Indian Epigraphy c15.t7.28

c15.t7.28

The Śaka era was used by the successive ruling families of the Kannaḍa-speaking area of the South-Western Deccan, which flourished after the Cālukyas of Bādāmi. During the age of the Cālukyas, the use of the era spread, apparently from the said region, to the lands beyond the Bay of Bengal, the earliest inscriptions of Indo-China and Indonesia dated in this era belonging respectively to the 7th and 8th centuries A.D. In the 10th century A.D., the use of the Śaka era was adopted by the Eastern Cālukyas of Veṅgī in the Telugu-speaking territory from their western neighbours, viz. the Rāṣṭrakūṭa successors of the Cālukyas of Bādāmi. About the same time, it was also adopted by the Eastern Gaṅgas of Kaliṅganagara (modern Mukhalingam near Srikakulam), who originally used the Gaṅga era, from their western neighbours, the Eastern Cālukyas of Veṅgī. These Eastern Gaṅgas later extended their power over the whole of Coastal Orissa and the south-western part of Bengal. But the popularity of the Śaka era in Bengal was mainly due to the growth of Sena power in the twelfth century, the Senas having hailed from the Kannada-speaking area. Similarly, the spread of the use of the Śaka era in North Bihar was primarily due to the establishment of the Karṇāṭa house of Nānyadeva in Mithilā about the end of the 11th century. From Bengal and North Bihar, the use of the era spread to Assam. There are a few instances of the use of the said era by the Bengalis and Biharis before the advent respectively of the Senas and the Karṇāṭas of Mithilā. Thus Śrīdhara, an inhabitant of Dakṣiṇa-Rāḍha in South-West Bengal, wrote his *Nyāyakandalī* in Śaka 913 (991 A.D.). But there is no proof that the work was written in Bengal and not in an area where the use of the Śaka era had already become popular.¹ The Valgudar (Monghyr District, Bihar) inscription is dated in Śaka 1083 (1161 A.D.). But it is a private record and the persons responsible for it may have settled in the locality from an area where the era was in popular use.² The same may be the case with the Govindapur (Gaya District) inscription³ of Śaka 1059 (1137 A.D.), though the date of this record as well as that of the Valgudar inscription is later than the introduction of the Śaka era in Bengal and North Bihar.