The Greeks in Bactria and India c10.s6.151

c10.s6.151

So far I have been deducing the chronology from the coins, with the help of the Chinese evidence which will be considered later; but there is another line of evidence which I think establishes the exact year of Maues' death, and on that several other things depend. In Indian tradition,¹ after the Sacas had conquered Ujjain they were defeated and driven out in the year 58 B.C. by the Indian king Vikramāditya, who established the first Indian Era, the Vikrama Era, as from that year, doubtless in imitation of the Era of the defeated Sacas;² the Jain tradition makes this (the first) Saca rule in Ujjain last four years only.³ If we suppose, as many have done, that the tradition enshrines a fact—and anyhow the Vikrama Era is a fact—then the first Saca conqueror of Ujjain can only have been Maues, and the date of Maues' death is 58; and this fits so closely with the *a priori* chronology already worked out on other grounds that I have no hesitation in assigning Maues' death to that year.⁴ (I must note that if the Vikrama Era related to the recapture of Ujjain from the Sacas, that is, was a Malva Era,⁵ that might support the view that the Saca Era of A.D. 78 was also a Malva Era and was instituted by the Western (Saca) Satraps;⁶ it would commemorate their independence and their retaking of Ujjain.)