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

48 CORPUS INSCRIPTIONUM INDICARUM, VOL. III.
In 1871, in the Jour. R. As. Soc. N. S. Vol. V. p. 193 ff., General Cunningham
attached a note to Professor Dowson's paper on "Ancient Inscriptions from Mathurâ;"
in which (id. p. 196), on the grounds that both Kanishka and Huvishka must have preceded
the establishment of the Śaka era, he referred the dates of their inscriptions to the
Vikrama era; and he quoted the reference, in the Allâhâbâd pillar inscription, to the Daiva-
putras and Shâhânushâhis, "who must have been the Turushka kings of the Pañjâb,"
as shewing that Samudragupta was "a contemporary of the Turushka kings, whose domi-
"nion, according to the Chinese authorities, had already passed away in the beginning of
"the third century after Christ." As to this last point, I will only say that what we
have in reality, in the Allâhâbâd inscription, is, not the means of fixing the date of
Samudragupta through the Chinese accounts, but the means of correcting the Chinese
accounts by the date of Samudragupta.
In the same year, 1871, General Cunningham published his Archæol. Surv. Ind.
Vol. I., containing, in the first part of it, his Archæological Report for the season 1861-62,
which, as already noted, had appeared originally in the Jour. Beng. As. Soc. Vol. XXXII.
pp. iii to cix. In this (id. p. 94), he expressed the opinion that the Śaka era, for the
Early Gupta dates, would accord best with the then general acceptance of the fact that
the Gupta dynasty was overthrown in A.D. 319; and he consequently now interpreted the
date of the year 141, in the Kahâum pillar inscription of Skandagupta, as equivalent to
A.D. 219. And, incidentally, (id. p. 139 f.) in connection with the question of the Vikra-
ma and Śaka eras, he identified the Vikramâditya, mentioned by Albêrûnî,—in com-
memoration of whose victory over the Śakas at Karûr, between Multân and Lônî, one
hundred and thirty-five years after the establishment of the Vikrama era of B.C. 57, the
Śaka era was supposed to have been founded,¹—with the Śâlivâhana, whose name came
subsequently to be connected by the Hindus with the Śaka era, as the founder of it. The
same opinion, as to the dominion of the Guptas having probably commenced about A.D.
78, was also expressed by him in 1873, in the Archæol. Surv. Ind. Vol. III. p. 4; in which
volume he also (id. p. 41 ff.) referred the dates of Kanishka and Huvishka to the Vikrama
era; proposed to take the three kings Hushka, Jushka, and Kanishka, of the Râjataram-
giṇî, i. 168-73, as being represented by the Vikramâditya who, according to Mêrutuṅga,
reigned for sixty years; and fixed the Indo-Scythian rule, in India, as commencing B.C.
57 and ending A.D. 79, "at which latter date, according to Hindu belief, the dynasty of
"Vikramâditya was finally overthrown by Śâlivâhana."
In 1872, in the Jour. Bo. Br. R. As. Soc. Vol. X. p. 72 ff., Dr. R. G. Bhandarkar
threw in his adherence to the opinion held by Mr. Thomas and Dr. Bhau Daji, that the
era to which the dates in the Valabhî grants refer, is the Śaka era, as affording "an in-
"telligible starting-point for the Valabhî era, ascertained by Colonel Tod to have com-
"menced in A.D. 319;" his own opinion as to the establishment of this Valabhî era
¹ Albêrûnî's India; Sachau's Translation; Vol. II. p. 6.