The Dynasties of the Kanarese Districts of the Bombay Presidency from the Earliest Historical Times to the Musalman Conquest c8.s8: Appendix A. Note on the Gupta Era
The Dynasties of the Kanarese Districts of the Bombay Presidency from the Earliest Historical Times to the Musalman Conquest c8.s8
- Language
- English
Contents
- c8.s8.18 — 4 parts
Appendix A. Note on the Gupta Era
c8.s8.2
In order to render the chronologies of the different dynasties that ruled over western and northern India in the early centuries of the Christian era mutually consistent, it is necessary to discuss the initial date of the Gupta era. Albiruni, who accompanied Mahmud of Ghizni in his invasion of Gujarât in the early part of the eleventh century, states that that era was posterior to the S'aka by 241 years, and that it was the epoch of the extermination of the Guptas. He mentions another era named after Balaba, the initial date of which was the same as that of the Guptas.
c8.s8.3
Now in some of the inscriptions of the Gupta kings and their dependent chiefs the dates are referred to *Guptakâla* or the Gupta era, wherefore Albiruni's statement that it was the epoch of their extermination cannot be true. This error is regarded as throwing discredit on his other statement, *viz.*, that the era was posterior to the S'aka by 241 years. But it has nothing whatever to do with it. Albiruni must have derived his knowledge of the initial date from contemporary evidence, since the era of the Guptas was, as stated by him, one of those ordinarily used in the country in his time, and as his statements regarding the initial dates of the Vikrama and the S'aka eras are true, so must that with reference to the Gupta era be true. On the other hand, his information as regards the event which the Gupta era memorialized must have been based upon the tradition current among the Hindu astronomers of the day, who were his informants. Such traditions are often erroneous, as has been proved in many a case. Albiruni was also informed that the S'aka era was the epoch of the defeat of the S'aka king by Vikramâditya. This was the tradition as to its origin among Indian astronomers, though it has now given place to another. For Sodhala in his commentary on Bhâskarâchârya's *Karana-kutûhala*, a manuscript of which more than four hundred years old exists in the collection made by me for Government during 1882-83, tells us that "the epoch when Vikramâditya killed Mlechchhas of the name of S'akas is ordinarily known as the S'aka era." But we know that in Mangalîs'a's inscription at Bâdâmî it is spoken of as the era of the "coronation of the S'aka king"; that Ravikirti in the inscription at Aihole describes it as the era of the S'aka kings and that it is similarly represented in many other places. Albiruni's error therefore as regards the origin of the Gupta era no more invalidates his statement as to its initial date than his error about the origin of the S'aka era does his statement about the initial date of that era. The only reasonable course for us under the circumstances is to reject the statement as to the era being an epoch of the extermination of the Guptas and accept that about the initial date of the era. But some antiquarians reject both these statements and accept what simply hangs on them and what must fall with them, *viz.*, that the Guptas were exterminated in S'aka 242, and make elaborate endeavours to find an earlier initial date for the era. If the inscriptions show that the era was not posthumous but contemporaneous, we should rather believe that the Guptas rose to power in S'aka 242, assigning its due value to the statement of Albiruni, which must have been based on contemporary evidence, that the era began in that year. But if instead of that we declare that they ceased to reign in S'aka 242, we in effect reject contemporary evidence and accept a mere tradition which in so far as it represents the era to be posthumous has been proved to be erroneous.
