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Indian Epigraphy c15.t6: 1. Vikrama Era

Indian Epigraphy c15.t6

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1. Vikrama Era

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¹ See Vikrama Volume, op. cit., pp. 579 ff.; The Age of Imperial Unity, p. 125, note; Proc. IHC, Gwalior, pp. 371 ff. For various references, see The Age of Imperial Unity, ed. Majumdar, pp. 679-80.

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If the Scytho-Parthian era has to be identified with the Vikrama-saṃvat, we have to determine as to how it came to be associated with the name of Vikramāditya. The earlier records bearing dates in this era naturally do not call it by a specific name. The earliest epigraphs that have a name for the reckoning have been discovered in Rajasthan. Slightly later records associate the era with the Mālava tribe and afterwards with the lord or lords of Mālava or the Mālavas. Finally, in the 8th century A.D., the reckoning was connected with the name of king Vikramāditya. A few instances may be quoted to illustrate the different stages.

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(1) Year 282—Nandsa (former Udaipur State, Rajasthan) inscription² of Śaktigaṇaguru—Kṛtayor=dvayor=varṣa-śatayor=dvaśītayoḥ 282.

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² Bhandarkar's List, No. 1. The latest epigraph referring to the Kṛta era is the Mungthala (former Sirohi State, Rajasthan) inscription of the Kṛta year 894 (JUPHS, New Series, Vol. III, pp. 1 ff.).

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(2) Year 295—Badva (former Kotah State, Rajasthan) inscription³ of the Maukharis—Kṛtehi 295.

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³ Select Inscriptions, pp. 92-93. The word kṛtehi has been corrected to kṛtaiḥ.

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(3) Year 428—Bijaygarh (former Bharatpur State, Rajasthan) inscription⁴ of Viṣṇuvardhana—Kṛteṣu caturṣu varṣa-śateṣu=aṣṭaviṃśeṣu 428.

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⁴ Bhandarkar's List, No. 2.

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(4) Year 461—Mandasor (former Gwalior State) inscription⁵ of Naravarman—śrī-Mālava-gaṇ-āmnāte praśaste Kṛta-saṃjñite | ekaṣaṣṭy-adhike prāpte samā-śata-catuṣṭaye || (5) Year 480—Gangdhar (former Jhalawar State, Rajasthan) inscription¹ of Viśvavarman—*yāteṣu caturṣu Kṛteṣu śateṣu saumyeṣv=āśita-sottara-padeṣv=iha vatsareṣu*.

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⁵ Select Inscriptions, p. 377.

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¹ Ibid., p.

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(6) Year 481—Nagari (former Udaipur State, Rajasthan) inscription² of some Vaiśyas—*Kṛteṣu caturṣu varṣa-śateṣu=ekāśīty-uttareṣu=asyāṁ Mālava-pūrvāyām*.

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² Bhandarkar’s List, No. 5.

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(7) Year 493—Mandasor inscription³ mentioning Kumāragupta and Bhandhuvarman—*Mālavānāṁ gaṇa-sthityā yāte śata-catuṣṭaye | trinavaty-adhike=bdānāṁ=ṛtau śavya-ghanastane* ||

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³ *Select Inscriptions*, p. 295.

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(8) Year 524—Mandasor inscription⁴ of the time of Prabhākara—*vikhyāpake Mālava-vaṁśa-kīrtteḥ | śarad-gaṇe pañca-śate vyatīte tri-ghātīt-aṣṭ-ābhyadhike krameṇa* ||

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⁴ Bhandarkar’s List, No. 7.

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(9) Year 589—Mandasor inscription⁵ of Yaśodharman Viṣṇuvardhana—*pañcasu śateṣu śaradāṁ yāteṣu=ekānnavati-sahiteṣu | Mālava-gaṇa-sthiti-vaśāt=kāla-jñānāya likhiteṣu* ||

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⁵ *Select Inscriptions*, p. 391.

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(10) A number of epigraphs⁶ from the 5th century of the era referring to the year simply as *śarat*, *varṣa*, *saṁvatsara* (or contracted to *saṁ* or *saṁvat*) and also as *rājya-saṁvatsara*.⁷

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⁶ Bhandarkar’s List, Nos. 10-15, 19, 21-23, 26, etc.

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⁷ Cf. Mandasor inscription of Naravarman of the year 474 (*Ep. Ind.*, Vol. XXVI, pp. 131-32).

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(11) Year 770—Chitorgarh (former Udaipur State, Rajasthan) inscription⁸ of Māna—the year apparently of ‘the lord of men, the king of Mālava’ the original possibly having *Mālaveśa* or *Mālavendra*.

