Assuming that the Sata Karni dynasty is correctly represented in the Puranas, as enumerated above, Rudra Dama would, on the assumption that the dates were Samvat, have been reigning A.D. 16 (72-56), immediately after the establishment of the dynasty, and before the long and prosperous reign of Sata Karni II., which could hardly have taken place had his family been smitten so early in their career. But if we assume that it was A.D. 151 (79+72), it would coincide with the reign of the third king of that name, and at a time when, so far as we can judge from the length of the reigns, and the careless way they are enumerated in the Puranas, the fortunes of the family were considerably depressed; and it is little more than a century and a half after this time that Gautamiputra restored the fortunes of his family. Had 300 years elapsed between these two events, the family could hardly ever have attained the position it did.

Another point of more importance is, that the dates on the Sah coins—from whatever era calculated—extend only to 270-271, or doubtfully to 292.[682] If these are calculated from the Vicramaditya Samvat, they must have ceased to reign in A.D. 214, or at the latest A.D. 236, and there would have been no Khagaratas for Gautamiputra to humble after A.D. 312. On the other hand, if calculated from A.D. 79, their final extinction would have been in A.D. 349, or at latest A.D. 371. So that, though humbled by Gautamiputra, they overlap the Gupta era to some extent, which it seems is almost indispensable to account for the mode in which the Sah coins overlap and run into those of the Gupta series, on which Mr. Thomas so strongly and, it appears to me, so correctly insists.[683]

One of two things seems necessary: either that the Guptas shall be carried back so as to overlap the Sahs, dating either from the Vicramadityan or Selucidan eras, or that the Sahs be brought down so as to overlap them, if dating from the era bearing their name. Mr. Thomas and General Cunningham prefer the former hypothesis. For the reasons just stated, and others to be given further on, I feel convinced that the latter hypothesis is the only one that is in accordance with the facts of the case as we now know them.

This substitution of the Saka era for the Samvat brings what we know of the history, with what we learn from the inscriptions, and gather from the coins, so completely into accordance, that I can hardly doubt now that it is the correct view of the matter, and certainly more in accordance with the facts than that I previously adopted.

Guptas.

Although the Puranas conduct us in so reasonable and satisfactory a manner to the end of the Andrabritya dynasty, their guidance forsakes us there. After that, all the subsequent contemporary dynasties were thrown into hotch-pot—to use a legal expression—and a system of fraud and falsification commenced which is the reproach of Indian history. It is not, however, difficult to see the causes of this new and monstrous invention. For six centuries and a half Buddhism had reigned supreme in India, and the system of the Brahmans, though probably never extinct, was at least subdued and subordinate. With the decline of the Andras this state of affairs was altered. The Guptas, who immediately succeeded them, are shown, both by their coins and inscriptions, to have been followers of Vishnu and Siva,[684] and their buildings at Erun tell the same story.[685]

Though the Guptas may have inaugurated the new system, it was by the great Vicramaditya of Ujjain that it was established, A.D. 515-550. He did for the new religion what Asoka had done for Buddhism some seven and a half centuries before his time. He made a state religion in India, and established it so firmly that little more than a century after his death it seems to have superseded Buddhism altogether. It is in his reign, apparently, that the Puranic system was invented—not that the Puranas were written or all the falsifications of history invented in his day, but a commencement was then made, and by the 10th or 11th century of our era it was brought to the complete perfection of fraud in which it is now found.