c8.s8.4
Again, Albiruni's statement that the initial date of the Gupta era and the Valabhî era was the same seems to some not "at all probable." To my mind the improbability is not so great as to render valueless what clearly is contemporary evidence. We all know that the date occurring in a grant of one of the sons of the founder of the dynasty is 207, and we have a large number of grants of subsequent kings with dates posterior to this and in harmony with it. So that it is clear that these dates cannot refer to an era dating from the foundation of the dynasty. Such a long time as 207 years cannot be considered to have elapsed between the father who founded the dynasty and his son, even supposing him to have been a posthumous son. The dates, therefore, are understood to refer to the Gupta era. What, then, could have been the Valabhî era, if it was never used by the Valabhî princes during the 275 years or thereabouts of the existence of their dynasty? An era cannot receive the name of a certain line of princes unless used by those princes, at least on a few occasions, and enforced. The era used by the Valabhî princes must be the Valabhî era. One certainly would expect that it should be so. The only supposition, therefore, on which the whole becomes intelligible is that the era introduced by the Valabhîs in Surâshṭra and used by them was called the Valabhî era by their subjects, and not one dating from the foundation of the dynasty; for such a one, we see, was not used by the Valabhî princes themselves. The era introduced and used by the Valabhîs was that of the Guptas, whose dependents they were in the beginning, and hence Albiruni's statement that the initial date of the Gupta and Valabhî eras was the same is true. From an inscription at Somanâth discovered by Colonel Tod, we gather that Śaka 242 was the first year of the Valabhî era. Hence, therefore, the initial date of the Gupta era was 242 Śaka, as stated by Albiruni.
c8.s8.5
The question in this way is, I think, plain enough. Still since astronomical calculations have been resorted to to prove the incorrectness of the date given by Albiruni and to arrive at an earlier one so as to place the extinction of the Gupta dynasty in Śaka 242, it is necessary to go into the question further. The following tests may be used and have been used to determine the correctness of a proposed initial date:—
c8.s8.6
1. The date of Budha Gupta's pillar inscription at Eran, which is Thursday, the 12th of Ashâḍha, in the Gupta year 165.
2. Râjâ Hastin's inscription dated 156 Gupta, the year of the 12-year cycle of Jupiter being Mahâvaiśâka.
3. Râjâ Hastin's inscription dated 173 Gupta, the year of the 12-year cycle being Mahâśvayuja.
4. Râjâ Hastin's inscription dated 191 Gupta, the year of the 12-year cycle being Mahâchaitra.
5. Râjâ Saṁkshobha's inscription dated 209 Gupta, the year of the 12-year cycle being Mahâśvayuja.
6. An eclipse of the sun mentioned in the Morvi copper-plate grant dated 5th Phâlguna Sudi 585 of the Gupta era.
c8.s8.7
Before applying these tests to the initial date given by Albiruni, it must be premised that according to the Arabic author the Gupta era was 241 years posterior to the Śaka. To convert a Śaka date into a Valabhî date, or which is the same thing, into a Gupta date, he tells us to deduct from it the cube of 6 and the square of 5, that is, 241. And proceeding to give actual instances, he says 953 Śaka corresponds to 712 Valabhî or Gupta. We have thus to add 241 to a Gupta date to arrive at the corresponding Śaka date. Again, as I shall show in Appendix B, in inscriptions the numerical date indicates, in a large number of instances, the number of years of an era that have elapsed, that is, the past year and in about a third of the instances, the current year. The year of the cycle, however, whenever it occurs, is as a rule the current year, though in rare cases that also is the past year. If, therefore, a past Gupta year is to be converted into
c8.s8.8
Appendix A.
c8.s8.9
the current Śaka year, we shall have to add 242 to the former; while if both are current or both past, the difference between them is only 241.
c8.s8.10
Now, as to the first of the above tests, Gupta 165 + 241 = 406 S'aka. If Albiruni is correct, the 12th Âshâdha Sudi of this year should be a Thursday. I asked my friend Professor Keru Lakshman Chhatre to make the calculation for me, and he tells me that it was a Thursday. Since our astronomical methods are based on the past S'aka year, and even our present S'aka year 1805 really represents, as I shall show in the next Appendix, the years that have elapsed, the current year being really 1806, Gupta 165 was a past year, as well as S'aka 406. Hence only 241 has to be added. S'aka 406 corresponds to 484 A.D. General Cunningham takes the Gupta 165 to correspond to 483 A.D., adding 240 + 78 = 318 to it, and of course arrives at the result that "the 12th day of Âshâdha Sudi was a Friday instead of a Thursday." If, however, he had added 241 + 78 = 319 and taken 484 A.D. to correspond to Gupta 165, he would have arrived at the correct result.
