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284 THE GUPTA EMPIRE AND THE WHITE HUNS tion, and was presumably subordinate to the Hun chieftains. Toward the close of the fifth century, a chief named Bhatarka, who belonged to a clan called Maitraka, probably of foreign origin, established himself at Va- labhi in the east of the peninsula of Surashtra (Kathia- war), and founded a dynasty which lasted until about 770 A. D., when it was overthrown by Arab invaders from Sind. The earlier Kings of Valabhi do not appear to have been independent, and were doubtless obliged to pay tribute to the Huns; but, after the destruction of the Hun domination, the Kings of Valabhi asserted their independence, and made themselves a consider- able power in the west of India, both on the mainland and in the peninsula of Surashtra. The city was a place of great wealth when visited by Hiuen Tsang in the seventh century, and was famous in Buddhist Church history as the residence of two distinguished teachers, Gunamati and Sthiramati, in the sixth century. After the overthrow of Valabhi, its place as the chief city of Western India was taken by Anhilwara (Nahrwalah, or Patan), which retained that honour until the fifteenth century, when it was superseded by Ahmadabad. The above observations will, perhaps, give the reader all the information that he is likely to want concerning the principal native dynas- ties which inherited the fragments of the Gupta empire. But the Huns, the foreign savages who shattered that empire, merit more explicit notice. The nomad Mongol tribes known as Huns, when they moved west-