[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Studies](https://indike.org/pramana/ins) › [General history and culture](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general) › [The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.smith-1924) › c29.62 # The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c29.62 The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c29.62 - **Language:** English ### [c29.62](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.smith-1924.c29.62) The greatest military achievement of Chandra-gupta Vikramāditya was his advance to the Arabian Sea through Mālwā and Gujarāt, and his subjugation of the peninsula of Surāshṭra or Kāthiāwāṛ, which had been ruled for centuries by the Śaka dynasty, of foreign origin, known to European scholars as the Western Satraps.² The campaigns which added those remote provinces to the empire must have occupied several years, and are known to have taken place between A. D. 388 and 401. The year 395 may be assumed as a mean date for the completion of the conquest, which involved the incorporation in the empire of the territory held by the Mālavas and other tribes, who had remained outside the limits of Samudragupta's dominion. The annexation of Surāshṭra and Mālwā not only added to the empire provinces of exceptional wealth and fertility, but opened up to the paramount power free access to the ports of the western coast; and thus placed Chandra-gupta II in direct touch with the seaborne commerce with Europe through Egypt, and brought his court and subjects under the influence of the European ideas which travelled with the goods of the Alexandrian merchants. The foreign influence on the literature, art, and science of the Gupta age will be discussed briefly in the next chapter. - [Previous: c29.61](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.smith-1924.c29.61) - [Next: c29.63](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.smith-1924.c29.63) - [Up: c29](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.smith-1924.c29) --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.smith-1924.c29.62](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.smith-1924.c29.62) · Pramāṇa