One of the first necessities of the new system was to throw back the period when India was Buddhist, and to place a gulf between them and their successors. To effect this, the Puranas enumerate the following:—“After these” (the Andrabrityas) “various races will reign—seven Abhiras, ten Gardabhilas, sixteen Sakas, eight Yavanas, fourteen Tusharas, thirteen Mandas, eleven Maunas or Hunas[686]—seventy-nine princes will be sovereigns of the earth for 1399 years. Then eleven Pauras will be kings for 300 years; when they are destroyed, Kailakila Yavanas will be kings, the chiefs of whom will be Vindhya Sacti, &c.—106 years.” After various others: “The nine Nagas will reign in Padmavati, Kantipura, and Mathura; and the Guptas of Magadha along the Ganges to Pryaga.”[687] Although we cannot identify all these dynasties with certainty, we know, at all events, that, instead of succeeding one another during more than 2000 years, they were all more or less contemporary—certainly that none were earlier than the Gupta era (A.D. 319)—and that none of them survived Vicramaditya (A.D. 550). The Sakas and Maunas, or Hunas, may be those destroyed by him, but of this hereafter. The Vindhya Sactis were contemporary with the Guptas, and the Gardabhilas are somehow connected with Bahram Gaur the Sassanian; and others we recognise dimly, but they are not sufficiently important to be discussed here.

Of all these the most important are the Guptas, and fortunately their date is one of the most clearly established facts in mediæval Indian chronology.[688]

The three last named can hardly be considered as belonging to the great dynasty, though they date from the same era, and the two first were comparatively insignificant characters. It was only Chandra Gupta I., A.D. 401, who assumed the title of Maharaja adhiraja, and founded the greatness of his race on the ruins of that of the Andrabrityas.

In addition to the above chronology, compiled from coins and dated inscriptions, Major Watson has recently supplied a most important item to their history from written records existing in Gujerat.

From this we learn that Chandra Gupta II. reigned twenty-three years after the conquest of Saurastra by his son; that Kumara Pal Gupta reigned twenty years; and that Skanda Gupta succeeded him, but lost Saurastra by the rebellion of his Senapati Bhatarka, the founder of the Ballabhi family. Two years after this event Skanda Gupta died, and, as we are informed, “at this time the Gupta race were dethroned by foreign invaders.”[689]

The era from which these dates are taken never appeared to me doubtful; and this confirms more and more the conviction that it was from the era that bears their name, A.D. 319. It could not be from the Saka era, as has generally been assumed, from the fact that Albiruni asserts that the era that bears their name, was “apparently” that of their destruction,[690] because in that case Skanda Gupta must have lived and reigned for ninety-four years in addition to the sixteen we already know, from inscriptions, he occupied the throne. A reign of 110 years seems impossible; and, if it is not so, it seems certain, for the reasons stated in my previous paper, that the Gupta era, 319, is that from which their coins and inscriptions are dated.

Besides this, there is an inscription on the rock at Junaghar, engraved by the same Skanda, the last of the great Guptas. This was not translated by Prinsep, though a copy of it was in his hands before his last illness.[691] Had he lived to translate it, my impression is that the controversy as to the age of the Guptas never would have arisen—its evidence seems so absolute. Be this as it may, it never appeared, so far as I know, in a complete form and translated, till this was accomplished by the late Bhau Daji in the sixth volume of the Bombay Journal of 1862. In it we have three dates—the Sadarsana lake is said to have burst its banks in 130, to have been repaired in 137, and a temple to Vishnu built in 138, and twice it is repeated “counting from the era of the Guptas” (Guptasya Kala). The stone is worn where the middle date occurs, but there is just space enough for these words. The same king, on the Kuhaon pillar, dates his inscription in 141,[692] but without mentioning the era, which seems to have been so usual in Bengal as not to require being specified.

Besides this, the 146[693] years from 319, which we know from their dated inscriptions that they reigned, is just the interval that is required to fill up the gap between the Ballabhis and their era which they adopted on usurping the inheritance of the Guptas, two years before Skanda Gupta’s death.[694]

One other point of considerable importance to Indian history which arises from the fixation of this date (A.D. 465-70) for the destruction of the Guptas is, that it was almost certainly the White Huns who were the “foreign invaders” that struck the blow that stopped their career. At least, we learn from Cosmas Indicopleustes, writing seventy years after this time, that the Huns were a powerful nation in the north of India in his day, and we may infer, from what he says of them, had been settled there some time.[695]

