The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c3.12

v1.c3.12

It has been suggested that the Vikrama era originated with the Mālavas, whose name it sometimes bears in inscriptions. They were a people, apparently of no great political importance, who can be traced in the Punjab and Rājputāna centuries before they settled in Mālwā, the tract of Central India which now bears their name; and they were almost certainly, like the other peoples of these regions, included in the Çaka empire at one period of their history. Is it conceivable that they could have initiated the Vikrama era, and that a great suzerain like Gondopharnes, who almost beyond doubt dates his Takht-i-Bahi inscription in this era, stood indebted to them for its use? The Vikrama era had undoubtedly become the traditional reckoning of the Mālavas in the fifth century a.d.; but the most obvious explanation of the fact is that they had inherited it from their former overlords.