Political History of Ancient India, from the Accession of Parikshit to the Extinction of the Gupta Dynasty c9.s2.1

c9.s2.1

No inscription or coin has unfortunately been discovered which can be referred, with any amount of certainty, to the post-Pārikshita-pre-Bimbisārian period. The South Indian plates purporting to belong to the reign of Janamejaya¹ have been proved to be spurious. Our chief reliance must, therefore, be placed upon literary evidence. Unfortunately this evidence is, in the main, Indian, and is not supplemented to any considerable extent by those foreign notices which have "done more than any archæological discovery to render possible the remarkable resuscitation" of the history of the post-Bimbisārian epoch. The discoveries at Mahenjo-Daro and Harappa no doubt constitute a welcome addition to the purely literary evidence regarding the ancient history of India. But the civilisation disclosed is possibly that of Sauvīra or Sovīra (Sophir, Ophir)² in the pre-Pārikshita period. And the monuments exhumed "offer little direct contribution to the materials for political history," particularly of the *Madhya-deśa* or the Upper Ganges valley.