Political History of Ancient India, from the Accession of Parikshit to the Extinction of the Gupta Dynasty c18.s3.71

c18.s3.71

⁴ For the origin of the *Śaka era* see Fleet, *CII*, preface 56; *JRAS*, 1913, pp. 635, 650, 987 ff.; Dubreuil, *AHD*, 26; Rapson *Andhra Coins*, p. cv; S. Konow, *Corpus*, II. i. xvi f. Nahapāna, who was not even a *Mahākshatrapa* in the years 42-45, and who never became a paramount sovereign, could not possibly have been the founder of the era. The theory which represents Nahapāna as the founder of the era used in his inscriptions (dated 42-46) is also contradicted by a Jaina tradition (relied on by Sten Konow, *Corpus*, II. i. xxxviii) which assigns to him (Nahavāhana) a period of only 40 years. Chashṭana has no better claims and the evidence of the Periplus shows that he could not have ruled at Ujjain in 78 A.D. As to the theory that Kadphises II founded the reckoning in question, it may be pointed out that no inscription or coin of this monarch contains any date which is referable to an era of his institution. The only Scythian king who did establish an era in the sense that he used a regnal reckoning that was continued by his successors, is Kanishka. And the only reckoning that is attributed by Indian writers, since the days of the early Chalukyas, to a Scythian king is the *Śaka era* of 78 A.D. Regarding the objection that the Śaka era was foreign to the north it may be pointed out that the era of 58 B.C., was equally foreign to the extreme north-west of India. The assertion that the Śaka era was never used in the north-west simply begs the question. It assumes what it has got to prove, *viz*., that the reckoning used by the house of Kanishka does not refer to the Śaka era. The very name Śaka points to its foreign, and possibly north-western, origin, as the imperial Śakas resided in that region, and it is only the viceroys who dwelt in Mālwa Kāthiāwār and the Deccan. On the analogy of every famous Indian regnal reckoning it may be confidently asserted that the Śaka era, too, originated with a sovereign and not with a mere viceroy.