The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c7.s1.70

c7.s1.70

A great step in advance was gained by Fleet’s determination of the Gupta era, which had been the subject of much wild conjecture. His demonstration that the year 1 of that era is a. d. 319–20 fixed the chronological position of a most important dynasty, and reduced chaos to order. Fa-hien’s account of the civil administration of the Gangetic provinces at the beginning of the fifth century thus fell into its place as an important historical document illustrating the reign of Chandra-gupta II, Vikramāditya, one of the greatest of Indian kings. Most of the difficulties which continued to embarrass the chronology of the Gupta period, even after the announcement of Fleet’s discovery in 1887, have been removed by M. Sylvain Lévi’s publication of the synchronism of Samudragupta with King Meghavarna of Ceylon (*c.* a. d. 352–79).