Parivrājaka and Uccakalpa mahārājas

Feudatories of the Guptas

Both families held territory in the hill country of what is now Bundelkhand and Baghelkhand and used the title mahārāja while acknowledging Gupta overlordship. Their charters — a dozen or so plates between them — are dated in the Gupta era, which makes them valuable for chronology, and they record village grants to brahmins in the standard form.

The Parivrājaka family claimed descent from the sage Bharadvāja and used a name meaning wandering ascetic, which is unusual for a ruling house and has not been satisfactorily explained.

These dynasties matter chiefly for what they show about the structure of the Gupta empire. Beneath the imperial house there were dozens of such families, holding land with the right to make their own grants and to date documents in the imperial era, and it is this layer that emerged as independent kingdoms when the centre failed in the sixth century.