The throne of Magadha, after the death of the grandson of Chandragupta, is stated to have been successively filled by seven Maurya kings of the family of Chandra Gupta, or ' sons of the moon,' and ten of the Suryavarsha, or ' solar kings.' It was the eighth of the latter dynasty, king Vikramaditya who, by a series of bold exploits, attained the supreme sovereignty of India, in the 56th year B.C. and whose reign forms a splendid era in the Hindu annals. The ancient Indians evince their respect to the memory of this prince, by calculating their civil time from the period of his inauguration. He was slain in his old age, in a battle against a confederacy of the princes of the Deccan, and the empire did not long remain in his family.
In A.D. 151, Sipraca, one of the Andhra tribe, usurped the throne of Magadha, and established a new dynasty of kings, which expired with Puliman or Puloma, the pious, who put an end to his life, in the year 648, by drowning himself in the holy waters of the Ganges, after the example of his grandfather, who had closed a brilliant career of conquest by a similar act of fanaticism. From this date, the empire of Magadha declined, and the greater part of India came to be divided into a number of petty sovereignties. Magadha had originally comprehended south Bihar only; but under the lunar race of kings, or Chandra Varshna, its boundaries were much extended. Under the government of the Andharas, it was again reduced to its original limits, and finally sunk in power and importance before the kingdom of Gaur or Bengal, which rose to be the first sovereignty in India, and continued long under distinct Maharajahs or great chiefs. Orissa, Gujarat, and the provinces of the Peninsula, had also their dynasties, their civil contests and petty revolutions, of which it would be useless to attempt a succinct narrative, or to advert to them farther than occasion requires in illustrating the customs, religion, and antiquities of India.
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