GUNTHER OF SCHWARZBURG (1304-1349)  , German king, was a descendant of the counts of Schwarzburg and the younger son of Henry VII., count of Blankenburg . He distinguished himself as a soldier, and rendered good service to the emperor Louis IV., on whose death in 1347 he was offered the German throne, after it had been refused by Edward III., king of England . He was elected German king at Frankfort on the 3oth of January 1349 ' by four of the electors, who were partisans of the house of Wittelsbach and opponents of Charles of Luxemburg, afterwards the emperor Charles IV . Charles, however, won over many of Gunther's adherents, defeated him at Eltville, and Gunther, who was now seriously ill, renounced his claims for the sum of 20,000 marks of silver . He died three weeks afterwards at Frankfort, from the 26th of February, A.D . 320 . Chandragupta was succeeded by Samudragupta (c . A.D . 326—375), one of the greatest of Indian kings, who conquered nearly the whole of India, and whose alliances extended from the Oxus to Ceylon; but his name was at one time entirely lost to history, and has only been recovered of recent years from coins and inscriptions . His empire rivalled that of Asoka, extending from the Hugli on the cast to the Jumna and Chambal on the west, and from the foot of the Himalayas on the north to the Nerbudda on the south . His son Chandragupta II . (c .

A.D . 375—413) was also known as Vikra-Maditya (q.v.), and seems to have been theoriginalof the mythical

Hindu king of that name . About 388 he conquered the Saka satrap of Surashtra (Kathiawar) and penetrated to the Arabian Sea . His administration is described in the work of Fa-hien, the earliest Chinese pilgrim, who visited India in A.D . 405-411 . Pataliputra was the capital of the dynasty, but Ajodhya seems to have been sometimes used by both Samudragupta and Chandragupta II. as the headquarters of government . The Gupta dynasty appears to have fostered a revival of Brahmanism at the expense of Buddhism, and to have given an impulse to art and literature . The golden age of the empire lasted from A.D . 330 to 455, beginning to decline after the latter date . When Skandagupta came to the throne in 455, India was threatened with an irruption of the White Huns, on whom he inflicted a severe defeat, thus saving his kingdom for a time; but about 470 the White Huns (see EPUTHALITES) returned to the attack, and the empire was gradually destroyed by their repeated inroads . When Skandagupta died about 480, the Gupta empire came to an end, but the dynasty continued to rule in the eastern provinces for several generations . The last known prince of the imperial line of Guptas was Kamaragupta II .

(c . 535), after whom it passed " by an obscure transition " into a dynasty of eleven Gupta princes, known as " the later Guptas of

Magadha," who seem for the most part to have been merely local rulers of Magadha . One of them, however, Adityasena, after the death of the paramount sovereign in 648, asserted his independence . The last known Gupta king was Jivitagupta II., who reigned early in the 8th century . About the middle of the century Magadha passed under the sway of the Pal kings of Bengal . See J . F . Fleet, Gupta Inscriptions (1888) ; and Vincent A . Smith, The Early History of India (2nd ed., Oxford, 1908), pp . 264-295 .