Tribes in Ancient India c12.25

c12.25

In the period following that of Skandagupta and his successors (i.e. after about 550 A.D.), the Mālavas seem to have migrated further to the east so as to cover the region from Bhilsa (Eastern Malwa) to Prayāg. In the *Harṣacarita* of Bāṇa, Kumāragupta and Mādhavagupta, two sons of King Mahāsenagupta (of the line of Kṛṣṇagupta), who were appointed by Prabhākaravardhana to wait upon his sons, Rājyavardhana, and Harṣavardhana respectively, are referred to as ‘Mālavarājaputrau’. It follows that Mahāsenagupta was a king of Mālava. He was most probably succeeded by a king named Devagupta, who is referred to in the Madhuvan and Banskhera inscriptions of Harṣavardhana, and who must be identical with the ‘wicked Mālava King’ who cut off Grahavarman Maukhari in battle, but was himself defeated by Rājyavardhana.¹ It is difficult to identify the Mālava Kingdom of Mahāsenagupta and Devagupta, but it was most probably identical with Pūrva-Mālava which lay between Prayāga and Bhilsa. It could not be the Mo-la-po (= Mālava) of Hsüan Tsang, for Mo-la-po was then under the Maitrakas of Valabhi; nor could it be the Mālava country whose capital was Ujjayinī, for Ujjayinī was at that time ruled by a brahmin dynasty, and the Guptas were not brahmins. Moreover, according to Vātsyāyana, Ujjayinīdeśa was called Apara-Mālava or Western Mālava; where only Mālava, without any prefix, is referred to, it should be taken to mean Eastern (Pūrva) Mālava.²