Indian Epigraphy c15.t18.1

c15.t18.1

There are certain seemingly conflicting traditions regarding the date of the accession of king Harṣa of Thanesar and Kanauj. Hiuen-tsang says : “As soon as Śīlāditya (Harṣa) became ruler, he got together a great army and set out to avenge his brother’s murder and to reduce the neighbouring countries to subjection. Proceeding eastwards, he invaded the states which had refused allegiance and waged incessant warfare until in six years he had fought the Five Indias. Then, having enlarged his territory, he increased his army bringing the elephant corps upto 60,000 and the cavalry to 100,000 and reigned in peace for thirty years without raising a weapon.”⁵ Watters points out in this connection, “We find two dates given for the death of king Śīlāditya, Chinese history placing it in the year A.D. 648 and the *Life* [of Hiuen-Tsiang by Hwui Li] in 655. Taking thirty-six years as the duration of his reign, we thus have 612 or 619 as the date of his accession. The latter date agrees with a Chinese statement that the troubles in India which led to Śīlāditya’s reign took place in the reign of T’ang Kao Tsu (A.D. 518 to 627). But the date 648, or rather 647, is perhaps the correct one. It must have been in 641 or 642 that, in conversation with our pilgrim as given in the *Life*, Śīlāditya stated that he had been sovereign for above thirty years. This also gives 612 for the year of his accession, and the addition of six years to the thirty gives 648 as the date of his death. But the Chinese envoy despatched in the early part of that year found, on his arrival in the country, the king dead and a usurper on the throne. Moreover, it was in 648 that Yuan Chwang submitted his records to T’ai Tsung, and Śīlāditya must have been dead before this work was drawn up in its present form.¹