Hindu Polity: A Constitutional History of India in Hindu Times c26.23

c26.23

§ 148. In 58 B.C.⁴ Nahapāṇa is defeated and killed by Gautamīputra who re-struck Nahapāṇa's coins, and the Gaṇa of the Mālavas counted the beginning of Kṛita from that date.⁵ Their Gaṇa adopted the date to measure future time (Kāla-jñānāya⁶). The era was 'made authoritative by their use'⁷. The authority of that Era of Prowess (*Vikrama*) still reigns : we use it to this day. The Mālavas subsequently covered the whole of the vast area to the south of Nāgar, which permanently bears their name. They are mentioned in the list of Samudra Gupta's opponents along with other republicans, the Yaudheyas, the Madras, the Ārjunāyanas, etc. In the Gupta period they retire into the Unknown. Their era was used by great sovereigns of Mālava from the fourth to the sixth centuries. This would not have been done if the Mālava-gaṇa had been still subsisting, for that would have denoted subordination of the sovereigns using the era. They certainly did not exist in the time of Varāha-Mihira (who drawing on older materials) places them near the Himalayas. Varāha-Mihira himself was living in Mālava, and to use so antiquated a datum shows that the real Mālavas had for some centuries ceased to exist. The Vishṇu Purāṇa¹ gives their later habitation (Mewar-Jaipur) and gives it correctly.