Fall of the Gupta Empire

The Gupta Empire, which had presided over a celebrated era of Indian art, science and literature often called India's classical age, went into terminal decline over the fifth and sixth centuries CE under a combination of external invasion and internal fragmentation. Nomadic Huna peoples first threatened the empire's northwest under the Kidarites around the end of Kumaragupta I's reign in the mid-fifth century, and the emperor Skandagupta repelled a major Huna attack around 455 CE, though the war drained the treasury and the empire was already visibly weakening by his death around 467. A more severe wave of Alchon Hun invaders under the rulers Toramana and Mihirakula broke through Gupta defenses in the northwest during the late 490s, and by 500 CE had overrun much of the empire's territory, even as the Guptas' own feudatory vassals, including the Pushyamitras and the ruler Yashodharman, seized the opportunity to break away and further fragment central authority. Although a Gupta ruler drove the Huns back by 528, the dynasty never recovered its former reach, and the last known inscription of a reigning Gupta emperor dates to around 542 to 543 CE, after which northern India split into numerous smaller regional kingdoms.