History of India, c. 150 A.D. to 350 A.D.: Naga–Vakataka Imperial Period c15.s4: X. Appendix on the Later Vākāṭaka Period [348 A.D.-550 A.D.] and the Vākāṭaka Era [248-249 A.D.]
History of India, c. 150 A.D. to 350 A.D.: Nāga–Vākāṭaka Imperial Period c15.s4
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- c15.s4.t1 The Era of 248 A.D. — 21 parts
X. Appendix on the Later Vākāṭaka Period [348 A.D.-550 A.D.] and the Vākāṭaka Era [248-249 A.D.]
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91. The period of Prithivīsheṇa I [348 A.D.-c. 375 A.D.], with his conquest of Kuntala [c. 360 A.D.]³, is more allied to the former period. The later Vākāṭaka period begins with Rudrasena II [c. 375-395 A.D.] which is uneventful, except for his change of faith to Vaishnavism, under the influence of his fatherin-law, Chandra Gupta II. After him the rule of his widow Prabhāvatī Guptā as Regent to her minor sons extends for about 20 years, probably a year or two beyond that of Chandra Gupta II. Her son Pravarasena II was a contemporary of Kumāra Gupta and seems to have died not at a very ripe age, as the son of Pravarasena II succeeded at the age of eight. According to the Ajaṇṭā inscription, the son of Pravarasena II 'ruled well' which is rendered in the Bālāghāṭ plates¹ as 'he who took upon himself (the responsibility of) the dynastic majesty, on account of the special qualities he had acquired by his previous training [pūrvvādhigata-guṇa viśeṣād-apahṛita-vaṃśa-śriyaḥ]'. Having succeeded at the age of 8, in his Yauvarājya he 'acquired' (adhigata) the necessary qualification and he shouldered the burden of government himself (taking it over from the regency). In this sense apahṛita is well-known in the Gupta literature, e.g. paścātputrairapahṛitabhāraḥ (Vikramorvaśī, Act 3) where apahṛita does not denote taking by force.³ The Ajaṇṭā inscription which makes the son and heir of Pravarasena II come on the throne at the age of 8, leaves no room for a rebellion by a younger prince. His name is lost in the Ajaṇṭā inscription but is preserved in the Bālāghāṭ plates as Narendrasena. That the prince ruled well is corroborated by the Bālāghāṭ inscription where Narendrasena is described to have kept his feudatories of Kosalā, Mekalā and Mālava obedient to him. The overlordship on Kuntala or a strong political alliance therewith is inferable from the fact of the marriage of Narendrasena with Lady Ajjhitā, daughter of the King of Kuntala. Narendrasena, according to the chronology proposed above, flourished about 435-470 A.D. The king of Kuntala with whom he had his political alliance through his marriage with the Princess Ajjhitā at that time was Kākustha, the Kadamba, who according to the Kadamba inscription on the Talagunda pillar (E.I., VIII, p. 33; cf. Moraes, Kadamba Kula, pp. 26-27) contracted political marriages with several great families including the Guptas. This monarch reached the zenith of the Kadamba power (c. 430 A.D.). Kākustha, as the Yuvarāja, in the reign of his brother used the Gupta era (§ 128 n.). On account of the marriage alliance his position improved. The Gupta marriages put the Kadambas and the Vākāṭakas on more or less an independent status. By or in the reign of Kumāra Gupta I Narendrasena's position must have been greatly strengthened as against his own feudatories and neighbours by his putting an end to the family feud with the Kadambas.
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³ Prithivīsheṇa I defeated Kaṅgavarman Kadamba about 360 A.D. See Part III, below.
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¹ The Bālāghāṭ plates are merely a draft kept ready to engrave on the blank plates an order of a land-grant when made. It therefore has no gift, no donee, no date, no endorsement of registration (like 'dṛiṣṭam') and no seal cut. Kielhorn under a mistaken notion of the date of the Deva Gupta of the Vākāṭaka plates, who was taken to be a later Gupta as proposed by Fleet, dated this as well as the Dudia plates of Pravarasena II wrongly in the 8th century (E.I., IX, 270, 269; E.I., III, 260). Bühler's dating proved to be correct.
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² Kielhorn read with doubts viśvāsāt. I think, what was intended was viśeṣāt. An expression like guṇa-viśvāsāt will be meaningless in Sanskrit, guṇa must be present, and here it had already come from culture. No question of 'confidence' arises. This adhigata-guṇa-viś(eṣa) corresponds to guṇaviśeṣa-kuśalo in the Hathigumpha Insc., line 17 (E.I., XX, 80).
