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

8 CORPUS INSCRIPTIONUM INDICARUM, VOL. III.
the most convenient arrangement has been, to place the record which mentions him, next
after that of Budhagupta.
In No. 21, page 93, down to No. 25, page 112, we have some inscriptions, ranging
from A.D. 475 to A.D. 528, which overlap, on one side, the time of Budhagupta, and
on the other, the periods of Tôramâṇa, Bhânugupta, and Mihirakula. They are the re-
cords of a feudatory family, to the members of which it is convenient to give the name of
the **Parivrâjaka Mahârâjas.**¹ And the extreme importance of them lies in the fact
that they expressly shew that, though the direct line of the Early Gupta dynasty itself
may have become extinct, the Gupta dominion still continued, and the name of the
Gupta kings was still recognised as a power, down to A.D. 528. Another very special
feature in them, as will be seen, is the use of the Twelve-Year Cycle of Jupiter, in the
records of the dates. As will now be shewn for the first time, this point really furnishes
most valuable corroboration, if not actually independent and conclusive proof, of my
general results as to the exact year from which the dates of the Early Guptas and their
successors run.
Closely connected with the preceding, both chronologically and territoriahy, was
another family, that of the Mahârâjas of Uchchakalpa, whose records we have in
No. 26, page 117, to No. 31, page 135; with also a mention of one member of this family,
the Mahârâja Śarvanâtha, in No. 24, page 110, which proves that, at the date therein
referred to, he was the contemporary of the Parivrâjaka Mahârâja Hastin. And the
recorded dates of this family, if referred to the Gupta era, range from A.D. 493 to 533-34.
That this is the proper interpretation of the dates, was assumed by General Cunningham
who first brought all the Uchchakalpa grants, save one, to notice.² And my own view has
been the same. But a later consideration of the question shewed that there are a few
points in the inscriptions, which, if the existence of the Kalachuri or Chêdi era, as a
separate era, could be satisfactorily established, render it possible that these dates are
recorded, not in the Gupta era, but in the Kalachuri era; which, even with General
Cunningham's proposed epoch³ of A.D. 249-50, would suit all the requirements almost
as well as the Gupta era, and, with an epoch about twenty-five or thirty years later, would
suit them much better. Thus, in particular, the understanding that, while the Parivrâjaka
Mahârâjas were feudatories of later members of the Early Gupta dynasty, the Mahârâjas of
Uchchakalpa, whose territories evidently lay more to the east and south-east, were feuda-
tories of Kalachuri kings, would explain at once why no era is quoted in the Bhumarâ
pillar inscription, No. 24, page 110; the reason being that the feudatories of the two rival
dynasties could not agree as to which of the two rival eras should be used. Again, this
same record shews that the Mahârâjas Hastin and Śarvanâtha were contemporaneous in the
Mahâ-Mâgha saṁvatsara that is mentioned in it. Now, for Hastin we have the extreme dates
¹ See page 95, note 1. ² Archæol. Surv. Ind. Vol. IX. p. 9 ff. ³ See Indian Eras, p. 60 ff.