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Concept
Skandagupta
Summary
Skandagupta (Gupta script: Ska-nda-gu-pta, r. 455-467) was a Gupta Emperor of India. His Bhitari pillar inscription suggests that he restored the Gupta power by defeating his enemies, who may have been rebels or foreign invaders. He repulsed an invasion by the Indo-Hephthalites (known as Hunas in India), probably the Kidarites. He seems to have maintained control of his inherited territory, and is generally considered the last of the great Gupta Emperors. The Gupta genealogy after him is unclear, but he was most probably succeeded by Purugupta, who appears to have been his younger half-brother.
Skandagupta was a son of the Gupta emperor Kumaragupta I. His mother may have been a junior queen or a concubine of Kumaragupta. This theory is based on the fact that Skandagputa's inscriptions mention the name of his father, but not of his mother. For example, Skandagupta's Bhitari pillar inscription lists the chief queens (mahadevis) of his ancestors Chandragupta I, Samudragupta, and Chandragupta II, but does not mention the chief queen of his father Kumaragupta. J. F. Fleet read a line of the Bhitari inscription to state that Skandagupta was "raised to Aryan status by the panegyrics of bards". Based on this, A. L. Basham theorized that his mother was from a low-caste Shudra background.
Others, such as Dasharatha Sharma have criticized this theory, pointing out that the Bhitari inscription clearly suggests that Skandagupta's mother held a very exalted status in the eyes of her son. The inscription states that after restoring the fallen fortunes of his family by defeating his enemies, he visited his mother just like the legendary hero Krishna had visited his mother Devaki. Jagannath Agrawal theorizes that the composer of the inscription deliberately departed from convention and devoted a line to the king's mother: this was not because of the inferior status of the mother. Agrawal disputes Fleet's reading of the "Aryan status" line, providing an alternative reading: "whom nobility causes to blush by reason of the narrations of his exploits by means of songs and eulogies".
Official source
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