Page:History of India Vol 2.djvu/290

 252 THE GUPTA EMPIRE in the remote south. His treatment of the rajas of the north was drastic, for we are told that they were " forcibly rooted up," a process which necessarily in- volved the incorporation of their territories in the dominions of the victor. Among the nine names men- tioned, only one can be recognized with certainty, that of Ganapati Naga, whose capital was at Padmavati, or Narwar, a famous city, which still exists in the terri- tories of the Maharaja Sindia. The greater part of these northern conquests must have been completed, and the subjugated territories absorbed, before Samudragupta ventured to undertake the invasion of the kingdoms of the south a task which demanded uncommon boldness in design and masterly powers of organization and execution. The invader, marching due south from the capital, through Chutia Nagpur, directed his first attack against the kingdom of South Kosala in the valley of the Mahanadi, and overthrew its king, Mahendra. Passing on, he subdued all the chiefs of the forest countries, which still retain their ancient wildness, and constitute the tributary states of Orissa and the more backward parts of the Central Provinces. The principal of those chiefs, who bore the appropriate name of Vyaghra Raja, or the Tiger King, is not otherwise known to history. At this stage of the campaign, the main difficulties must have been those of transport and supply, for the ill- armed forest tribes could not have offered serious mili- tary resistance to a well equipped army. Still advancing southwards, by the east coast road,