The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c3.11

v1.c3.11

The story of the foundation and extension of later eras in Indian history—the Gupta era and the era of Harsha, for example—can be clearly traced. All such undoubted illustrations of the process are seen to imply the existence of certain political conditions—the relations of suzerain to feudatories, in fact. It is not necessarily, or indeed usually, the founder of a dynasty who is also the founder of an era; but it is that member of the royal house who succeeded in asserting ‘universal’ sway and in reducing his neighbours to the status of feudatories. The use of the era can be shown, in well-ascertained cases, to have spread from the suzerain to the feudatories. Is there any reason to suppose that extension in the contrary direction—from feudatory to suzerain—has ever taken place or could possibly take place?