Indian Epigraphy c15.s2.t8.8

c15.s2.t8.8

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.