Several industries seem to have grown under the patronage of the imperial Guptas. The casting of the wonderful iron pillar at Mehrauli would not have been possible except in a fully equipped iron and steel plant. The Allahabad pillar inscription mentions a large number of weapons which also must have been manufactured in such iron workshops.
Ship-building was another big industry which had developed in the age of the Guptas and it must have considerably facilitated the trade and colonizing activities of the Indians in that period. Silk-industry was a speciality of Dashapura. The highly developed conditions of trade and industry, in the age of the Guptas are clearly indicated also by the elaborate laws of partnership contract, foreign trade and commerce, and allied topics prescribed in the Yajnavalkya-smriti.
A striking indication of the prosperity is given by its gold coinage. This prosperity was no doubt due to great progress made in agriculture, rural economy, overland and sea borne trade and commerce, corporate activities in the economic field, and execution of works of public utility. It would appear from the testimony of the Chinese pilgrim Fa-hien (AD 399-44) that distant parts of the country, on the frontiers of the Gupta Empire, were comparatively desolate.
The holy places in North Bihar were situated in a wilderness and he saw only some priests and a few families living near the shrines. The Gangetic plain, however, was well populated and prosperous. All sorts of charitable institutions existed, and Fa-hien was particularly impressed by free-hospitals endowed by benevolence, which he describes in some detail.