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³ apahṛita having been wrongly interpreted by Kielhorn as 'took away the family's fortune', it was supposed that there was a disputed succession.
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92. Narendrasena, about 455 A.D., passed through most troublesome days, which were troublesome both for the Gupta Emperor Kumāra Gupta, his maternal uncle, and for himself. The powerful Pushyamitra Republic, to whom were allied the Republics of the Paṭumitras and Padmamitras, rose and attacked the Imperial power. They had been subordinate to the Vākāṭakas and were somewhere in Western Malwā, near Māndhātā. Just about that time, evidently connected with that movement of rebellion or attempt at freedom, was the attempt of the Traikūṭakas, a dynasty which had been newly founded under that designation about that time by Dahrasena.¹ Dahrasena Traikūṭaka was in Aparānta² between the Taptiwestern Khandesh-Kanheri and the sea (above Bombay). Like his sovereigns or overlords the Vākāṭakas, Dahrasena adopts a dynastic designation (‘Traikūṭaka’) after a place-name and a name-ending -sena, although his father who was a commoner was Indra-datta. Without any conquests he performed an aśvamedha in advance and struck his coins. But he was soon brought back under Narendrasena's control, as he is found using the Vākāṭaka Era in 456 A.D. (see §§ 102-106). The Pushyamitras before 456 A.D. were defeated by the Imperial power. Narendrasena had the support of his father-in-law's kingdom situated next to Koṅkaṇa [Aparānta] and at that time either under Kākustha or Kākustha's son Śāntivarman who too was a very strong monarch.¹
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¹ E.I., X, 51.
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² Raghuvamśa, iv, 58, 59; Rapson, C.A.D., p. elix. See also the inscription of Vyāghrasena, son of Dahrasena, of 490 A.D., E.I., XI, 219, where they are described as the rulers of Aparānta.
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¹ See Kadamba Kula, p. 28.
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93. Narendrasena seems to have had two sons. The elder Prithivīsheṇa II succeeded him and was followed by Devasena, who on his abdication was followed by his own son Harisheṇa. Devasena preferred a life of ease and pleasure to the duties of kingship. Prithivīsheṇa II found it necessary on the break-up of the Gupta Empire to make a heroic effort to raise his family from a ‘sunken’ condition, and he succeeded, for we find the next king in possession of all the Vākāṭaka Empire including Kuntala, Trikūṭa and Lāṭa. The trying period in the reign of Prithivīsheṇa II (470-485), on the chronology proposed above, coincides with the second Hun invasion, c. 470 A.D. His family must have ‘sunk’ along with the Guptas. Great credit is due therefore to Prithivīsheṇa II for its rehabilitation. Within twenty years or so, while the Huns were still powerful, we find the Vākāṭakas next-door to them and stronger than before, having under their sway Kuntala, Avanti, Kaliṅga, Kosalā, Trikūṭa,² Lāṭa and Andhra, that is, the whole of the Vākāṭaka dominions in the south, the Central Provinces and Western India up to Koṅkaṇa and Gujarat. A new dynasty just then founded by a Maitraka general at Valabhī covered the next territory of Surāṣṭra.
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² Vyāghrasena was the king of Aparānta [Trikūṭa] at the time [E.I., XI, 219], whom we find using the Vākāṭaka era (§ 102 ff.).
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The Maitrakas who had been evidently generals to the Guptas, as they used the Gupta era, probably arose from one of the Mitra Republics (Pushyamitras, etc.). They must have been feudatories to the Vākāṭakas, the next-door power. The Vākāṭakas thus acted as the bulwark in the Central Provinces and Western India against the Huns in 470-530 A.D.
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94. Thus with the end of the Gupta overlordship the fortunes of the Vākāṭaka family took a different turn. Prithivisheṇa II rescued the family fortunes in the days of the disruption of the Gupta Empire. Harisheṇa, son of Devasena, succeeded to the whole of the Vākāṭaka territory, both their home provinces and feudatory dominions. He showed great vigour and re-established the Vākāṭaka Empire. From the time of the death of Skanda Gupta, the Vākāṭakas become a wholly independent power. At this period they seem to exhibit great recuperating capacity and hold their own in a period of revolution and political changes in the Empire of India. All the three princes Narendrasena, Prithivisheṇa II and Harisheṇa were capable and successful rulers. Harisheṇa's rule ended about 520 A.D. The later history of the Vākāṭakas is lost.
