Indian Epigraphy c15.t5.43

c15.t5.43

Of the Scytho-Parthian and Kaniṣka eras, the founder of the latter is the earliest of the several Kuṣāṇa kings named Kaniṣka. The initiator of the earlier reckoning is not apparent from the Scytho-Parthian records themselves. We have not been able as yet to trace dates in the first half of the 1st century of the Scytho-Parthian era. It is interesting to note that the earliest extant historical reckonings of India, viz. the Vikrama and Śaka eras of 58 B.C. and 78 A.D. respectively, have epochs falling exactly in the Scytho-Parthian and Kuṣāṇa periods of Indian history. There is no doubt that these foreign dynasties established themselves in India considerably after the early Indo-Greek kings Demetrius and Eucratides who belonged to the first half of the 2nd century B.C. On the other hand, the rule of the later Kuṣāṇa kings who held Mathura has to be placed considerably earlier than 380 A.D., the date of the Mathura inscription¹ of Candragupta II, as the Purāṇic traditions assign seven generations of Nāga rulers to Mathura immediately before the Guptas.² The suggestion is not only supported by Kuṣāṇa and Gupta palaeography, but also by the fact that the Sanchi inscription of Vāsiṣka is palaeographically earlier than the Sanchi (Kanakhera) record³ of the Śaka Śrīdharavarman probably dated 279 A.D.