Gupta


 * Gupta Empire (320 AD - 550 AD)**
 * Northern Empire from the Ganges Plain
 * Exploited Agriculture and Taxation
 * Strong Army

- **Theatre State**/ A state that acquires power and wealth by developing attractive culture and staging elaborate public rituals, which bind the subjects into loyalty ---> Falls because of Huns by 550 AD

government: started by Chandra Gupta succesors: Samudra Gupta, Chandra Gupta II and Kumara Gupta had governors who had a "freer hand" and in villages council of elders rulers were Hindus but there was religious tolerance (you could practice whatever religion you wanted) influenced by Brahmin priests who supported them ruling in return for large grants of land

Society: women had very little power: couldn't own property, married early. reassertion of the importance of class and caste
 * Sati**: a widow was expected to kill herself by throwing herself onto her husbands funeral pyre. if not she was shunned