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

22 CORPUS INSCRIPTIONUM INDICARUM, VOL. III.
And, finally, in a curious passage from the Achâraṭîkâ, which I give in full at page
32 below, note 3, we have the date "when there have gone by seven centuries of years of
the Guptas, increased by seventy-two ;" in which there is used again the genitive plural,
Guptânâm. But the passage contains, as will be seen, a remarkable confusion, which
cannot at present be cleared up, between the Gupta and the Śaka eras. And, like
the Môrbi grant, this record belongs to a late period, and furnishes no authority for
early times.
In the records of the Early Guptas themselves, the date is always expressed simply
by the word saṁvatsara, 'a year,' as in the Udayagiri cave inscription of Chandragupta
II., of the year 82, No. 3, page 25, line 2; or by the abbreviation saṁ as in the Sâñchi
inscription of the same king, of the year 93, No. 5, page 32, line 11; or by the fuller
abbreviation saṁvat, as in the Mankuwâr image inscription of Kumâragupta, No. 11, page
47, line 2. And such of their coins as are dated at all, give simply the numerical symbols,
without the accompaniment of any word meaning 'year,' and much less of any dynastic
qualification of it. For a reason which I indicate in Appendix I. below, these methods
of expression, which are exactly analogous to the usages of other dynasties also, do not
necessarily prove that the era was not established by the Guptas. At the same time, they
contain no proof that it was established by them; and nothing to connect their name
with it.
The fact remains, therefore, that in no early record can we find any indication
that the era was founded by the Guptas; and much less that there ever existed any
technical expressions analogous to Śaka-nṛipa-kâla, "the time or era of the Śaka king or
kings ;" Śaka-nṛipa-saṁvatsara, "the years of the Śaka king;" Śaka-kâla, "the Śaka era;"
Vikrama-kâla, "the Vikrama era;" Vikramâditya-ôtpâdita-saṁvatsara, "the years estab-
lished by Vikramâditya," &c. ;¹ or even analogous to the terms Valabhî-saṁ and Valabhî-
saṁvat, which are of actual occurrence in later times. This fact will become of more
importance, when we come to deal with the question of the probable origin of the
era. Meanwhile, I have drawn attention to it, because it is a point that must be borne in
mind throughout the whole discussion. It is necessary, however, in order to avoid
periphrasis, to have some convenient name for the era; and therefore, as a simple matter
¹ See my notes "On the Nomenclature of the principal Hindu Eras, and the use of the word
Saṁvatsara and its Abbreviations," in the Ind. Ant. Vol. XII. pp. 207 ff., 291 ff.; where, of course,
owing to our advance in knowledge, my remarks on the Kaira grants (p. 208), and on the Kâvî grant,
(p. 291 ff.) now require to be entirely recast.—I have shewn there that, as is now generally recognised,
the use of the abbreviation saṁvat is in no way restricted, as was formerly held to be the case, to the
Vikrama era; see also a pointed instance supplied by Dr. Bühler in the Ind. Ant. Vol. XIV. p. 63.
It is simply an abbreviation of the base saṁvatsara, 'a year,' or of any declensional case of it that
can be used in expressing a date (see No. 5, page 30, note 3). And, bearing this in mind, such
expressions as Gupta-Saṁvat, Śaka-Saṁvat, Vikrama-Saṁvat, &c., of which the two latter actually
occur in original records (see Ind. Ant. Vol. XII. pp. 213, 293), give a uniform, convenient, and
unobjectionable method of quoting the years of the different (