The Dynasties of the Kanarese Districts of the Bombay Presidency from the Earliest Historical Times to the Musalman Conquest c8.s8.7

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