260 THE GUPTA EMPIRE reader of that of Akbar as depicted by his no less par- tial biographer, Abul Fazl. By a strange irony of fate this great king warrior, poet, and musician who conquered all India, and whose alliance extended from the Oxus to Ceylon, is unknown even by name to the earlier historians of India. His lost fame has been slowly recovered by the minute and laborious study of inscriptions and coins during the last seventy years, and the fact that it is now possible to write a long narrative of the events of his memorable reign is perhaps the most conspicuous illustration of the success gained by patient archaeo- logical research in piecing together the fragments, from which alone the chart of the authentic early history of India can be constructed. The exact year of Samudragupta's death is not known, but he certainly lived to an advanced age, and enjoyed a reign of uninterrupted prosperity for about half a century. Before he passed away, he secured the peaceful transmission of the crown by nominating as his successor, from among many sons, the offspring of his queen, Datta Devi, whom he rightly deemed worthy to inherit a magnificent empire. The son thus selected, who had probably been asso- ciated as crown prince (yuvaraja) with his father in the cares of government, assumed the name of his grand- father, in accordance with Hindu custom, and is there- fore distinguished in the dynastic list as Chandra- gupta n. He also took the title of Vikramaditya (" sun of power "), and has a better claim than any other
