Political History of Ancient India, from the Accession of Parikshit to the Extinction of the Gupta Dynasty c18.s1.50

c18.s1.50

The dates assigned to Maues by various scholars range from B.C. 135 to A.D. 154. His coins are found ordinarily in the Pañjāb, and chiefly in the western portion of the province of which Taxila was the ancient capital. There can thus be no doubt that Maues was the king of Gandhāra. Now, it is impossible to find for Maues a place in the history of the Pañjāb before the Greek king Antialkidas who was reigning at Taxila when king Bhāgabhadra was on the throne of Vidiśā in Central India for fourteen years. The date of Bhāgabhadra is uncertain but he must be placed later than Agnimitra, son of Pushyamitra, who ruled from *cir.* B.C. 151 to 143. The fourteenth year of Bhāgabhadra, therefore, could not have fallen before *c.* 129 B.C. Consequently Antialkidas could not have been ruling earlier than the second half of the second century B.C.,² and his reign could not have ended before 129 B.C. The Śaka occupation of Gandhāra must, therefore, be later than 129 B.C. All scholars except Fleet identify Maues with *Maharaya Moga* of the so-called Sirsukh or Taxila plate, dated in the year 78 of an unspecified era. The generally accepted view is that the era is of Śaka institution. As the era is used only in Northern India and the borderland, it is permissible to conjecture that it came into existence after the Śaka occupation of those regions. We have already seen that this occupation could not have taken place before 129 B.C. The era used in the Taxila plate could not, therefore, have originated before 129 B.C. The year 78 of the era could not have fallen before B.C. (129-78=) 51. Consequently the rule of Maues-Moga cannot have ended before B.C. 51. He must be placed even later, because we learn from Chinese records that Yin-mo-fu was in possession of Kipin or Kāpiśa-Gandhāra about 48-33 B.C., and he was preceded by Wu-tou-lao and his son. As there is no real ground for identifying Maues-Moga with any of these rulers he will have to be placed after 33 B.C. He cannot perhaps be placed later than the middle of the first century A.D., because we learn from Philostratos and the author of the *Periplus* that about the time or a little later both Taxila and Minnagara, the metropolis of Scythia, *i.e.* the Śaka kingdom in the Indus valley, had passed into the hands of the Parthians. It seems, therefore, that Maues-Moga ruled after 33 B.C., but before the latter half of the first century A.D. According to Fleet, Moga flourished in the year 22 A.D.—the year 78 of the era commencing 58 B.C. which afterwards came to be known as the *Kṛita-Mālava-Vikrama* era. But the matter must be regarded as not definitely settled. The Khalatse Inscription of the year 187 (?) of Uvima (? Wema Kadphises) and the Taxila Silver Vase Inscription of the year 191 of Jihonika possibly suggest that the era to which the dates of these inscriptions, and presumably that of the so-called Sirsukh (Taxila) plate of Moga, are to be referred, began much earlier than B.C. 58.