On the Bhitari Lât, Bhau Daji reads—somewhat doubtfully, it must be confessed—the fact that Skanda Gupta had fought, apparently with success, against the Hunas.[696] But the great point is that it was just about this time that the White Huns broke loose and extended their incursions east and west, so that there is not only no improbability of their being the “foreign invaders” alluded to, but every likelihood they were so. No one, indeed, can, I believe, with the knowledge we now possess, read De Guignes’ chapter on the White Huns,[697] without perceiving that it contains the key to the solution of many mysterious passages in Indian history. It is true India is not mentioned there; but from the time of Bahram Gaur in 420, till the defeat of Feroze in 475, the Persians were waging an internecine war with these Huns, and nothing can be more likely than that the varying fortunes of that struggle should force them to seek the alliance of the then powerful Guptas, to assist them against their common foe.

Precisely the same impression is conveyed by what is said by Ferishta and the Persian historians[698] of the history of that time. Nothing can now, however, be more easily intelligible than the visit of Bahram Gaur to India when first attacked by the White Huns. His marriage with an Indian (? Gupta) princess of Canouge; the tribute or assistance claimed by Feroze and his successors on the Persian throne, are all easily explicable, on the assumption that the two nations were at that time engaged in a struggle against a common enemy. This, too, explains the mention of the Shah in Shahi on Samudra Gupta’s Allahabad inscription.[699] Hence, too, the decided Persian influence on the gold coinage of the Canouge Guptas,[700] and the innumerable Sassanian coins of that period found in all parts of the north of India.[701] In all this the Sassanians seem inseparably mixed with the Guptas. The Persians, however, came eventually victorious out of the war. The great Guptas were struck down at some date between 465-70, or very shortly afterwards. The struggle, however, was apparently continued for some time longer by a subordinate branch of their successors; inasmuch as we learn from an inscription found at Aphsar in Behar,[702] that the fourth of that dynasty, Damodara Gupta, “successfully encountered, at the battle of Maushari, the fierce army of the Western Huns.” This event may have stopped the career of the Huns in India, in which case it could not well have taken place before the year 535, when Cosmas Indicopleustes is supposed to have written his ‘Topographia Christiana;’ but it is by no means clear that he was not describing events that took place when he was himself in India some time previously. But be this as it may, it brings us to the time when the battles of Korûr—of which more hereafter—and Maushari freed India from the Sakas and Hunas, who had long held her in hated subjection. As I shall presently attempt to show, it appears to me hardly doubtful that these two battles were fought between 524 and 544; and they thus fix one of the most important epochs in mediæval Indian history. Indeed, so near each other are these two events in date, that I sometimes feel almost inclined to fancy they may be only different names for the same battle. At all events, they almost certainly represent parts of the same campaign which freed India in that age from the Yavanas; and that it was to commemorate the glories of these struggles that the Vicramaditya Samvat was instituted. This expulsion of the Yavanas was, too, the first serious blow that was struck at Buddhist supremacy, and from the effects of which it never afterwards completely recovered.

Ballabhi Dynasty.

However mistaken Albiruni may be in his dates, there is little doubt that he is quite correct in his statement to the effect that “L’ère de Ballabha est postérieure à celle de Saca de 241 ans. Apparemment Ballabha suivit immédiatement les Gouptas, car l’ère des Gouptas commence aussi 241 de l’ère de Saca.”[703] This we learn also, with the particulars how it happened, from Colonel Watson’s account of the transaction; while Colonel Tod’s celebrated Puttun Somnath inscription makes it also certain that the Ballabhi era commenced A.D. 319.[704] This being so, it seems difficult to understand why the era should have been called that of Ballabhi as well as that of the Guptas, unless it were that it was adopted by the first-named dynasty, and that they dated from it their acts and inscriptions, which are extremely numerous. There may be reasons why this should be otherwise; but, though the point has been generally and fiercely contested by eminent Indian chronologists, I fail to appreciate the arguments brought forward in favour of either the Vicramaditya or Saka eras,[705] and look upon their own era (A.D. 319) as certainly the one from which all the Gupta inscriptions are dated.

