Gupta Empire

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The Gupta Empire at the height of its power

The Gupta ( Sanskrit , गुप्त, gupta ) were an ancient Indian ruling dynasty. Her name stands next to the Maurya and Kuschana for ancient India. The epoch of the Gupta dynasty from around 320 to 550 AD is considered the "golden" or "classic age" of Indian history .

origin

The Gupta kings - originally a local princely family who had established themselves in the second half of the 3rd century in the border zone between Bihar and Bengal - came to power around 320 AD, ended the small states on the Indian subcontinent , the since the fall of the Kushan prevailed -rich and ensured political stability.

The progenitor of the Gupta dynasty was Chandragupta I (ruled approx. 320–335, not to be confused with Chandragupta Maurya , who had founded the Maurya dynasty around 6 centuries earlier ), who probably descended from a Kshatriya family. At least no coins from the predecessors were found, so the claimed royal origin is very vague. But through Chandragupta's marriage to Kumaradevi , a princess of the Licchavi family, it was possible for him to become king in the Ganges region in the immediate vicinity of the Magadha realm. He chose the old metropolis of Pataliputra (today Patna ) as his residence and in 320 he introduced the Gupta era, which his successors retained. Apart from that, nothing is known of his activities. Presumably the kingdom he founded included only Bihar and parts of Bengal.

Samudragupta and the supremacy in India

Only 15 years later, the son, Samudragupta (ruled 335-375), was able to expand the borders of the empire. In the early stages of his conquests, Pataliputra was taken in Magadha , later the capital. At that time he still called himself the daughter of Licchavi and not Gupta , but that soon changed. The conqueror left an inscription on a column of Ashoka in Prayaga (today Prayagraj ), so that his numerous campaigns against small Indian states are known. On the column there is talk of the subjugated kings and conquered areas in the north, a military strike in the south and tributes from the western Shaka region , Sri Lanka and northern Iran .

Under Samudragupta, gold coins were minted in India for the first time, depicting him not only as a conqueror, but also as a musician. These impressive coins, like the titles of the Gupta (for example: Maharajahiraja Paramabhattaraka , i.e. the "Great King of Kings, supreme ruler") were an important means of propaganda and also a sign of economic success and general prosperity. By the way, the king was the first Hindu to see himself as a Chakravartin ruler (literally: "Radandreher"), as an ideal ruler who turns the wheel of life and rules the world.

Chandragupta II

The rustproof iron pillar attributed to Chandragupta II is in the Qutb complex in Delhi.

His son, Chandragupta II. (R. 375–413 / 15), made the Gupta dynasty a great power by incorporating the states with which his father had wisely avoided war with his marriage policy: he saw his opportunity in the Alliance of the Gupta with the Vakataka dynasty Rudrasenas II. South India. By marrying his daughter Prabhavatigupta into this ruling house, Chandragupta II secured peace with the south. And so his troops could focus on the battle in the north, i.e. H. focus on the subjugation of the Shakas and the rest of West India (ca. 397–409).

The political skill of its rulers paid off for the Gupta: local officials became filthy rich from their share of the land tax, traders amassed fortunes trading between China and the Mediterranean as they controlled the trade routes. Governance in the cities was often placed in the hands of artisans', merchants' and bankers' guilds , and many city councils were made up of artisans, artists and traders. In general, the cities of India at this time had a higher economic and cultural importance than later in the Indian Middle Ages.

Also worth mentioning is some information about the Chinese pilgrim monk Faxian (Dongjin, traveled 399-412), who visited the kingdom of Chandraguptas II. He wrote, “The people are rich and happy, free from any poll tax or government restrictions. Only those who cultivate the king's land pay a land tax. You are free to go or stay. The king rules the country without using the death penalty. Even high traitors only get their right hand chopped off. "

At the time of the Gupta there was also a renewal of Hinduism : the old scriptures were reread and Buddhism , which had dominated philosophically and intellectually until then , increasingly faced competition. Artistically impressive Hindu Gupta temples were built. Nonetheless, Buddhist sites such as Sanchi were also equipped with buildings (temple no. 17) and impressive Buddha images (stupa no. 1); the Dhamekh stupa in Sarnath was also renewed. The ideology of the caste system , which is still valid in India today, was also cultivated again.

The famous figure of the teaching Buddha from Sarnath comes from the Gupta period (5th century).

Late bloom under Kumaragupta I.

In the first half of the fifth century, a peaceful emperor, Kumaragupta I (ruled 415–455), ruled the country; Religion and monastery property were promoted. The Buddhist monasteries developed into financial centers (dependent on the urban economy) in his day and the Hindu monasteries trumped with rapidly growing land holdings. The administration was heavily divided into provinces, districts, cities and villages. The king only controlled part of it directly, there were overlapping competencies and rule slowly passed back to the local princes . The tax revenues were no longer transferred to the Gupta ruler, but the tax officials kept them for their own interests.

In the late 5th century, the Gupta dynasty gradually lost power. A new threat came from the north: a tribal association of nomadic Indo-Europeans settled in Bactria and slowly moved over the mountains of northwest India. Towards the end of the 5th century there was a fight between the Gupta and the "Hunas". These were groups of the so-called Iranian Huns , most likely the Kidarites or the subsequent wave of the Alchon . The Alchon group is often mixed with the Hephthalites , but only the Alchon expanded massively to northwest India in the early 6th century towards the Gupta Empire. In any case, Kumaragupta's son Skandagupta was able to hold back the idea again.