c8.s8.11
Then as to the dates in years of the 12-year cycle, General Cunningham himself has placed before us the means of verifying them. In the tables published by him in Volume X. of the Archæological Reports, the cyclic year corresponding to the current Christian year is given, and if we subtract 78 from the number representing the year, we shall arrive at the current S'aka year. Now, if we take the Gupta figured dates to represent the years that had elapsed before the cyclic year commenced, (and this way of marking the dates is, as remarked above, the one we usually find), then 173 Gupta, the third date in the above, corresponds to 414 S'aka past and 415 current, 241 being added in the first case, and 242 in the second. If we add 78 to 415 we shall get the current Christian year, which is 493. Now in General Cunningham's tables we do find the year Mahâśvayu ja given as corresponding to 493 A.D. In the same way, 191 Gupta past + 242 = 433 S'aka current, + 78 = 511 A.D. current. In the tables we find 511 put down under Mahâchaitra. Similarly 209 Gupta past + 242 = 451 S'aka current, + 78 = 529 A.D. current which was Mahâśvayu ja.
c8.s8.12
Now, as to the first of the dates in the 12-year cycle, 156 Gupta + 242 + 78 is equal to 476 A.D., which however is Mahâchaitra instead of Mahâvaiśâkha. Here there is a discrepancy of one year; but such discrepancies do sometimes occur even in S'aka dates and the years of the 60-years' cycle given along with them, and some of them will be noticed in the note forming the next Appendix. They are probably due to the fact that the frequent use of the past or expired year and also of the current year led sometimes the past year to be mistaken for the current year, just as we now mistake the year 1805 S'aka for the current year, though it really is the completed or past year. Thus the completed year 157 must, in the case before us, have come to be mistaken by the writer of the inscription for the current year, and he thought 156 to be the past year and thus gave that instead of 157. Now 157 Gupta + 242 + 78 = 477 A.D., which is Mahâvaiśâkha, according to the tables.*
c8.s8.13
∗ Though by using General Cunningham's table, I arrive at the desired result in three cases, still I now find that his current Christian year is derived by adding 78 to the past S'aka, while I have added 79; i.e., the cyclic year given in the dates is true not of the Gupta year in the date as a past year but of the Gupta year + 1 as a past year. And the third date 173 Gupta is a correction of General Cunningham's, the actual date in the inscription being 163. I have, however, allowed the paragraphs to remain, as I am by no means quite satisfied that the question of these cyclic dates is settled beyond dispute (1894).
c8.s8.14
The eclipse mentioned in the Morvî plate occurred, according to my friend Professor Keru Lakshman, on the 30th of Vaiśâkha, Śaka 827. The Gupta year given in the plate is 585. If 827 is in the astronomical calculation the current year, it must correspond to 585 Gupta past; for 585 + 242 = 827. It is by no means necessary to suppose that the eclipse occurred on the new-moon day inmediately previous to the 5th of Phâlguna Sudi mentioned in the grant. For it is perfectly possible that the actual religious ceremony with reference to the grant was made in Vaiśâkha and the deed executed in Phâlguna.*
c8.s8.15
I have thus shown that Albiruni's initial date for the Gupta era stands all these tests. It may even be said that it stands them better than 167 A.D. and 190 A.D. proposed by General Cunningham and Sir E. Clive Bayley respectively. But I am loath to decide such questions simply on astronomical grounds; for there are several very confusing elements involved, and a modern astronomer cannot know them all and make allowance for them.
