A History of Sanskrit Literature c11.s2.1

c11.s2.1

Fortune has enabled us to obtain an interesting insight into the poetry of the Gupta epoch by the preservation of two Praçastis, separated by about a century in time, the panegyric of Samudragupta inscribed on a pillar at Allahabad and composed by Hariṣeṇa, perhaps in 345,¹ and Vatsabhaṭṭi's inscription in the temple of the sun at Mandasor, written in 473–4. These inscriptions alone would suffice to prove abundantly the existence of a developed Kāvya poetry during the whole period of the Gupta power, and in the first case we actually find a poet of distinct power, though he was foreign minister and general of the king.