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

184 CORPUS INSCRIPTIONUM INDICARUM, VOL III
good deal of genealogical information, to be commented on below, is one of Jayadêva II.
(line 14), who also had the second name or biruda of Parachakrakâma (l. 18). The object
of it is to record that he caused a silver water-lily to be made, for the worship of Śiva under
the name of Paśupati; and that it was worshipped and installed by his mother Vatsadêvî.
The date (l. 35) is (Harsha)-Saṁvat 153, Kârttika-śukla-navamyâm; answering, approxi-
mately, to the 16th October, A.D. 758.
S.—Dr. Bhagwanlal Indraji's inscription No. 4; Ind. Ant. Vol. IX. p. 168.—The
commencement of the inscription, recording the place whence the order was issued and the
king's name, is broken away and lost. And the inscription, therefore, is of importance
only as indicating the period during which the era that is referred to in it, continued to be
used. The Dûtaka (line 17) is the Râjaputra Vikramasêna.¹ The date (l. 18) is
(Gupta)-Saṁvat 535, Śrâvaṇa-śukla-divâ-saptamyâm; answering, approximately, to the 1st
July, A.D. 854.
When Dr. Bhagwanlal Indraji summed up, according to his view of them, the histori-
cal results of his inscriptions, Mr. Bendall's inscription No. 1, A. above, was not known;
and the only available clue was the mention, in B. C. E. F. and G., of Aṁśuvarman, who
was evidently to be identified with the king of that name who was reigning during, or
shortly before, Hiuen Tsiang's visit to Northern India, in or about A.D. 637. Acting on
this identification, he very properly referred the dates of (C.) 34, (E.) 39, (F.) 44 or 45,
(G.) 48, (L.) 119, (N.) 143 (?), (O.) 145, and (R.) 153, to the era dating from the com-
mencement of the reign of Harshavardhana of Kanauj in A.D. 606 (or 607).
Mr. Bendall's discovery of the Gôlmâḍhitôl inscription, furnished the key-note for the
interpretation of the whole matter. For, mentioning Aṁśuvarman as the contemporary of
Śivadêva I., and giving for the latter the date of the year 316, it shews that this date, and
all belonging to the same uniform series, must be referred to an era commencing just about
three centuries before the Harsha era; i. e. to the so-called Gupta era, with the epoch of
A.D. 319-20; for then the year 316 + A.D. 319-20 = A.D. 635-36, which is in the
closest possible accordance with the first recorded date of Aṁśuvarman, in A.D. 639.
But, when Dr. Bhagwanlal Indraji wrote, nothing was certain about the other larger
dates of (K.) 386, (M.) 413, (P.) 435, and (S.) 535; except that all the circumstances of
the case shewed that they were not of the same series with the smaller dates belonging to
the Harsha era. And, after examining the theory of the Śaka era, commencing A.D. 78,
and rejecting it on the grounds that even this was not early enough, Dr. Bhagwanlal Indraji
finally referred them to the Vikrama era commencing B.C. 58.
Curiously enough, the Nêpâl Vaṁśâvali states that Vikramâditya came to Nêpâl, and
established his era there. And, as we have seen at page 74 f. above, an offshoot of the
Vikrama era certainly was introduced into Nêpâl in A.D. 880. But the statement of the
Vaṁśâvali refers to the time of the predecessor of Aṁśuvarman; i.e. to the end of the
¹ See page 178 above, note 2.