History of India, c. 150 A.D. to 350 A.D.: Naga–Vakataka Imperial Period c15.s4.t1: The Era of 248 A.D.
History of India, c. 150 A.D. to 350 A.D.: Nāga–Vākāṭaka Imperial Period c15.s4.t1
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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.