c8.s8.16
It now remains to notice the last point relied on by the opponents of Albiruni. The date on a copper-plate grant by the last Śîlâditya of Valabhî hitherto known is 447. This Śîlâditya is also styled Dhrûbhaṭa in the grant and has been identified with the Tu-lu-va-po-tou or Dhruva-bhaṭa of Hwan Thsang who visited Valabhî in 640 A.D. The date 447 is understood as referring to the Gupta era, and, 319 being added it, corresponds to 766 A.D. It has therefore been argued that an earlier initial date must be assigned to the Gupta era so as to bring this Śîlâditya or Dhrûbhaṭa nearer to the date of Hwan Thsang's visit. But the identification of the last Śîlâditya with Hwan Thsang's Dhruvabhaṭa cannot stand. In the Si-yu-ki the Chinese writer does not speak of a king but of kings, and says they were nephews of Śîlâditya of Mâlvâ and the younger of them named Dhruvabhaṭa was son-in-law to the son of Harshavardhana. If they were nephews of the king of Mâlvâ they were brothers and both of them kings. Now, the predecessor of the last Śîlâditya of Valabhî was his father, and among the kings of Valabhî we do not find brothers reigning in succession at this period. There were two brothers who occupied the throne before this period, one of them being named Dharasena and the other Dhruvasena. They were the sons of Kharagraha, and the younger of them was the father and predecessor of Dharasena IV. This younger brother or Dhruvasena must have been Hwan Thsang's Dhruvabhaṭa. Nothing important is involved in the suffix Bhaṭa. It was a mere title or honorific termination as Pant and Râv are among us the Marâṭhâs. Sena, Simha, and Bhaṭa were the Valabhî honorific endings, and they could be used promiscuously. The king spoken of in the plates as Dhruvabhaṭa may have been called Dhruvabhaṭa by ordinary people, from whom Hwan Thsang must have got the name. Now, a copper-plate grant of Dhruvasena bears the date 310, and the earliest date of his successor Dharasena IV. is 326. The first corresponds to 629 A.D. (310 + 241 + 78 = 629), and the second to 645 (326 + 241 + 78 = 645). It is quite possible, therefore, that Dhruvasena was on the throne in 640 A.D. at the time when Hwan Thsang visited Valabhî.
c8.s8.17
∗ There was an eclipse also in S'aka 826 on the new-moon day of Kârttika; so that Gupta 585 past + 241 = 826 Śaka. This is evidently the eclipse mentioned in the grant and not that mentioned in the text. On the whole question see my paper on the epoch of the Gupta era, Jour. B. B. R. A. S., Vol. XVII, p. 80.
c8.s8.18.1
The initial date mentioned by Albiruni is thus consistent with everything with which it has been thought to be not consistent. I have shown that the statement of the Arabic writer is in itself entitled to our confidence, being based, as it must have been, on contemporary evidence, as his statements about the S'aka and Vikrama eras were. I will now show that the date mentioned by him is alone consistent with the information we possess as regards the relations of the several dynasties that ruled over Gujarât and Kâthiâwâd in the early centuries of the Christian era, and the dates proposed by General Cunningham and Sir E. Clive Bayley are not. We know that the Guptas succeeded the Satraps, and the Valabhîs were at first dependents of the Guptas and afterwards attained independence. Chandragupta II. must have been the Gupta prince who overthrew the Satraps, since he is the first prince of that dynasty whose silver coins are a close imitation of those of the Satraps. The latest date of that monarch is 93. This corresponds to 260 A.D. and 283 A.D. on the supposition that the Gupta era took its start in 167 A.D. and 190 A.D. respectively. Now, the latest date of the Satrap dynasty is 304. If the era to which it refers is the S'aka, it corresponds to 382 A.D., that is, we shall have to suppose one of the princes of the dynasty to have reigned about a hundred years after the dynasty had been put an end to by Chandragupta II. The S'aka era will therefore not do.
