During the second half of the 7th century, we have the records of two important lines of princes ruling in Bengal and Bihar. These were the Guptas of Magadha⁴ and the Khaḍgas of Samataṭa.⁵ As the Shahpur image-inscription of Ādityasena gives for him the date A.D. 672-73, and as a Deoghar epigraph preserves the memory of his performing ‘Aśvamedha and other great sacrifices’ and of having ruled ‘the whole earth up to the oceans,’ it is not unlikely that it was this Gupta sovereign who was instrumental in throwing off the yoke of Tibet in 703 A.D. The extent of the rule of these later Guptas is not exactly known. All their inscriptions have been so far discovered in the districts of Gaya, Patna, Bhagalpur and Shahabad of Bihar. But their conflict with the Maukharis of the U. P., their wars on the banks of the Lauhitya, and the possible identification of Mādhavagupta of the Aphsad stone inscription with the Malwa prince Mādhavagupta of Bāṇa's *Harṣacarita*, would indicate a wider extent of power than the distribution of their inscriptions suggests.¹ In this connection it is interesting to note that the *Kumārāmātya* Lokanātha of the recently discovered Tippera grant dated in year 44 (Harṣa era? = A.D.