Decline and decline

Under Skandagupta (r. 455–467) and his nephew Budhagupta (approx. 476–495, he only prevailed in a long-standing successor dispute) the expansion of the Gupta empire was still preserved. Many inscriptions attest to this, even if z. B. in one of 484/5 from Eran (in Malwa) local rulers are also mentioned. But after that, around 500, several kings appeared simultaneously, or at least in quick succession. Two of these heir to the throne were identified by inscriptions in Malwa and Bengal, a third named Baladitya was mentioned in Xuanzang for the heartland of Magadha . This Baladitya is mostly equated with Narasimhagupta (II.) Based on the classification of the coin types and based on seal inscriptions in Nalanda .

In the early 6th century, invaders invaded India again: These Hunas are to be understood as the Alchon (not the actual Hephthalites ) mentioned above . The Gupta lost Kashmir and the Punjab to their rulers Toramana and Mihirakula . The last serious candidate for the Gupta throne, Bhanugupta (in Malwa), lost a battle against Toramana in 510 and had to flee to Bengal. This loss of the most important areas of the north finally ushered in the end of the Gupta Empire: India was again divided among the local principalities. At least Narasimhagupta II. Baladitya (after initial defeats and tribute payments approx. 515) in league with Yasodharman of Malwa attacked and captured the alchon king Mihirakula when he became intolerable due to his persecution of Buddhists (approx. 520/27).

As early as 532, Yasodharman of Malwa claimed in an inscription to be the "Lord of Northern India" as far as the Himalayas alongside the Gupta. By 550 at the latest, the "imperial" Gupta finally lost control and disappeared from history. Partial princes and generals such as the younger Gupta in (Eastern) Malwa , the Vardhanas (cf. Harsha ) in Thanesar and the Maukharis in Kannauj took over the successors.

The Late Gupta

After the Gupta disappeared, the so-called "Later Gupta" still existed in Magadha , among other things as rivals of the Maukharis . However, it is not certain whether they were already in Magadha from the early 6th century (as a branch line to the actual Gupta) or whether they initially only ruled in Malwa and only their Prince Madhavagupta was installed in Magadha by Harsha Vardhana . The last representative of the later Gupta (the "Gauda King") was eliminated in Magadha in the early 8th century by the art poet sponsor Yashovarman von Kanauj .

List of rulers of the Gupta Empire

  • Gupta (approx. 275-300)
  • Ghatotkacha (approx. 300-320)
  • Chandragupta I. (320-335)
  • Samudragupta (335-375)
  • Ramagupta at 375 (?)
  • Chandragupta II. (375-413 / 5)
  • Kumaragupta I (415-455)
  • Skandagupta (455-467)
  • Purugupta (approx. 467-472)
  • Narasimhagupta Baladitya (approx. 472/73)
  • Kumaragupta II (ca.473-476)
  • Budhagupta (approx. 476–495)
  • several heir to the throne around 500 ff., the sequence is unclear:
    • Chandragupta III.
    • Vainyagupta around 507 (in Bengal?)
    • Bhanugupta around 510 (in Malwa?)
    • Narasimhagupta Baladitya II. Approx. 500-530, abd. (in Magadha?)
  • Kumaragupta III. Kramaditya (approx. 532)
  • Vishnugupta Chandraditya (approx. 550)

See also

literature

  • Hermann Kulke , Dietmar Rothermund : History of India. From the Indus culture to today. 2nd updated reprint. CH Beck, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-406-60414-0 .
  • Fred Virkus: Political structures in the Gupta empire (300-550 AD). (= Volume 18 of the Asia and Africa Studies of the Humboldt University, Berlin). Harrassowitz-Verlag, Wiesbaden 2004, ISBN 3-447-05080-2 .
  • Joanna Gottfried Williams: The Art of Gupta India. Empire and Province. Princeton University Press, Princeton 1982, ISBN 0-691-03988-7 .

Web links

Remarks

  1. RC Majumdar, AS Altekar: Vakataka - Gupta Age Circa 200-550 AD Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi 1986, p. 2.
  2. Luciano Petech: India up to the middle of the 6th century ; in Propylaea World History, Volume II - Advanced Cultures of Middle and Eastern Asia, Ullstein Verlag, Frankfurt a. M., 1964, pp. 460 and 461
  3. The concept of the Iranian Huns goes back to the numismatic research of Robert Göbl ( documents on the history of the Iranian Huns in Bactria and India. 4 volumes. Wiesbaden 1967).
  4. Michael Alram: The history of Eastern Iran from the Greek kings in Bactria and India to the Iranian Huns (250 BC-700 AD). In: Wilfried Seipel (Hrsg.): Weihrauch und Silk. Ancient cultures on the Silk Road. Vienna 1996, pp. 119–140, here p. 138.
  5. The information in the Gwalior inscription on Mihirakula rather suggests a defeat of the Gupta, even if the Eran inscription on Bhanugupta and Goparaja could be interpreted as a victory inscription.