Note 16 — Chapter VIII · THE VALABHIS (a.d. 509–766.)

History.The preceding chapter shows that except Chandragupta (a.d. 410) Kumáragupta (a.d. 416) and Skandagupta (a.d. 456) none of the Guptas have left any trace of supremacy in Gujarát and Káthiáváḍa. Of what happened in Gujarát during the forty years after Gupta 150 (a.d. 469), when the reign of Skandagupta came to an end nothing is known or is likely to be discovered from Indian sources. The blank of forty years to the founder Bhaṭárka (a.d. 509) or more correctly of sixty years to Dhruvasena (a.d. 526) the first Valabhi king probably corresponds with the ascendancy of some foreign dynasty or tribe. All trace of this tribe has according to custom been blotted out of the Sanskrit and other Hindu records. At the same time it is remarkable that the fifty years ending about a.d. 525 correspond closely with the ascendancy in north and north-west India of the great tribe of Ephthalites or White Huns. As has been shown in the Gupta Chapter, by a.d. 470 or 480, the White Huns seem to have been powerful if not supreme in Upper India. In the beginning of the sixth century, perhaps about a.d. 520, Cosmas Indikopleustes describes the north of India and the west coast as far south as Kalliena that is Kalyán near Bombay as under the Huns whose king was Gollas.16 Not many years later (a.d. 530) the Hun power in Central India suffered defeat and about the same time a new dynasty arose in south-east Káthiáváḍa.