Indian Epigraphy c15.t5.4

c15.t5.4

When the successors of an early Gupta king counted the year of a record not from their own first regnal year but from that of a particular ancestor of theirs, the reckoning came automatically to be an era and the said ancestor of later Gupta kings became the founder of an era without proclaiming it himself. Years of the era are usually referred to just like regnal years and, for some time to come, without any specification at all.¹ Soon, however, the reckoning came to be distinguished as the era of the Guptas. Of course there is also evidence of the institution of an era by the beating of drums;² but, in the early cases, the above appears to have been the usual process. The causes leading to the continuation of the regnal reckoning of a king after his death may be different in diverse cases.³