Sri Harsha of Kanauj

Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. The splendid empire of the Guptas was already reduced to a shadow at about the beginning of the 6th century. During the reign of its last great ruler Nara simha Gupta Baladitya, the Huns under a chieftain named Toramana wrested from the empire the province of Malwa where they established for themselves an independent kingdom. These people belonged to a race of barbarian nomadic tribes who had during the previous century occupied Turkistan and established an empire with Herat as its centre. To their onslaught the Gupta empire succumbed,_and though a branch of the imperial dynasty continued to flourish in Magadha till about 750 a.c., it no longer exercised any authority except in the immediate vicinity of the capital. With the invasion of Toramana, the imperial Guptas, for all prae tical purposes, passed out of Indian history.