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⁸ Bhandarkar’s List, No. 16.

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(12) Year 794—Dhiniki (former Okhamandal State, Kathiawar) inscription⁹ of Jāikadeva—*Vikrama-saṁvatsara-śateṣu saptasu catur-navaty-adhikeṣu=aṅkataḥ* 794.

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⁹ Ibid., No.

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(13) Year 795—Kanaswa (former Kotah State, Rajasthan) inscription¹⁰ of Śivagaṇa—*saṁvatsara-śatair=yātaiḥ sa-pañcanavaty-argalaiḥ | saptabhir=Mālaveśānām*.

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³⁸² The word *kṛteṣu* has been corrected to *kṛteṣu*.

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¹⁷ Some scholars think that the record is spurious.

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¹⁰ Ibid., No. 18.

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(14) Year 898—Dholpur (Rajasthan) inscription¹ of Caṇḍamahāsena—*vasu-navak-aṣṭau varṣā-gatasya kālasya Vikram-ākhyasya*.

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¹ Ibid., No. 27.

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(15) Year 936—Gyaraspur (former Gwalior State) inscription³—*Mālava-kālē=charadāṁ ṣaṭtriṁśat-saṁyukteṣu=atīteṣu navasu śateṣu*.

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³ Ibid., No. 48; cf. also Nos. 67, etc.

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(16) Year 973—Bijapur (former Jodhpur State, Rajasthan) inscription⁴ of Dhavala—*rāma-giri-kalite Vikrama-kāle gate*.

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(17) Year 1005—Bodhgayā (Bihar) inscription⁴—‘year of the era of Vikramāditya’ (cf. another record which has *Vikramādity-otpādita-saṁvatsara*).⁵

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⁴ Ibid., No. 63; cf. also Nos. 80, etc.

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⁵ Ibid., No. 141.

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(18) Year 1086—Radhanpur (Gujarat) inscription⁶ of Bhīma I—*Vikrama-saṁvat* 1086 (cf. other records⁷ referring to king Vikrama as Vikramendra and Vikramārka).

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⁶ Ibid., No. 117.

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⁷ Ibid., Nos. 134, 169, etc.

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(19) Year 1103—Tilakwara (former Baroda State) inscription⁸ of Yaśorāja—*vatsarair=Vikramādityaiḥ śatair=ekā-daśais=tathā | try-uttaraiḥ*.

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⁸ Ibid., No. 128.

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It will be seen that the reckoning was at first known as the Kṛta era and was prevalent in Rajasthan and Malwa. Soon it began to be associated with the Mālava tribe and was styled ‘era handed down by the Mālava Republic,’ ‘the year counted in accordance with the custom established by (or, from the foundation of) the Mālava Republic’ and ‘the *pūrvā*⁹ of the Mālavas’. It was also known as the era ‘that speaks of the glory of the Mālava race’, and later as the era (*kāla*) belonging to the Mālava country or to the king or kings of Mālava. Sometime later, the era was further associated with Vikramāditya.¹

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² Ibid., No. 37.

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⁹ As we have seen above, the word *pūrvā* really refers to a *tithi*, though in this case it seems to be used in a wider sense of ‘a date’ or ‘a reckoning’.

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¹ According to medieval tradition, king Vikramāditya of Ujjayinī defeated the Śakas and founded his era in 58 B.C. But it is clearly against the known facts of history. See *Vikrama Volume*, pp. 483 ff.