My impression is, that this would never have been considered doubtful but for an incautious statement by Colonel Tod that Ballabhi was destroyed by the Parthians A.D. 524,[706] in the reign of a Siladitya, its last king. Its inhabitants were, according to this account, slaughtered with the usual romantic incidents; but after a while a remnant established themselves in Sidhapore, and finally built a new capital, which they called Anhilwarra.

The utter falsity of the information so supplied to Colonel Tod is proved by the fact that when Ballabhi was visited by Hiouen Thsang, 115 years after its reputed destruction, he found it not only standing, and neither Sidhapore nor Anhilwarra thought of, but the old capital still remaining one of the richest and most prosperous cities of India, and its king one of the three greatest kings of northern India. The king’s name was Dhruvapaton, and he was a nephew or grand-nephew of Siladitya of Malwa, and the son-in-law of Siladitya, the reigning king of Canouge.[707] Lastly, we have the dates in copper-plates of a Dhruvasena, one in 310+319=629; the other 322+ 319, or 641,[708] the very year that Hiouen Thsang met him at Allahabad, if we assume them dated from the Ballabhi Samvat.

It would be satisfactory if we could determine the date of the destruction of Ballabhi with precision, as it is one of these events that mark an epoch in Indian history. It was one of the concluding acts of the old drama that closed the mediæval period of Indian history, and ushered in the dark ages which lasted more than two centuries from that time.

The materials for this hardly exist at present, though it may be approximated. We have numerous inscriptions of this dynasty, dated 310, 326, 338, 348, &c.,[709] or A.D. 629, 645, 657, 667 respectively, if the figures are all correctly read, which is not quite clear; and lastly, Mr. Burgess reports one dated 400, or A.D. 719, belonging to the last Siladitya, and consequently approaching very nearly to the event. Two accounts are current as to the mode in which the destruction was effected: one, that it was caused by an earthquake, which may have happened at any time;[710] the other (by Tod), that the city was destroyed by the Parthians. If it was by a foreign foe, it could only have been by the Mahomedans. They were on the Indus in strength in 22 Hegira,[711] or A.D. 644, or before Hiouen Thsang had left India, and no foreigner could have crossed the Indus or attacked Ballabhi after that time, or for some years before it, without being noticed by Mahomedan historians. They remained there in strength till after Mahomed Kasim, 711-715,[712] and it was to him that I was at one time inclined to ascribe the destruction. If, however, Mr. Burgess’s date is correct, his death was three years too early. But I do not think it at all improbable that Ballabhi is one of the cities—Barus and Uzain—said to be plundered by Junaid in A.D. 725 or 726.[713] Barus looks very like Baroach, and Uzain is almost certainly Ujjain—but whether Maliba is Ballabhi, I must leave others to determine.

All the accounts agree that Anhilwarra Puttun was founded Samvat 802, or A.D. 746,[714] which may be correct within a year or two; but from the accounts we have, it is clear that an interval of from twenty to thirty years must have elapsed between the two events, during which the inhabitants of the destroyed city sought refuge at Punchâsur and Sidhapore before they undertook the building of their new capital. If, therefore, we assume 725 as the date of the destruction of Ballabhi, we shall probably not err more than a year or two either way.

The earliest date of this family yet discovered is one on a copperplate of Dharasena II., which has been read by Professor Bhandarkar as 272,[715] or, according to the views here adopted, 591. It is hardly probable that any much earlier will be found; for it must be borne in mind that though the Ballabhis wrested the sovereignty of Gujerat from the Guptas two years before Skanda’s death (ante, p. 724), neither the first nor second of the race ventured to assume even the modest title of Raja; they were content to remain Senâpatis, or Generals. The third calls himself Maharaja; but their greatness only culminated in or about A.D. 650, when one of them, Sri Dharasena III., became Maharaja Adhiraja—King of kings or Emperor of Northern India.[716] The reason of this, as we shall presently see, was that the family that really succeeded the Guptas in the place of supreme authority in India was that of Ujjain, the second or third monarch of this race being the celebrated Vicramaditya, whose date, for reasons to be given hereafter, seems almost certainly to have been from 515 to 550. Be this as it may, as we shall presently see, it seems quite certain that a great Brahmanical revival took place in the beginning of the 6th century, which quite overshadowed all the Buddhist dynasties in northern India. For a while these were again eclipsed by a reflex wave of Buddhism, which for a century—A.D. 550-650—again illumined India. It was a last expiring effort, however, and after the last-named date it was only a struggle for existence on the part of the Buddhists, and in another century they are known no longer in those central countries where they had so long reigned supreme.

