Sri Gupta

Sri Gupta
Founder of Gupta Empire
Reign	240-280 CE
Successor	Ghatotkacha
Issue	Ghatotkacha
Dynasty	Gupta

Śri Gupta (r. 240 – 280 CE) was a pre-imperial Gupta king in northern India and the founder of the Gupta dynasty. Northern or central Bengal might have been the home of Guptas at that time, however little evidence is available.

The Poona copper inscription of Prabhavati Gupta, a daughter of Chandragupta II, describes "Maharaja Sri-Gupta" as the founder of the Gupta dynasty. Sri Gupta is identified with the king Che-li-ki-to mentioned in the writings of the Chinese traveller Yijing, who wrote around 690 CE, and described the king as having ruled 500 years earlier. According to Yijing's account, Śri Gupta ordered the construction of a temple at Mṛgaśikhāvana for the use of Buddhist pilgrims coming from China, endowing it with the revenue from 40 villages.

Historian A. K. Narain (1983) noted that contemporary scholarship is unaware of Śri Gupta's religious affiliation, due to the lack of surviving evidence. Narain suggested that because he constructed a temple for Chinese Buddhist pilgrims, Śri Gupta himself was a follower of the Hindu sect of Vaiṣṇavism who was tolerant of Buddhist activity in his kingdom. This latter scenario would have been comparable with the later Gupta monarchs, who were predominantly Vaiṣṇavites, but under whose regimes heterodox religious movements like Buddhism and Jainism were allowed to flourish.

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