गुप्त अभिलेख संग्रह (जे. एफ. फ्लीट - गुप्त सम्राटों एवं परवर्ती नरेशों के ऐतिहासिक पाषाण व ताम्रलेख)

130 CORPUS INSCRIPTIONUM INDICARUM, VOL. III.
any distinct specification to the contrary, we must interpret the years in Gupta-
Valabhî dates as current years.
The Origin of the Era.
I have shewn, at page 33 ff. above, that the so-called Gupta era is not one which,
due originally to some event occurring only in approximation to A.D. 318, 319, or 320, had its
exact epoch determined, for convenience of comparison with the Śaka era, by adopting the
expiration of an even number of cycles of the planet Jupiter, either of the Twelve-Year or
of the Sixty-Year System. And no other chronological or astronomical considerations sug-
gest themselves, for the selection of the exact epoch that has been proved. Its origin,
therefore, must be found in some historical event, which occurred actually in
A.D. 320, or so closely to that time that, when the scheme of the northern Śaka year was
applied, the reckoning of the era was not affected to any appreciable extent. And here,
though the point is not conclusive either way, we must bear in mind that, as has been
shewn at page 19 ff. above, in the epigraphical references to the era there is nothing at
all, at any early period, to connect the name of the Early Guptas with it, especially as
the founders of it; and nothing to connect the name of Valabhî with it, until at least nine
centuries after its establishment.
We must also bear in mind that it is certain that the era cannot have been
established by any member of the Valabhî family; the reasons for this being
—(1) that, for the first six or seven generations, the members of this family were mere
feudatory Sênâpatis and Mahârâjas, without the authority to establish an era of their own ;
—and (2) that the date of the year 207 for the Mahârâja Dhruvasêna I., in the second
generation, proves that the reckoning runs from long before the first rise to power of
his father, the Sênâpati Bhaṭârka, by whom the family was founded.
In the same way, the first two members of the Early Gupta family, Gupta and Ghaṭôt-
kacha, held only the feudatory rank of Mahârâja, and had not the authority to establish
an era. The first paramount sovereign in the family was Ghaṭôtkacha’s son, Chandragupta
I. And, if a Gupta era, truly and properly so called, was devised in his time, then as its
starting-point there would have been selected the commencement of his reign, not the date
of the rise to power of his first recorded ancestor, the Mahârâja Gupta ; as was done in
the case of the Harsha era, which disregards, not only two generations of Mahârâjas at the
commencement of the genealogy, but even the reigns of two kings, Prabhâkaravardhana
and Râjyavardhana II., and runs from the commencement of the reign of the third para-
mount sovereign, Harshavardhana himself. So, also, when the Western Châlukya king
Vikramâditya VI. established a new era under the name of the Châlukya-Vikrama-Kâla,¹
he disregarded the reigns of all his ancestors, and made the era date from his own accession
¹ See Ind. Ant. Vol. VIII. p. 187 ff.