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When Alexander invaded India in the 4th century B.C., the Mālava (Malloi) tribe lived on the Ravi in the Punjab which was under Scytho-Parthian domination in the 1st century B.C. and the 1st century A.D. Owing probably to foreign pressure, the Mālavas moved towards Rajasthan where their existence is proved by an inscription² of Ṛṣabhadatta (c. 119-23 A.D.) and by the discovery of thousands of coins with the legend *Mālavānāṁ jayaḥ* at Nagar (ancient Mālava-nagara)³ in the former Jaipur State.⁴ The Mālavas must have also later settled in the ancient *janapadas* of Avanti and Ākara which came to be known as Mālava by the 7th century A.D. It is possible to suggest that the Mālava Republic was subjugated by the early Guptas in the 4th century A.D. and that the Aulikara family which enjoyed the viceregal position in Malwa under the Imperial Guptas, but which used the Kṛta and not the Gupta era, was a Mālava family. Thus it appears that the Mālava tribe carried the Kṛta or Scytho-Parthian era to Rajasthan and Malwa from their original home in the Punjab. When the memory of the Mālava tribe and its Republic was dimmed and the name Mālava only indicated a particular *janapada*, the era came to be associated with the Mālava country or with the king or kings of Mālava. The whole of the Malwa region was annexed to the Gupta empire by Candragupta II Vikramāditya (376-414 A.D.) who extirpated the Śakas of Western India about the end of the 4th century. From this time, Ujjayinī in Malwa became a secondary capital of the Gupta emperors and Candragupta II gradually became famous in Indian tradition and folk-lore as Vikramāditya Śakāri, the lord of Ujjayinī, even though the achievements of other Vikramādityas especially of the Imperial Gupta family contributed to the growth of the Vikramāditya saga.¹ Thus, in the early medieval period, ‘the lord of Mālava’ *par excellence* was no other than Vikramāditya (Candragupta II), and it was then quite natural to identify the Mālaveśa, with whom the Kṛta era came to be associated after the subjugation of the Mālava-gaṇa, with the great Vikramāditya of tradition. It must be remembered that there is no genuine evidence to prove the existence of a Vikramāditya, as a matter of fact, of any king having a title ending in *āditya*, before the 4th century A.D. and that the epoch of an era is never associated with Vikramāditya in records earlier than the 8th century A.D. It was only in the medieval period that, with the development of the Vikramāditya saga, the old Kṛta or Scytho-Parthian era introduced in Western India by the Mālavas began to be called ‘the era of Vikrama’, ‘the era known as Vikrama or Vikramāditya’ and later also ‘the era founded by Vikramāditya’.²

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² *Select Inscriptions*, p. 162.

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³ *Bhārata Kaumudī*, Part I, p. 272.

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⁴ Smith, *Catalogue*, pp. 161-52, 170 ff.

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¹ For the development of the Vikramāditya tradition, see H.C. Raychaudhuri’s ‘Vikramāditya in History and Legend’ in *Vikrama Volume*, pp. 483ff. Some writers of the medieval period, e.g., Kālidāsa, author of the *Jyotirvidābharaṇa*, and Harisvāmin, commentator on the Ṛgveda, tried to imply that their works were composed under the patronage of king Vikramāditya in the first century B.C. Cf. Ojha, *Bhāratīya Prācin Lipimālā*, pp. 166, note 1; *Bhāratīya Vidyā*, Vol. IX, 1948, pp. 325-90.

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² Cf. the association of the Śaka era with Śālivāhana from the 13th century A.D.

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We have seen that the Vikrama-saṃvat was earlier known as Kṛta. The word is sometimes taken to mean ‘made’, i.e. invented by astronomers. But the theory is improbable as the era, the years of which can be traced from its first century, was apparently the continuation of a regnal reckoning. According to another theory, Kṛta was the name of a king who founded the era.³ It has also been conjectured that Kṛta was the name of a *gaṇa-mukhya* of the Mālava tribe or that it indicates an era supposed to have been handed down from the Kṛta-yuga or the Golden Age. These are, however, guesses that it is impossible to substantiate with any evidence in the present state of our knowledge. Sometimes the word is taken to be actually *kṛta*,¹ ‘purchased’, pointing to the origin of the reckoning with the barbarian kings of North-Western India who, according to a Buddhist tradition recorded by Hiuen-tsang,² were known as ‘the Purchased’. But, though we have early instances of spelling the word as *kṛta* which may be a mistake for *krīta*, the suggestion does not satisfactorily explain the substitution of *kṛta* for *krīta* unless it is supposed that the word is an Indian modification of a foreign expression. This however is not improbable since Krīta as the name of a foreign people is mentioned in an early medieval inscription.³

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³ For Kṛta as a personal name, see Penzer, *Ocean of Stories*, Vol. III, p. 19.

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¹ Cf. *Select Inscriptions*, p. 288, note.

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² Watters, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 265.

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³ *Ep. Ind.*, Vol. XXXIII, p. 152.

