Chandragupta I founds the Gupta Empire and inaugurates the Gupta era

Date

c. 319 to 320 CE

Category

Politics & governance

Region

Northern India (Magadha)

Era

Classical Antiquity

Significance

Around 319 to 320 CE Chandragupta I assumed the imperial title Maharajadhiraja ('great king of kings') and inaugurated the Gupta calendar era, conventionally marking the foundation of the Gupta Empire in Magadha.

A strategic marriage to the Licchavi princess Kumaradevi bolstered his legitimacy and resources, enabling the dynasty's rapid expansion under his successors. The Gupta ascendancy ended roughly five centuries of political fragmentation that had followed the collapse of the Mauryas, and ushered in a period later celebrated as the 'Golden Age' of classical India. Over the next two and a half centuries Gupta patronage and relative stability nurtured extraordinary achievements in mathematics and astronomy (the mature decimal system, Aryabhata), Sanskrit literature and drama (Kalidasa), sculpture and temple architecture, medicine, and metallurgy. The Gupta period also saw a resurgence of classical Hinduism alongside continued Buddhist and Jain activity, shaping the religious and cultural template of South Asia for centuries.

Empires active in c. 319 to 320 CE

• Kingdom of Funan
  50 CE to 550 CE
• Roman Empire
  27 BCE to 476 CE
• Sassanid Empire
  224 CE to 651 CE
• Teotihuacan
  100 BCE to 750 CE
• Pyu City-States
  200 BCE to 1050 CE
• Kushan Empire
  30 CE to 375 CE

Related politics & governance events

• Ardashir I defeats the Parthians at Hormozdgan and founds the Sasanian Empire
  28 April 224 CE
• Constantine dedicates Constantinople as a new capital
  11 May 330 CE
• Diocletian establishes the Tetrarchy
  293 CE (system begun 284 to 286)
• Deposition of Romulus Augustulus ends the Western Roman Empire
  4 September 476 CE
• Abdication of Emperor Xian ends the Han; Three Kingdoms begin
  220 CE
• Augustus founds the Principate (First Settlement)
  16 January 27 BCE

Essential reading

• Antonine Plague
  165-180 CE
• Nagarjuna Founds the Madhyamaka School and Systematises Mahayana Philosophy
  c. 150 CE
• Cai Lun standardises papermaking
  105 CE
• Volcanic Winter of 536 and Onset of the Late Antique Little Ice Age
  536 to 537 CE

Further reading

Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the Present

The wider story

Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the Present

Christopher I. Beckwith

Sets the Silk Road-era Kushans in their wider Central Asian world.

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