Rise and Fall of the Imperial Guptas is based of the entire source material that has come to light since 1888 when Dr. H.F. Fleet`s epoch-making work was published as Vol. III of the Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum. Far reachinf changes in our knowledge of the history of the Guptas have been taking place in consequence of such discoveries as the Bhitari-Silver Copper Seal of Kumaragupta (1889) the Sarnath Inscriptions on Buddhs Images.
The present work describes the material and moral progress which India had achieved during the paramount sovereignty of the Gupta emperors in the fourth and fifth centuries a.d. It traces the origin and rise of the ruling family to Srigupta (240-280 a.d.) and concludes with the reign of Kumaragupta III (543 a.d.). It discusses the spirit of the age and the various trends in the sphere of Religion, Economy, Society, Education, Administration, Art and Architecture. It seeks to bring together all the facts and data derivable from different sources--literary, epigraphic and numismatic, the accounts of foreign visitors, particularly of the Chinese pilgrim Fa-hien who has left a detached and valuable record of India`s civilization during the reign of Chandragupta II. Herein we get an accurate picture of India`s golden age, the growth of her various institutions, her activities of expansion, colonization and her intercourse with Indonesia, China and other countries. The work is divided into sixteen chapters. It has an index of proper names and an addenda on the hoard of new Imperial Gupta coins discovered at Bayana in Bharatpur. The work is very interesting and instructive and is designed to meet the requirements of the academic student of history and the general reader alike.
This book covers the history and the entire Coinage of the Gupta Dynasty from the start in 319 AD to it's end in 543 AD. It also includes the Coinage of the Later Guptas and the related dynasties of Bengal. The author has illustrated every coin variety in Gold, Copper and Lead as well as a complete range of all known Silver coins with dates struck by the Gupta kings. The classification is comprehensive and intuitive.The book includes an excellent section on the iconography, metal analysis, history and the evolution of the designs seen on the Gupta gold coins. This book is an quintessential guide for Collectors and Dealers in coins to better understand the relative rarity and the different varieties with a full representation of the coins from Private Collections and most of the major Museums in India and across the world.
The work is divided into sixteen chapters. It has an index of proper names and an addenda on the board of new Imperial Gupta coins discovered at Bayana in Bharatpur, The work is very interesting and instruction and is designed to meet the requirements of the academic student of history and the general reader alike.
The Aulikaras were the rulers of western Malwa (the northwest of Central India) in the heyday of the Imperial Guptas in the fifth century CE, and rose briefly to sovereignty at the beginning of the sixth century before disappearing from the spotlight of history. This book gathers all the epigraphic evidence pertaining to this dynasty, meticulously editing and translating the inscriptions and analysing their content and its implications.
This book on Gupta Polity is a companion volume to the author`s earlier work The Mauryan Polity. The sources of information for a study of the subject are not as many as in the case of the later book. The author firmly believes that Kalidasa was not a protege of the Gupta Court but lived in second century b.c. and so his prolific works cannot be taken to throw any light on the Gupta empire. One has therefore to depend mainly on the Kamandakiya Nitisastra, the inscriptions and coins of the Gupta rulers and the accounts of the Chinese traveller Fa-hien for a knowledge of the Gupta Polity.
