Page:History of India Vol 2.djvu/292

 264 THE GUPTA EMPIRE years later. Malik Kafur, the general of Ala-ud-din, Sultan of Delhi, in the years 1309 and 1310 repeated the performance of Samudragupta, operating, however, chiefly on the eastern side of the peninsula, and penetrating even farther south than his Hindu prede- cessor. He forced his way to Ramesvara, or Adam's Bridge, opposite Ceylon, where he built a mosque, which was still standing when Firishta wrote his history in the sixteenth century. The enumeration by the courtly panegyrist of the frontier kingdoms and republics whose rulers did hom- age and paid tribute to the emperor, a title fairly earned by Samudragupta, enables the historians to define the boundaries of his dominions with sufficient accuracy, and to realize the nature of the political divisions of India in the fourth century. On the eastern side of the continent the tributary kingdoms were Samatata, or the delta of the Ganges and Brahmaputra, including the site on which Calcutta now stands; Kamarupa, or Assam; and Davaka, which seems to have corresponded with the Bogra (Bagraha), Dinajpur, and Rajshahi Districts to the north of the Ganges, lying between Samatata and Kamarupa. Far- ther west, the mountain kingdom of Nepal, then, as now, retained its autonomy under the suzerainty of the paramount power, and the direct jurisdiction of the imperial government extended only to the foot of the mountains. The kingdom of Kartripura occupied the lower ranges of the Western Himalayas, including probably Kumaon, Almora, Garhwal, and Kangra.