Indian Epigraphy c15.t7.3

c15.t7.3

There is difference of opinion among scholars about the date of the Kuṣāṇa king Kaniṣka whose accession is assigned variously to the 1st century B.C., the 1st century A.D., the 2nd century A.D. and the 3rd century A.D. The first of these theories is however now generally believed to be erroneous. It appears that there were actually three Kaniṣkas, the first having begun to rule in the 1st century A.D., the second in the 2nd century A.D. and the third in the 3rd century A.D. and that, just as the activities of a number of kings styled Vikramāditya, especially those belonging to the Imperial Gupta dynasty, contributed to the dynamic growth of the Vikramāditya saga even though the original Vikramāditya was Candragupta II, the legends that cluster round the name of Kaniṣka similarly absorbed a good deal of the achievements of his different namesakes. It would therefore be unwise to attribute all the activities of the traditional Kaniṣka to a particular king of that name. There is no insurmountable obstacle in assigning Kaniṣka I, the founder of the era, to the 1st century A.D.¹