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95. Harisheṇa, about 500 A.D., had to subjugate some of the old feudatories of his house, including the Traikūṭas. This seems to be evident from the Ajaṇṭā inscription and the inscriptions of the Traikūṭakas. Dahrasena, the Traikūṭaka, had once declared his independence about 455 A.D., i.e. the year of the Pushyamitra War of Skanda Gupta, and was brought back by Narendrasena under his control (§ 92). But we find again his son Vyāghrasena [c. 490 A.D.] issuing coins, and then the family disappearing, which is to be dated in the reign of Harisheṇa. After 494 A.D. no trace of their family is found.¹ It should be noticed that the Traikūṭakas use the era which, as we shall presently see, was the era of the Vākāṭakas. It seems that this feudatory dynasty was finally abolished in or after the reign of Harisheṇa.
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¹ The Pardi plates of Vyāghrasena are dated in the year 241 [489-490 A.D.] and the Kanheri plates are dated in 245 (E.I., XI, 219; Cave Temples of W.I., p. 58).
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96. A great proof of an effective sway of the Vākāṭakas over Koṅkaṇa, wherein Trikūṭa was situated, is an inscription published in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. IV, p. 282, where a fortress named after the political home of the Vākāṭakas, the Kilakilā, is mentioned as ‘Kilagilā’ which was the capital of Koṅkaṇa at the date of the inscription (1058 A.D.). Trikūṭa was at the western end of the Vākāṭaka Province of Berar and Khandesh. Harisheṇa made obedient to himself Kuṇtala and Lāṭa with Avanti, which were at each end of Aparānta. Kaliṅga, Kosala and Andhra brought the Vākāṭaka Empire from Trikūṭa and the western sea to the eastern seaboard. All these had been parts of the Vākāṭaka Empire before. Lāṭa was next-door to the Vākāṭaka kingdom and was the old seat of the Ābhīras. Avanti had been under the Pushyamitra group. In the time of Narendrasena it is included in the term Mālava. In the time of Pravarasena II or Prabhāvatī Guptā, this was probably transferred back to the Vākāṭakas by the Guptas. The subjugation of Lāṭa by Harisheṇa means the final extinction of the Ābhīras and the Pushyamitras, if they had not already disappeared under Skanda Gupta who had established a governorship of Surāshṭra immediately after the Pushyamitra War. The addition of Lāṭa to the Vākāṭaka Empire was a result of the fall of the Gupta Empire.
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97. The Second Vākāṭaka Empire was so rich that even a minister of Harisheṇa could excavate and decorate with paintings a beautiful chaitya-building at Ajaṇṭā, Cave No. XVI, adorned, as the donor himself with a rightful pride says,
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‘with windows, spires, beautiful terraces, ledges, statues of the nymphs of Indra and the like, supported by lovely pillars and stairs’—‘a lovely chaitya-building’.
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A member of the same ministerial family cut the Cave No. XIII, which is called the Ghaṭotkacha Cave, wherein the donor gives his family history. The family was of Malabar Brahmins who married both Brahmin and Kshatriya wives. Hastibhoja was the minister when the Vākāṭaka Devasena ruled (‘Vākāṭake rājati Devasene’). The wealth of the empire of the later Vākāṭakas is further illustrated by the inscription in Cave-temple No. XVII, which was cut as a Vihāra by a Vākāṭaka feudatory in the reign of King Harisheṇa. His family had existed for nine generations, which evidently arose under the reign of Pravarasena I. They were probably a Gujarat family, which is suggested by their names. They proudly describe this piece of architecture ‘the Chaitya of the King of Ascetics’ as a piece of gem in monolith’ (ekāśmakam maṇḍapa-ratnam-etat) where the donor placed a reservoir ‘charming to the eyes’. These donors were fully alive to a keen sense of aesthetics and their art was highly conscious. The architectural motifs of the pillars are not repetitions; every piece is an individual conception. The ‘Aśokan’ polish is used on the walls of Cave No. XIII¹, but the artistic sense seems to have forbidden its employment on any art moulding of the Ajaṇṭā caves.