Chalukya Dynasties.

The two lists in the preceding page are among the most interesting and most important of those we possess, inasmuch as they contain the backbone of all we know regarding the Chalukyas, and are, in fact, what justify us, historically, in erecting their style into a separate division, different from the other forms of architecture known in India.

What we know of these dynasties is almost wholly due to the intelligent zeal of Sir Walter Elliot, who, during his residence in India, made a collection of 595 inscriptions from various parts of the Dekhan. From these he abstracted the lists he first published in the fourth volume of the Royal Asiatic Society; but afterwards much more in detail in the ‘Madras Journal,’ in 1858, from which these lists are copied verbatim.[717] Some of the inscriptions were translated and published with those papers, and others by Major—now General—- Le Grand Jacob, in the Bombay Journal (vol. iii. p. 206, et seqq.), and other notices of them are found among Mr. Wathen’s inscriptions in various volumes of the ‘Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society.’ But we shall not know more than a fraction of what we ought to, and might know, till Sir Walter Elliot’s inscriptions are translated and published.[718] When this is done, and the architecture of the Nizam’s territory explored, the Chalukyan style will take its place worthily between the Dravidian and Indo-Aryan styles, and will, if I mistake not, be found equal to either, both in importance and in artistic merit.

Fortunately there is no mistake or doubt about the era from which the Chalukyan inscriptions are dated: the Ballabhi branch succeeding to the possessions of the Guptas in Gujerat, naturally adopted their era, but the southern branch being entirely detached from any such association, adopted the Saka era (A.D. 79), which was then, so far as is known, the only other era at that time in use in India. What is equally important is, that there seems only one doubtful date among all those quoted in the lists—that of 411 Saka (A.D. 490), attached to the name of Pulakesi I. In his first paper,[719] Sir Walter Elliot thought it so improbable, that he rejected it altogether; and Professor Eggeling tells me he has strong reasons for suspecting the copperplate on which it is found to be a forgery.

As an initial date it does not appear impossible, if my views are correct, though certainly improbable. If Bhatarka Senapati wrested Gujerat from Skanda Gupta two years before his death, or in 463 or 468, it is by no means impossible that the fourth from him may have been reigning in A.D. 490, but the difficulty is the other way. There seems no doubt, from Mr. Burgess’s Badami inscriptions,[720] that Mangalisa succeeded his brother Kirtti Varma in 567, and it does seem impossible that he should have been the son of one who was reigning in 490, especially if he continued to reign till 609. If Mangalisa was the son of Pulakesi, which there seems no reason for doubting, it is evident that the central figure of his date must be altered to a higher number; but to what extent we shall not know till it is ascertained whether Vijaya was the son or grandson of Bhatarka Senapati. In the meanwhile, however, if we, as an hypothesis, add fifty years to the date of 411, and make it 461, or A.D. 540, it will allow Pulakesi a reign of twenty-seven years before the accession of Mangalisa in 567, which will bring the whole within the limits of probability, and seems perfectly consistent with the context.

