Sthita-varman, the tenth ruler of Kamarupa, formerly a longtime vassal state of the Imperial Guptas, asserts his independence around 565 from the Later Guptas, angering them in the process.

Kamarupa’s King Sthiha-varman dies in 585, having successfully resisted efforts by the Later Gupta rulers of Magadha to dislodge him.

His son succeeds him as Susthita-varman.

Mahasena Gupta, one of the so-called Later Gupta monarchs, is from about 575 assaulted from the east by the king of Kamarupa, Susthita Varman from the west, by the Maukhari ruler, Sharva-varman; and from the north by Songtsän Gampo, who will soon found the Tibetan Empire.

Mahasena Gupta, his crisis compounded by the defection of his vassal Shashanka, abandons his core state in Magadha and establishes his seat of government in his western territories of Malwa.

The younger son of Susthita Varman succeeds him in 600 as King Bhaskar Varman of Kamarupa, faced with the task of rebuilding the ravaged kingdom.

Harsha Vardhana, a sixteen-year-old prince of the former Gupta vassal kingdom of Thaneswar (Sthanvisvara), near Delhi, is enthroned in 606 following the slaying of his elder brother by Shashanka, the king of Gauda.

Harsha, who inherited the throne by agreeing to share power with his sister, the widowed queen of the Maukharis, moves his capital from Thaneswar to the Maukhari capital of Kananuj.

Aiming to avenge his brother’s death and restore the scope of the Gupta empire, Harsha, allies with King Bhaskaravarman of Kamarupa.

Gaining influence from Assam in the east to Gujarat in the west, Harsha will over the next several years rebuild his kingdom on a feudal rather than a centralized basis.

The expansionist King Harsha of Thaneswar pushes eastward across the North Indian Plain around 618, meeting no resistance and gaining the allegiance of several petty kings.

Shashanka of Gauda, faced with Harsha’s army of fifty thousand foot soldiers, twenty thousand cavalry, and five thousand elephants, forfeits (either through battle defeat or pragmatic politics; scholars are uncertain) some territory in Pundra-vardhana, which Harsha divides with his ally, Bhaskara Varman of Kamarupa.

Xuanzang, after crossing the Karatoya, goes east to the ancient city of Pragjyotishpur (modern Guwahati) in the kingdom of Kamarupa (modern Assam) at the invitation of its king Kumar Bhaskara Varman, who, though he is a Hindu of the Brahmin caste, nevertheless patronizes Buddhism.

The people of Kamarupa worship the Devas and do not believe in Buddhism.

The Deva-temples are some hundreds in number and the various systems have some myriads of professed adherents.

The few Buddhists in the country perform their acts of devotion in secret.

The pilgrim-monk learns from the people that to the east of the country is a series of hills that reach as far as the borders of China.

The inhabitants of these hills are akin to the "Man of the Lao".

Later, the king escorts Xuanzang back to ...

...Kannauj, at the request of king Harshavardhana, who is an ally of Kumar Bhaskara Varman, to attend a great Buddhist council here that is attended by both the kings, as well as eighteen other monarchs and thousands of pilgrims.

A Chinese embassy attends on the invitation of Emperor Harsha.

Xuanzang turns southward and travels to Andhradesa to visit the famous viharas at Nagarjunakonda and …

…Amaravathi, where he stays to study 'Abhidhammapitakam'.

He observes that there are many viharas at Amaravati and some of them are deserted.