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¹ Dr. Vincent Smith took Cave No. XIII, to be a B.C. Century Cave (History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, p. 275) on account of its polish. But the art of ‘Maurya’ polish was not forgotten. It was discredited in the Śuṅga and Sātavāhana period and was revived in the Vākāṭaka-Gupta period. In the sculptures of the Chandragupta Cave at Udaygiri and also on several sculptures at Khajurāho I have personally seen the polish. The method was not lost up to the eleventh century when some of the broken parts of sculptures at Khajurāho bear it as an act of repair. Some artistic reason was at the bottom of the discontinuance of the polish. At Khajurāho, the outer sculptures are never polished. It seems to me that the polish interfered with light and shade and tended to obliterate their natural lines. The chisel protested against the veneer. The history of the so-called Maurya polish before the Mauryas is carried back by polished prehistoric vajras, made in imitation of bones, found in Chota Nagpur, which are in the Patna Museum [the polish on these is artificial and not the result of constant handling].
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98. Some of the most famous Ajaṇṭā paintings, e.g., Buddha’s return to his father’s palace, the scene between Yaśodharā-Rāhula and the King of Ascetics, and the Ceylon Battle, are to be found in the two Vākāṭaka caves, Nos. XVI and XVII. The caves are pre-eminently of the Āryāvarta Nāgara variety.
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99. The Vākāṭaka territory was the meeting ground of the North and the South. The Vākāṭaka minister Hastibhoja and his family were from the Southern country. And also, the Pallavas themselves were a branch of the Vākāṭakas; constant intercourse between the two kingdoms would have been a natural sequence. This explains the occasional introduction of the Pallava motifs in the Vākāṭaka cave-temples. The Dravidian features in some of the sculptures are also similarly explained.
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100. It should be noticed that we possess the written history of three caves only. But we can safely say that the caves which are called Guptan, should be all attributed to the Vākāṭakas, as the direct Gupta rule never reached Ajaṇṭā, and Ajaṇṭā continued to remain throughout in Vākāṭaka possession.
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100 A. The later Vākāṭakas, though not Buddhists themselves, allowed their subjects full liberty of conscience to follow Buddhism.
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101. The Vākāṭakas seem to have been strong in horse which is noted in the Ajaṇṭā inscription dealing with the military greatness of Vindhyaśakti. Here seems to lie the key to the military strength of the Vākāṭakas. Only a power strong in cavalry can successfully operate in the Vindhyas. The horse of the Bundelās became famous in later history. The cavalry tradition of Bundelkhand is probably ancient.
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101 A. The Chālukyas must have extinguished the Vākāṭakas. Pulakeśin I performed his Aśvamedha about 550 A.D. at Vātāpi (Bijapur district).¹ This should be taken as marking the close of the Vākāṭaka kingdom. The imperial symbols of Gaṅgā and Yamunā would thus be taken over by the Chālukyas from the Vākāṭakas (§ 86) at this period, which in later times would naturally be regarded by the Chālukyas as their own hereditary symbols coming down from the very foundation of the family.² Harisheṇa had under him either Jayasimha or Raṇarāga [the grandfather and father of Pulakeśin I]. Harisheṇa is recorded to have subjugated or made obedient to himself (.....svanirdeśa.....) the rulers which had been feudatories of the Vākāṭakas with the new addition of Andhra.
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¹ E.I., VI, 1.
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² E.I., VI, 352-353; S.I.I., i. 54 [Chellur grant].
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Hari-Rāma-Hara-Smar-Endra-kāntir
Harisheṇo hari-vikrama-prāptaḥ (17)
sa-Kunṭal-Āvanti-Kaliṅga-Kosala-
Trikūṭa-Lāṭ=Andhra . . . . .
...........pi svanirdeśa.........(18)
—A.S.W.I., IV., 125.
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Evidently the new family of the Chālukyas arose in the Andhra country, in the immediate vicinity of Berar. Pulakeśin's son Kirtivarman conquered the Kadambas and the small rulers of Aparānta, and Maṅgaleśa conquered the Kāṭachchuris, before which the Vākāṭakas had evidently already disappeared. The Vākāṭakas, therefore, must have ended with the Aśvamedha of Pulakeśin I. The ‘Rājā Jayasiṃha Vallabha’ who in the Aihole inscription is said to have founded the Chālukya family (E.I., Vol. VI, p. 14) is not credited with any conquest, nor is his son Raṇarāga. After Pulakeśin I his sons and grandson established their empire over the same territories which had been under the Vākāṭakas (Lāṭa, Mālava, Gurjara, Mahārāṣṭra, Kaliṅga, etc.), which means that they were the political successors of the Vākāṭakas and were laying their claim as such. This also explains their clash with the Pallavas, and their permanent enmity with them, the Pallavas being blood-relations [a junior branch] of the Vākāṭakas. The description of the ‘Rājā Jayasiṃha Vallabha’ (E.I., VI, 4, verse 5) shows that Jayasiṃha had been a Vallabha or revenue officer of the king of the former government, i.e. the Vākāṭaka. It seems that after Harisheṇa, in the reign of one of his descendants, probably a grandson, or on the failure of the Vākāṭaka line, Pulakeśin I stepped into the shoes of the Vākāṭakas and claimed their imperial dignity and position. Their inscriptions silently pass over the Vākāṭakas.
