Later Guptas

The name

The kings of this line all bear names ending in -gupta, and the Aphsad inscription gives a genealogy of eight of them. Whether they were a branch of the imperial house, or a family that took a prestigious name as it rose in the same country, is not resolved; the inscriptions make no claim of descent from Candragupta or Samudragupta, which is itself suggestive.

They ruled Magadha as the imperial Guptas faded, and at times extended into Malwa.

Wars and end

Their principal opponents were the Maukharis of Kannauj, and the Aphsad inscription records a sequence of battles between the two houses across several generations. Devagupta's attack on Kannauj, in alliance with Śaśāṅka of Gauḍa, precipitated the crisis that brought Harṣa to power, and the Later Guptas were subordinated during his reign.

They re-emerged after Harṣa's death in 647 CE under Ādityasena, who took imperial titles and performed the horse sacrifice, and whose inscriptions record the building of temples and a monastery. The line ends in the early eighth century, and Magadha subsequently passed to the Pālas.

Their chief interest is as evidence of how the post-Gupta north actually worked: several middling dynasties in permanent contention, none able to hold the whole, with Kannauj as the prize.