THE AGE OF THE IMPERIAL GUPTAS

About the Book:-The following six lectures on the ‘Age of the Imperial Guptas’ were delivered at the Hindu University by the late Prof. R. D. Banerjee in 1924. This book is a very important epoch in Ancient Indian History and the need of the handy volume dealing with the history and many-sided activities of the age was long felt. Some writers have dealt with the political history of the period. Others have contributed a few notes discussing some of the problems of the Gupta administration. But no book has been so far published which delineates with a masterly hand the multifarious manifestations of the spirit of the age. The author has attempted this task in these lectures, and the reader will find in the following pages an account not only of the Gupta chronology and administration but also of the literary and religious revival, and of the architectural, sculptural and numismatic achievements of the age. The book is far from a mere compilation, the writer has suggested a number of new and interesting solutions of several controversial problems in the political and administrative history of the period, and his treatment of the architecture and plastic art of the age, coming as it does from the masterly pen of the mature archaeologist, will be found to be particularly fresh and illuminating.