With the seventh king we tread on surer ground. He was the king who, when bearing his grandfather’s name, Pulakesi, Hiouen Thsang visited in 640,[721] and was, as his inscriptions tell us,[722] the hero of those wars with Harsha Verddhana, or Siladitya of Malwa, which Ma-twan-lin so graphically describes as occurring in 618 to 627. From that time the dynasty seems to have flourished till the death of Vicramaditya II. He ascended the throne 733, and died about 750, or twenty-five years more or less after the destruction of the Ballabhi branch. After this, as Sir Walter Elliot expresses it, “the power of the Chalukyas was alienated for a time, or had suffered a partial obscuration, till the time of Teila, who is described as restoring the monarchy in 973.”[723] After this it enjoyed two centuries of prosperity, till it was finally extinguished—their northern possessions passing to the Kalabhuryas—their southern to the Hoisala Bellalas of Dwarasamudra or Hullabîd.

The history of the younger branch of this family will be more interesting to some future historian of Indian architecture than it is to us at the present day. Their possessions lay principally below the Eastern Ghâts, on the shores of the Bay of Bengal, in what are generally known as the three Circars, extending from Gangam—in their day I believe—to Mahavellipuram; but of their architecture we know nothing. No traveller educated in architectural matters has yet visited that country; and though it sounds like a paradox to say so, what we do know of it we learn from buildings not erected by them, and in a country they never seem to have possessed. It is only from the buildings of Pratapa Rudra at Worangul and elsewhere above the Ghâts that we can appreciate the perfection to which they had brought their style.

From the meagre extracts from the inscriptions of Pulakesi I., which Sir Walter Elliot gives in his first essay on this subject,[724] there seems little doubt that he was the king who, 100 years before Hiouen Thsang’s time, harried the monastery at Amravati,[725] and abolished Buddhism in those parts. It seems also more than probable, as he conquered the Chola, and burnt Conjeveram, that he also expelled the Pallavas, and commenced the works at Mahavellipur. If the rock-cut monastery mentioned by Fa Hian and Hiouen Thsang, and so often referred to above, existed at all, it was in his territories, and may still exist in the Nizam’s. If it did so, nothing seems more probable than that he should seek to mark the boundary of his southern conquest by similar works. Knowing all this, we see also why there should be so much similarity between Mangalisa’s cave at Badami, and the nearly contemporary caves at Mahavellipur. We know, too, that there is a vast tract of country in Central India, extending east and west from shore to shore, and north and south from Sadras to Ellora, which is covered with buildings of great beauty and interest, but which nobody cares to explore. We know also that there exists in the Asiatic Society’s rooms a volume which contains their history, and that of the dynasties who built them, but which nobody cares to read. Knowing how easily all this could be remedied, it is tantalising to close this history with so meagre a sketch of the Chalukyan style as that contained in the preceding pages, but as the principles of the Indian Council seem fixed, its description must in all probability be relegated to a subsequent generation.

Although the Ballabhis wrested the province of Gujerat from the failing hands of Skanda, the last of the Great Guptas, two years before his death, in or about 470, they remained long in a subordinate position. Their earliest inscription yet found dates only in 593, and their one Emperor or Raja Adhiraja, Sri Dharasena III., only ascended the throne after the Canouge dynasty were struck down in 648-50.

The interval between these two events we are now happily able to fill up with two of the most illustrious dynasties of India—the first including the reign of the great Vicramaditya of Ujjain, who is to the Hindus what Solomon is to the Jews, or Asoka to the Buddhists. The last-named religion, as mentioned above, was becoming effete about the middle of the 5th century, and the Guptas were introducing the modern Brahmanical faith in its place. What, however, they were only feebly attempting, the Ujjain dynasty accomplished with a brilliancy that has eclipsed everything that happened before or since in India, in the eyes of the Hindus at least. All that is great in science, or in poetry, or the arts, shone forth around his wonderful throne—the exact counterpart of Solomon’s—and all that subsequently took place in India bears the stamp of his greatness. It seems, however, to have been too bright to last. The four succeeding monarchs were Buddhists—of a singularly tolerant type it is true—but still certainly favourers of that religion. The last of them, Siladitya, was the king at whose court Hiouen Thsang sojourned in 636, and afterwards in 642, and where he witnessed the festival of the distribution of alms so often alluded to above. Hiouen Thsang gives the date of his death categorically, 650, and adds, though in the form of a prophecy, that after that, “l’Inde entière sera en proie à des troubles affreux—et des hommes pervers se feront une guerre acharnée.”[726] This is more than confirmed by Ma-twan-lin, but with an apparent discrepancy of date, to the extent, it may be, of two years.[727] It was in fact the commencement of those troubles which extinguished Buddhism, then in Central India, and a century later abolished it wholly, except in some remote corners of the land.

