The supremacy of Gupta power in northern India did not remain unchallenged. The challenge came from the unexpected invasion of northwestern India by a distinctly barbaric people, the Hunas. The name is etymo- logically related to the late classical Hunni or Huns, but they were probably only remotely connected, if at all, with the barbarian hordes of Attila.
The threat was felt during the reign of Chandra Gupta’s son and successor Kumara Gupta (A.D. 415-54) when a tribe of Hunas, branching away from the main Central Asian hordes, had settled in Bactria, and gradually moved over the mountains into north-western India. Slowly the trickles became streams as the Hunas thrust further into India.
The successor of Kumara Gupta, Skanda Gupta (A.D. 454-67) had to bear the brunt of the Huna attacks, which were by now regular invasions. Gupta power weakened rapidly. By the early sixth century the Huna rulers Toramana and Mihirakula claimed the Panjab and Kashmir as part of their kingdom.
Once again northern India experienced migrations of people from Central Asia and Iran, and a pattern of readjustment followed. The coming of the Hunas not only created political disorder but also put into motion new currents whose momentum was felt for centuries to come.
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The migration of the Hunas and other Central Asian tribes accompanying them and their settling in northern India resulted in displacements of population. This disturbance led in turn to changes in the caste structure, with the emergence of new sub-castes. The rise of many small kingdoms was also due to the general confusion prevalent during this period.
With the decline of the Guptas the northern half of the subcontinent splintered into warring kingdoms, each seeking to establish itself as a sovereign power. But, unlike the picture at the end of the Mauryan period, this sovereignty was to be based on a distinct regionalism which, though blurred and confused at first, achieved clarity in later centuries.
The successors of the Guptas attempted to recreate an empire, but the political fabric was such that an empire was no longer feasible, a possible exception being the Pratihara kingdom in limited periods.
The ability to create large kingdoms and empires moved south to the powers of the peninsula-the kingdoms of the Deccan and the Tamil country. In the centuries that followed the Gupta period it was in the kingdoms of the Chalukyas, Rashtrakutas, Pallavas, and Cholas that Indian civilization showed its greatest vitality.