The Era of 248 A.D.
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102. We have three dated records of which two certainly, and one presumably, are Vākāṭaka. The coin of Pravarasena I is dated 76 (§ 30). The coin of Rudrasena is dated 100 (§ 61). There cannot be any doubt as to these two being Vākāṭakan. Then, there is the inscription of the Mahārāja Bhīmasena dated in the 52nd year (§ 89). Pravarasena I himself ruled for 60 years. The dates on his coins and on that of his successor, therefore, are to be referred to a reckoning started from the previous rule, that is, the time of the coronation of his father, which on the known chronology of the Guptas and its correspondence with the Vākāṭakan, must have taken place in the middle of the third century. The chronology adopted by us above, places the latter's rise in 248-249 A.D. If we can find this era which was certainly used by Pravarasena I, used in any part of the Vākāṭaka Empire in later centuries, we can identify it with the Chedi Era, which is called, wrongly, by some writers as Traikūṭa Era.
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103. About the Ginjā inscription of the Mahārāja Śrī Bhīmasena, General Cunningham who discovered it remarked that the 'characters of the inscription are of the earliest Gupta forms; but the opening is worded in the well-known style of all the shorter Indo-Scythian inscriptions'.¹ He assigned the inscription to the pre-Gupta time. The style is certainly the same as that of the Kushan inscriptions found at Mathurā. It reads:— *Mahārājasya Śrī Bhīmasenasya saṃvatsare 50.2 grīṣmapakshe 4 divase 10.2 (etc.)*²
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¹ A.S.R., Vol. XXI, p. 119, Plate XXX; and E.I., Vol. III, p. 302, Plate facing page 306.
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² I have given the reading from the tracing of this painted inscription reproduced in the Epigraphia Indica which is better than the one lithographed by Cunningham. I am giving the reading of the necessary portion only.
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The name Bhīma-sena, the style of dating and the early character of the letters warrant our assigning Bhīmasena's inscription to the same era in which are dated the Vākāṭaka coins. Their value would be: year 52 = 300 A.D. ” 76 = 324 ” ” 100 = 348 ”
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The years, except the last one, fall within the reign of Pravarasena I.
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104. For the period after Pravarasena I, we have one solid fact bearing on the question in that the Vākāṭakas, as already noticed, never used the Gupta era, even when Prabhāvatī Guptā was the regent.
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105. The existence of an era beginning in 248 A.D. next-door to Bundelkhand was contended for by Dr. Fleet¹: two contemporary kings of the Gupta time date their records, one in the named era of the Guptas and the other in an unnamed era: the Parivrājaka Mahārāja Hastin has the dates 156, 163 and 191 of the Gupta Era in his documents, while his contemporary the Mahārāja Śarvanātha of Uchehakalpa, along with whom the former fixed up a boundary pillar at Bhūmarā in the Nagaudh State, has the years 193, 197, 214 of an unspecified era in his documents. The two rulers, on the boundary pillars, used neither of these eras but a neutral reckoning the Mahā-Māgha saṃvatsara. Dr. Fleet contended that by referring the years of Śarvanātha to the era beginning with 248-49 A.D. we get 462-63 A.D. for Śarvanātha and 475 A.D. for Hastin. Dr. Fleet, however, in 1905 (J.R.A.S., page 566) gave up this contention and referred both sets of dates to the Gupta Era, on the ground that the era of 248 A.D. was not known in or near Bundelkhand or Baghelkhand, and that it was known in 456 or 457 A.D. in Western India as employed by Dahrasena, the Traikūṭaka king. It was, however, recognised by him that the era could not have originated with the Traikūṭakas:
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¹ I.A., Vol. XIX, p. 227.
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*But there is nothing to stamp the era as the Traikūṭa era and still less to prove that it was so founded* (p. 657).