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As regards the founder of the Kṛta-Mālava-Vikrama-saṃvat, we should naturally look for a powerful Scytho-Parthian king who began to rule in 58 B.C. Some scholars have suggested the name of Azes I.⁴ But the probable identification of the era with the older Scytho-Parthian reckoning renders it untenable in view of the fact that Maues, the predecessor of Azes I in the Indian possessions of the Śakas, is known from the Taxila inscription of Patika to have been ruling in the year 78 of the era.⁵ It is interesting to note in this connection that the earliest local Parthian ruler of East Iran, who is known from his coins to have assumed the imperial title ‘Great King of Kings’, was Vonones who must have flourished sometime after the Parthian emperor Mitridates II (123-88 B.C.) as the latter assumed the said title for the first time. Since the name of the month mentioned in the date of the Taxila inscription is Graeco-Parthian, it has been rightly suggested that the era used in that record is of Parthian origin and that it marks the establishment of a new kingdom in East Iran.⁶ It is thus quite probable that the first year of the reign of Vonones, the earliest independent Parthian ruler of East Iran, came to be regarded as the beginning of a new reckoning that was instituted to oust the Imperial Parthian era of 248 B.C. As Vonones seems to have flourished shortly after Mithridates II about the middle of the 1st century B.C., it is not unreasonable to place his accession in 58 B.C. which is the epoch of the earliest extant Indian reckoning of a historical character.¹ The use of the era seems to have been introduced in Sind and the adjoining regions by the Śaka feudatories of Vonones, and the Mālavas, who originally lived in the Punjab within the dominions of these Śakas, carried its use to Rajasthan and the neighbouring areas with their migration to those parts.

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⁴ *Camb. Hist. Ind.*, Vol. I, p. 576.

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⁵ *Select Inscriptions*, p. 120.

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⁶ Cf. *Camb. Hist. Ind.*, Vol. I, p. 570.

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¹ See *The Age of Imperial Unity*, pp. 123, 125 note.

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The earliest use of the Kṛta-Mālava era outside the western and north-western parts of India is found in the Haraha (Bara Banki District, U.P.) inscription of Maukhari Īśānavarman, dated in the year 611. The use of the era by the Maukharis of U. P. and Bihar is clearly explained by the Badva inscriptions of the third century A.D., found in the Kotah region of Rajasthan. These records belong to the Maukharis and are dated in the Kṛta-Mālava era. The Maukharis, therefore, appear to have carried the use of the above era from their home in Rajasthan to their new settlements in the east. There is no doubt that they were originally subordinate to the Mālavas, and it is probable that they really belonged to the Mālava stock.²

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² It is interesting to note in this connection that the Maukharis claimed king Aśvapati as their progenitor while the same epic ruler is represented in the *Mahābhārata* (III. 296. 59-60) as the progenitor of the Mālavas. See *Ind. Cult.*, Vol. I, pp. 298 ff.

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Another factor that contributed to the expansion of the era was probably the Ujjayinī school of astronomers who appear to have favoured both the Śaka and Vikrama eras, some of them specially favouring the era of 58 B.C., the foreign association of which had been long ago forgotten. Its use was continued in U. P. by the Malayaketus and the Gurjara-Pratihāras. That the era was introduced in Bihar as well seems to be suggested by the date Saṃvat 898, quoted in Maithila Vācaspati Miśra's *Nyāyasūci* as the year of its composition and a manuscript of the Rāmāyaṇa known to have been copied in Tīrabhukti (Tirhut) in Saṃvat 1076.¹ With the gradual extension of the Gurjara-Pratihāra power over wide regions of Northern India, the popularity of the era of 58 B.C. increased considerably. Another contributing cause of its popularity was the development of the Vikramāditya saga.

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¹ Cf. Ep. Ind., Vol. XXIX, pp. 52-53.

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The Vikrama-saṃvat is believed to have started after year 3044 of the Kali era, so that Kali 3045=Vikrama 1. One gets the years of the Śaka and Christian eras by subtracting 135 and 57 or 56 respectively from the years of the Vikrama. The beginning of the Vikrama is counted from Caitra-śukla 1 in North India but from Kārttika-śukla 1 in South India. Thus the years of the era now start seven months earlier in the South than in the North, although in medieval times the years of the Vikrama were counted as beginning from Kārttika-śukla 1 also in North India.² In the North again the months are Pūrṇimānta and begin from badi 1 and end in sudi 15, while the months in the South are Amānta, i.e. they begin from sudi 1 and end in badi 15. Though the bright fortnight is the same in both the systems, the dark fortnight of a month in the northern system is counted in the previous month in the South. Thus the dark fortnight of Vaiśākha in the North is regarded in the South as the dark fortnight of Caitra. In some parts of the Rājasthānī- and Gujārātī-speaking areas, the beginning of the years of the Vikrama is counted from Amānta Āṣāḍha-sudi 1, while in the Udaipur region of Rajasthan it is counted from Pūrṇimānta Śrāvaṇa-badi 1.³ The years are thus variously called Caitrādi, Kārttikādi, Āṣāḍhādi and Śrāvaṇādi in accordance with their beginning in the months of Caitra, Kārttika, Āṣāḍha and Śrāvaṇa.

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² Ibid., Vol. XXXII, p. 332.

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³ See Ojha, op. cit., pp. 169-70.

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