The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c29.125

c29.125

When Skandagupta came to the throne, in the spring of 455, he encountered a sea of troubles. The Pushyamitra danger had been averted, but one more formidable closely followed it, an irruption of the savage Huns, who had poured down from the steppes of Central Asia through the north-western passes, and carried devastation over the smiling plains and crowded cities of India. Skandagupta, who probably was a man of mature years and ripe experience, proved equal to the need, and inflicted upon the barbarians a defeat so decisive that India was saved for a time. His mother still lived, and to her the hero hastened with the news of his victory, 'just as Krishna, when he had slain his enemies, betook himself to his mother Dēvakī.' Having thus paid his duty to his living parent, the king sought to enhance the religious merit of his deceased father by the erection of a pillar of victory, surmounted by a statue of the god Vishnu, and inscribed with an account of the delivery of his country from barbarian tyranny through the protection of the gods.¹