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Similar is the view of Prof. Rapson.¹ To the association of the era with the Kalachuris in the twelfth century nobody has attached any importance, and this, for the simple reason, that there is no room in history for the Kalachuris to have started an era in 248 A.D. in the Chedi country or elsewhere. Fleet hesitatingly suggested that the founder of the era might have been the Ābhira king Īśvarasena who dealt a blow at the Sātavāhana power. Fleet also pointed out that the era is somehow connected with the fall of the Sātavāhanas about 248 A.D. Prof. Rapson remarked on this:¹
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¹ *Coins of the Andhra Dynasty*, page clxii.
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‘But the foundation of an era must be held to denote the successful establishment of the new power rather than its first beginnings or the downfall of the Andhras.’
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And Prof. Rapson stressed that it was impossible to connect the Ābhiras and the Traikūṭas as belonging to the same dynasty or even to the same race for total lack of evidence. Moreover, the Ābhiras who rose against the Western Śakas arose much earlier than 248 A.D.—i.e. *cir.* 188-190 A.D.²
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² V. Smith, *Early History of India*, p. 226, n., citing Dr. D. R. Bhandarkar.
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106. The Traikūṭakas who were feudatories of the Vākāṭakas, by using the era used by Pravarasena I, prove their subordinate position and submission to the Vākāṭakas. The Traikūṭakas employ the feudatory title of *Mahārāja*. The appearance of the era in the western portion of the Vākāṭaka Empire shows that the era was in vogue amongst the feudatories of the Vākāṭakas. The use of the regnal years of individual kings from the time of Prabhavātī Guptā to Pravarasena II is in a period when the Gupta influence is at its zenith at the Vākāṭaka Court.
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107. The only objection of Dr. Fleet that there was no connection visible between Trikūṭa where the era is found in use in the fifth century A.D. and Chedi (Bundelkhand and Baghelkhand) with which the Era of 248 A.D. is associated, now disappears in the light of the data on the Vākāṭaka history. We find the era in vogue in the Chedi country in the time of Pravarasena I. Fleet’s former view that Śarvanātha’s years are in the Era of 248 A.D. seems to have been sound. There is not the slightest doubt that the Mahārāja Hastin was a Gupta feudatory and that there was a necessity to fix a boundary pillar between the Vākāṭaka dominions under Mahārāja Śarvanātha and the Gupta dominions under Hastin. Both Śarvanātha and Hastin were feudatories and Hastin avowedly a Gupta feudatory. Śarvanātha, therefore, could only be a feudatory to the Vākāṭaka king, whose capital or town at Nachnā lay within a few miles of Uchchakalpa or Uchahara (Nagaudh State).
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§ 108. There are two facts which establish the Era of 248 A.D. to be the Vākāṭaka Era. The Purāṇas, after the fall of the Sātavāhanas register the rise of Vindhyaśakti as the next great power or as the imperial power succeeding the Sātavāhanas. An era will be naturally counted from the rise of a new power whether at once or subsequently—e.g. the Gupta Era does not come into force until the last years of Samudra Gupta or the reign of Chandra Gupta II [the forged copperplates of Samudra Gupta (Gaya and Nālandā plates), which were imitated from some genuine copperplates, are dated in regnal years]. Then the second fact to take note of in this connection is that Pravarasena I became Emperor and the previous Emperors, i.e. the Kushans, had in fact an imperial era. To start an era had become a chief symbol of imperial position. Samudra Gupta did the same, and he also, like Pravarasena, counted the era from the coronation of his father. It is apparent that he followed the Vākāṭaka precedence and his example helps us here like a reflex action.
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We would therefore call the era of 248-49 which began on the 5th of September, 248 A.D.¹, the Vākāṭaka Era of Chedi.²
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¹ Kielhorn, E.I., Vol. IX, p. 129.
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² The dates of Jayanātha, Mahārāja of Uchchakalpa, being taken to be in the Era of 248 A.D. his Kārītalāī plates dated ‘174’ fall in 422 A.D., and his father Vyāghra could very well have been a younger contemporary of Pṛithivīsheṇa I, if we take the interval to be that of 45 years or so, and he could have endowed pious foundations in the capital of his king and might be identical with the Vyāghradeva of the three inscriptions at Ganj and Nachnā. But the identity by no means could be established on the present materials. If they are identical, Jayanātha's dates must be in the Era of 248 A.D.
Linked texts (2)
- Raghuvaṃśa — Kālidāsa, Sanskrit
- Vikramorvaśīya — Kālidāsa, Sanskrit