Indian Epigraphy c15.s2.t3.9

c15.s2.t3.9

Mādhavacandra, commentator on Nemicandra’s Trilokasāra, understood by the expression Śaka-rāja the Śaka king named Vikramāṅka (Vikramāditya).⁷ This makes the difference between the Vīra-nirvāṇa and Vikrama eras 605 years and 5 months and therefore gives 740 years between the Vīranirvāṇa and Śaka eras. Some other Digambara writers have also followed this tradition.¹ Certain authors of the Digambara sect have moreover given various durations of the intervening period between the Vīra-nirvāṇa and the Śaka eras, such as 461, 9795 and 149793 years.² These conflicting traditions clearly show that the era was fabricated at a much later date. There is no literary or epigraphic record of the first millennium after Mahāvīra’s nirvāṇa, which uses the era. The era was never a popular reckoning in regular use.