Chandragupta I and the Gupta era

Gupta inscriptions are dated in an era whose first year began in 319-320 CE. Fleet fixed the epoch in 1888 from the dated inscriptions and al-Biruni's eleventh-century account of it. The first of the family to take the title maharajadhiraja, king of great kings, was Chandragupta I, and the era is generally counted from his accession, though no inscription says so.

Gold coins of the king-and-queen type show Chandragupta with Kumaradevi and name her people, the Licchavis, the old ruling clan of Vaishali; his son Samudragupta called himself the daughter's son of the Licchavis. The marriage probably brought the Guptas land and prestige in north Bihar. Whether the coins were struck by Chandragupta or by his son in his memory is debated, and where the family began, Magadha or the country around Prayaga, is unknown.