The History of Indian Literature c9.73

c9.73

dagger † We first meet with it in the astronomer Varáha-Mihira in the fifth or sixth century, though even this is not altogether certain, and, as in the case of Brahmagupta in the seventh century, it might possibly be the era of Śáliváhana (beg. a.d. 78). Lassen does, in fact, suppose the latter (*I. AK.*, i. 508), but see Colebrooke, ii. 475.—Albírúní gives particulars (v. Reinaud, *Journ. Asiat.*, Sept. 1844, pp. 282–284) as to the origin of the *Śaka* era; but regarding the basis of the *Samvat* era of Vikrama he does not enlarge. [Even yet these two questions, which are of such capital importance for Indian chronology, are in an altogether unsatisfactory state. According to Kern, Introd. to his edition of the Bṛihat-Saṃhitá of Varáha-Mihira, 5 ff. (1866), the use of the so-called *Saṃvat* era is not demonstrable for early times at all, while astronomers only begin to employ it after the year 1000 *or so*. According to Westergaard, *Om de indiske Kejser-house* (1867), p. 164, the grant of Dantidurga, dated *Śaka* 675, *Saṃvat* 811 (A.D. 754), is the earliest certain instance of its occurrence; *see also* Burnell, *Elem. of South. Ind. Pal.*, p. 55. Others, on the contrary, have no hesitation in at once referring, wherever possible, every *Saṃvat-* or *Saṃvatsare*-dated inscription to the *Saṃvat era*. Thus, *e.g.*, Cunningham in his *Archæol. Survey of India*, iii. 31, 39, directly assigns an inscription dated *Saṃv*. 5 to the year B.C. 52: Dowson, too, has recently taken the same view, *J. R. A. S.*, vii. 382 (1875). According to Eggeling (Trübner's *Amer. and Or. Lit. Rec.*, special number, 1875, p. 38), one of the inscriptions found in Sir Walter Elliot's copies of grants dates as far back as the year *Śaka* 169 (A.D. 247). Burnell, however, declares it to be a forgery of the tenth century. Fergusson, too, *On the Śaka, Saṃvat, and Gupta Eras*, pp. 11–16, is of opinion that the so-called *saṃvat* era goes no farther back than the tenth century. For the present, therefore, unfortunately, where there is nothing else to guide us, it must generally remain an open question which era we have to do with in a particular inscription, and what date consequently the inscription bears.]