c8.s8.18.2
Supposing the Satrap dates refer to the Vikrama era, 304 corresponds to 248 A.D., which of course is consistent with Chandragupta's date 260 A.D. or 283 A.D. If then the Satrap dates refer to the era of Vikrama, Rudradâman's 72 must correspond to 16 A.D. Rudradâman's grandfather Chashtana will have to be placed about B.C. 4. But Ptolemy, writing after 150 A.D., tells us that Ujjayinî was ruled over about the time when he wrote by Tiastenes, who has been very reasonably identified with Chashtana. Ptolemy's information cannot certainly be 150 years old. It has, however, been argued that Ptolemy does not state that Tiastenes reigned about the time when he lived, and that he and Siro Polemios were contemporaries. For, he gives the information in the form of two short notes, "Ozone, the royal residence of Tiastenes," and "Baithana, the royal residence of Siro Polemios." Such notes it is possible that one should write even if the princes reigned several hundred years before him, as a modern geographer may mention Berlin as "the capital of Frederick the Great," or Ghizni as "the capital of Mahmud." As to this I have to observe that the analogy does not hold good. A modern geographer and his readers are very well acquainted with past history, while neither Ptolemy nor those for whom he wrote could have known the past history of India.
c8.s8.18.3
A modern geographer knows which of the princes that ruled over a certain country in past times was the ablest or most powerful, and selects him out of a number and mentions his name in connection with a certain place. It is extremely improbable or almost impossible that Ptolemy should have known many Indian princes who reigned before he lived, along with their achievements, and should have chosen the ablest of them for being mentioned. And, as a matter of fact, we know that one at least of the rulers mentioned by him could be a person of no importance. For Baleocuros who according to him held power in Hippocura was, as we have seen, but a Viceroy or dependent of Pulumâyi and Gotamîputra Yajña S'ri, since as Vilivâyakura his name occurs along with those of the two princes on the Kolhâpur coins. Again, Ptolemy must have derived his information from merchants carrying on trade with India and these from the natives of the country. And we know that natives of India care very little for past history and soon forget their kings. Hence the information derived by the merchants cannot have reference to princes who reigned long before the time of Ptolemy. It is possible that Indians may remember a celebrated prince for a century or two. But, as stated above, one of the rulers mentioned by Ptolemy was but a dependent sovereign and could not have been a man of note.
c8.s8.18.4
The only other supposition that our opponents may resort to, is that Ptolemy's statements were based on those of previous geographers whose contemporaries the princes mentioned by him were. No ground whatever has however been adduced in support of such a supposition. In the Periplus which was written before Ptolemy, Paithana and Ozene are mentioned, but Polemios and Tiastenes are not. On the contrary, the author of that work says that Ozene was "formerly the capital wherein the king resided." If Tiastenes lived before him, and Ptolemy's mention of the former was due to his having been a prince of note like Frederick the Great and Mahmud of Ghizni in modern times, we should expect the author of the Periplus to have noticed him, especially when he does allude to the kings of Ozene. Tiastenes, Polemios and Baleocuros must thus have reigned about the time of Ptolemy. The last two were, we know, contemporaries, and so also must the third have been.
c8.s8.19
In this manner the Vikrama era will not do for the Satrap dates. Besides, no trace whatever has hitherto been discovered of the use of that era in the early centuries of Christ. Since, then, the use of no other era at the time has been well authenticated, the Satraps must be supposed to have employed the S'aka era. The circumstances of the country at that period render, as I have shown, the establishment of this era by the S'akas who ruled over the country in every way probable. The latest Satrap date will thus correspond to 382 A.D., and Chandragupta, the conqueror of the Satraps, can be rendered posterior to this only by taking 242 S'aka current or 319-320 A.D. as the first current year of the Gupta era ; for his 93 past will then correspond to 412-413 A.D. And in this way Rudradâman's 72 will correspond to 150 A.D.; and Chashṭana's date will be about 130 A.D., i.e. anterior to the date of Ptolemy's geography by about 25 years.
c8.s8.20
Thus, then, the evidence in favour of Albiruni's initial date for the Gupta era appears to me to be simply overwhelming.