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

54 CORPUS INSCRIPTIONUM INDICARUM, VOL. III.
Gupta-Saṁvat 163 into 173. Accepting this alteration, his theory and arrangement of
the saṁvatsaras of the Twelve-Year Cycle, and his general results, have seemed sound,
consistent, and reliable. But it is now known that his process for determining the
saṁvatsaras is wrong, and cannot give satisfactory results. This part of the subject will
be explained fully further on. Meanwhile I will only state here that General Cunning-
ham's theory of the Twelve-Year Cycle is based on the assumption, the incorrectness of
which can now be proved, that the saṁvatsaras of it begin and end with the luni-solar years;
and that his process for determining the saṁvatsaras (id. pp. vi. 114 f., and Indian Eras,
p. 27 f.) only gives the saṁvatsara that is current, according to the sign-passing system,
at the commencement of any given luni-solar year; it does not provide for the really
essential point, even of this system, which is the determination of the saṁvatsara that is
current on any given date in a given year after the commencement of it. On this
occasion (id. p. 112) General Cunningham fully accepted Albêrûnî's apparent state-
ment regarding the extinction of the Gupta sovereignty, in the Valabhî country, in A.D.
319, in which year he now placed the Sênâpati Bhaṭârka of Valabhî. And he recorded
the opinion (id. p.126) that the foundation of the Valabhî era of A.D. 319 might very
probably have been brought about by the opportunity afforded by the death of Skandagupta,
for whom the latest recorded date, supplied by a coin of the year 149, would be, according
to his new theory, A.D. 315. In general support of his results, he also quoted certain
numismatic facts, such as (id. p. 112) that a comparison of the gold coins of the Guptas
with those of the Indo-Scythian king Vâsudêva, shewed that they must have followed
him very closely; while a comparison of their silver coins with those of the Satraps
of Saurâshṭra,—formerly called the Sâh kings,—and those of the Valabhî family, proved
distinctly that the Guptas must have followed the Satraps of Saurâshṭra and preceded
the Valabhî family; but this is a line of study with which we are not concerned in the
present inquiry.
In the same year, in the Jour. R. As. Soc. N. S. Vol. XII. p. 259 ff., Mr. Fergusson
issued his paper "On the Śaka, Saṁvat, and Gupta Eras," as a supplement to his original
paper "On Indian Chronology," which has been noticed at page 46 f. above. In his
previous paper, he had adopted General Cunningham's view that Kanishka died A.D. 24.
Now, however, on arguments based (id. p. 264) on the comparative state of decay exhi-
bited by coins of Kanishka and by some belonging to the Roman Consular period, found
in Kanishka's Stûpa at 'Manikyala;' on the understanding (id. p. 265) that the legend of
St. Thomas having visited the East in the reign of a certain king Gondophares,—which
visit, if it really occurred, must have been after A.D. 33 and probably before A.D. 50,—is
at any rate admissible so far as to shew that the inventors of the legend must have
known that the king of 'Taxila' at that time was Gondophares, whose name occurs, on
coins, among a series of kings "who reigned in the north-west of India, certainly subse-
"quent to the fall of the Greek dynasties, and as certainly anterior to Kanishka;" and