Indian Epigraphy c15.s2.t8: 8. Nanda Era
Indian Epigraphy c15.s2.t8
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8. Nanda Era
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R. C. Majumdar⁴ draws our attention to the Yedarave inscription of Cālukya Vikramāditya VI, which is said to contain the following statement, with reference to the foundation of the Cālukya-Vikrama era : “Having said, ‘Why should the glory of the kings Vikramāditya and Nanda be a hindrance any longer?', he (i.e. Vikramāditya VI), with a loudly uttered command, abolished that [era] which has the name of Śaka and made that [era] which has the Cālukya counting.”¹ In Majumdar’s opinion the passage refers to an era founded by the Nandas. But the reading *nanda* in the passage in question is avowedly doubtful and seems to be wrong. The word expected in the context is *Śaka*. In any case, there is no evidnece in Indian epigraphic and literary records of the existence of a Nanda era. As we have seen, the use of the reckoning in eras was introduced into India by the foreigners long after the Nandas.
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⁴ *JBORS*, September-December 1923, pp. 1-2 of offprint.
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¹ Cf. Bomb. Gaz., Vol. I, Part ii, p. 447.
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9. Era of Samprati
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The era of the Maurya king Samprati is sometimes referred to on the basis of Jain sources.² It is another fictitious reckoning.
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² Smith, E. Hist. Ind., 1924, p. 202, note.
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10. Āguptāyika Era
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The Gokak plates³ of the Rāṣṭrakūṭa king Dejja-mahārāja has the following passage to indicate the year when the charter was issued—*Āguptāyikānām rājñām=aṣṭāsu varṣa-śateṣu pañca-catvāriṃśad-agreṣu gateṣu*, ‘when 845 years of the Āguptāyika kings had expired.’ There is no means to determine exactly the period when Dejja-mahārāja flourished excepting the fact that the plates may be assiged on palaeographical grounds to a date about the middle of the 7th century A.D. It is not improbable that he ruled in the Belgaum region during the interval between the death of Cālukya Pulakeśin II in 642 A.D. and the accession of Vikramāditya I in 655 A.D., when the Cālukya suzerainty was shadowed by the occupation of the southern part of the Cālukya empire by the Pallava king Narasimhavarman I.⁴ If such was the case, the origin of the Āguptāyika era may be roughly assigned to 845—645=200 B.C. But we are entirely in the dark about an era with this epoch, nor have we any information about a ruling family called Āguptāyika. The date portion of the Gokak plates will remain a mystery till further light is thrown on the subject. But we can scarcely accept the evidence of a single inscription regarding the existence of a genuine era starting from about 200 B.C. in the face of overwhelming negative evidence. The tradition about the era recorded in the Gokak plates seems to be based on a local story of Āguptāyika rule starting 854 years previously. The story may have been fabricated by the astronomer at Dejja-mahārāja's court.
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³ Ed. Ind., Vol. XXI, p. 289.
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⁴ The Classical Age, ed. Majumdar, p. 241.