Indian Epigraphy c15.t4.49

c15.t4.49

The absence of any trace of the use of an era in the dated records of the early indigenous kings of India has to be considered along with the fact that the earliest use of the regular era in India is noticed in the epigraphic and numismatic records of foreigners. The two facts together would doubtless point to the extraneous origin of the custom of dating records according to the years of an era. It seems very probable that the use of the era in royal as well as private records was introduced and popularised in India by kings belonging to non-Indian extraction such as the Scytho-Parthians and the Kuṣāṇas.