The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c29.155

c29.155

Towards the close of the fifth century, a chief named Bhaṭārka, who belonged to a clan called Maitraka,² probably of foreign origin, established himself at Valabhī in the east of the peninsula of Surāshtra (Kāthiāwār), and founded a dynasty which lasted until about A. D. 770, when it is supposed to have been overthrown by Arab invaders from Sind. The earlier kings of Valabhī do not appear to have been independent, and were doubtless obliged to pay tribute to the Huns; but, after the destruction of the Hun domination, the lords of Valabhī asserted their independence, and made themselves a considerable power in the west of India, both on the mainland and in the peninsula of Surāshtra. The city was a place of great wealth when visited by Hiuen Tsang in the seventh century, and was famous in Buddhist church history as having been the residence of two distinguished teachers, Gunamati and Sthiramati, in the sixth century. I-tsing, a junior contemporary of Hiuen Tsang, tells us that in his time Nālandā in South Bihār and Valabhī were the two places in India which deserved comparison with the most famous centres of learning in China, and were frequented by crowds of eager students, who commonly devoted two or three years to attendance at lectures on Buddhist philosophy. This statement explains the assertion of Hiuen Tsang that Mo-la-p‘o, or Western Mālava, and Magadha were the two countries of India in which learning was prized, because Valabhī and Mo-la-p‘o were then politically one, both territories apparently being under the government of Dhruvabhata, the son-in-law of King Harsha, paramount sovereign of Northern India. After the overthrow of Valabhī, its place as the chief city of Western India was taken by Anhilwāra (Nahrwālah, or Pātan), which retained that honour until the fifteenth century, when it was superseded by Ahmadābād.¹ The above observations will, perhaps, be sufficient to give the reader a notion of the way in which some of the fragments of the Gupta empire were apportioned among various native dynasties.