________________
EARLY TRACES OF GUPTA RULE 529
1
to the east of Nālandā, following the course of the Ganges". I-Tsing's date would place him about A.D. 175.2 Allan rejects the date, and identifies Śri Gupta, with Gupta the great-grandfather of Samudra Gupta, on the ground that it is unlikely that we should have two different rulers in the same territory, of the same name, within a brief period. But have we not two Chandra Guptas and two Kumāra Guptas within brief periods? There is no cogent reason for identifying Sri Gupta of cir. A.D. 175, known to tradition, with Samudra Gupta's great-grandfather who must have flourished about a century later.
The names of Śri Gupta's immediate successors are not known. The earliest name of a member of the Gupta family of Magadha which appears in inscriptions is that of Mahārāja Gupta who was succeeded by his son Mahārāja Ghatotkacha.
1 Dr. Majumdar in A New History of the Indian People, VI, 129: Dr. D. C. Ganguli, IHQ,XIV (1938), 332.
2 Allan, Gupta Coins, Introduction, p. xv. Cf. Ind. Ant. X (1881) 110.
O. P. 90-67
