History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v1.c22.s1.14

v1.c22.s1.14

Our history is concerned with the conquest of Harsha and with later events. But as we have said before, it would be interesting to note here the historical facts before this event which can be gathered from inscriptions. Now the Vamśāvalis mention certain kings before Harsha who are also mentioned in inscriptions and these are 1 Vrisha-deva 2 Śankaradeva 3 Dharmadeva 4 Mānadeva, 5 Mahī-deva and Vasantadeva. They are not only mentioned in Jayadeva's inscription (no. 15) of Harsha S. 153 i.e. A. D. 759 but they have left their own inscriptions as stated before dated S. 386, 435 and 535. The question here is what Samvat is this. They certainly precede Jayadeva of 759 A. D. by many generations i. e. several centuries. Now it is impossible to take the Gupta era here, for the years would be, adding 320, 706, 755, and 855 A. D. Śaka era of 78 A. D. and Vikrama era of 57 B. C. are both admissable. But Pandit Bhagavanlal has rightly held that the Vikrama era alone is applicable considering the number of generations that intervened between Jayadeva of 759 A. D. and Mānadeva of the first inscription. We find from inscription no. 15 that Jayadeva was preceded by the famous 1 Śivadeva son-in-law of the powerful Maukhari, 2 Narendradeva, then 13 unnamed kings then 17th Udayadeva, 18th Vasantadeva, 19th Mahīdeva and 20th Mānadeva son of Dharmadeva and Rājyadevi as mentioned in inscription No. 1 of S. 386. These 19 kings if assigned about 437 years at 23 year's average for each generation as usual will take Mānadeva to A.D. 322 (759-437). If S. 386 be treated as Vikrama Samvat we get A.D. 326 which is near Manadeva's date above obtained. But if we take Samvat 386 as given in the Saka era it gives us A. D. 464.