The Dynasties of the Kanarese Districts of the Bombay Presidency from the Earliest Historical Times to the Musalman Conquest c8.s3.166.2

c8.s3.166.2

Often there is a discrepancy between the general and the particular statements. The duration assigned by them all to the Maurya dynasty, founded by Chandragupta whose date as determined by his relations with the successors of Alexander the Great is justly characterised by Professor MaxMüller as the sheet-anchor of Indian chronology, is 137 years. The number of reigning princes given by the Vâyu is nine, and by the rest, ten; but the names actually enumerated in the Vishnu only are ten, while the Vâyu and the Bhâgavata give nine, and the Mâtsya, only four. The total of the years assigned to each prince by the Vâyu is 133 years; so that it is not unlikely that a short reign of four years may have dropped out from the text of that Purâna. Thus the general statement about ten princes and 137 years seems to be corroborated, and it appears pretty clear that the text of the Mâtsya in this case undergone a good deal of corruption. Thus, if with Dr. Kern we take B.C. 322 as the date of the foundation of the Maurya dynasty, its overthrow and the foundation of the next or the S'unga family must have occurred in the year B.C. 185. The S'ungas are generally stated in all the Purânas to have been ten and to have reigned for 112 years, though the expression used in the Bhâgavata is not "112 years," but "more than a hundred years." In the actual enumeration, the Mâtsya omits two, and the Bhâgavata, one; and the total of the years assigned to each prince in the Vâyu exceeds 112.