Whether he died in 648 or 650, there is no doubt, from the numerous incidents our Chinese traveller recounts, that this Siladitya ascended the throne 610, one year after his great rival, Pulakesi II., of Kalyan, who, as pointed out above, began to reign in 609, and fought with him with varying success in 618-627.

For the chronology of the four preceding reigns we have nothing but the assertion of Hiouen Thsang, that “suivant la tradition”[728]—and in another place, “on lit dans l’histoire de ce royaume,[729] que le trône était occupé il y a soixante ans par un roi nommé Siladitya;” and further, that he reigned fifty years, which would carry us back to 530 for the accession of this king, supposing the passage was written in 640.

Notwithstanding the confidence with which it is stated, I have no hesitation in rejecting as excessive 110 for the length of the reign of three kings, two of whom were brothers. I do so with the more confidence, as our author, though so exact a geographer, and recorder of things he saw, is in no one instance to be depended upon for his dates. He resided, for instance, for five years at Nalanda, and must have had access to its records, yet he tells us that the convent existed for 700 years,[730] and then gives the names of the five kings by whom the various parts were built from that time to his day, but sees no absurdity in representing these in all instances as the son of the one next named previously. Each, according to his account, must have reigned more than 100 years! To what extent this date of the accession of Siladitya must be curtailed can only be ascertained from subsequent discoveries or investigations. For the present it will suffice to abridge it by twenty years, which will bring it in accord with all that we at present know from other sources.[731]

When we turn to the other end of our list, we have certainly three—probably four kings—for whom we must find room in eighty years and one of the three, the great Vicramaditya, must have had a long reign. Professor Wilson ascribes to him thirty-five years,[732] and I know of no authority better than his, especially for the history or chronology of this period. The Hindus themselves, with their usual carelessness, have forgotten to record it; and though there are certain dates in the Puranas and elsewhere, there are no means of testing their accuracy; for his accession, however, there are one or two that are worth recording. Thus, Wilford reports that this Vicramaditya ascended the throne of Malwa 441,[733] reckoning from the first of Salivahana, or, 520; or, according to the Agni Purana, 437 years after the same epoch, or 516,[734] which, I believe, may be the exact year; and there are several other dates which might be used to confirm this assumption, but there are no means of testing the genuineness.

Assuming this for the present, it leaves only forty-five years for the two or three preceding reigns; and it seems hardly sufficient for the purpose, for, as we shall presently see from the ‘Raja Tarangini,’ there were nine descents between Pratapaditya, the friend of the first Vicramaditya, and Matrigupta, the protégé of the second. Of course there may be considerable overlapping among the first and last of these nine kings, but it seems impossible to compress the whole within a shorter period than has been allowed.

However the small discrepancies of this dynasty may hereafter be adjusted, it is satisfactory to know that there is probably no date that will admit of a greater correction than say ten years, if so much, and the age of the last king, Hiouen Thsang’s friend, enables us to feel perfectly certain as to the dates of his son-in-law, Dhruvasena, of Ballabhi, of Sasanka, of Pundra Verddhana, of Kumara, of Kamarupa, and of Pulakesi II. of Kalyan. We have thus at least one fixed point in our mediæval history which is quite certain, and from which we can calculate backwards and forwards without difficulty, and is also an interesting one, as its final date, 650, is the beginning of the end which was consummated, as we shall see in the next section, by Laladitya just one century later.

Kashmir.

Asoka, 276 to 240 B.C.
Jaloka.
Damodara.
Hushka — Tartar Princes established Buddhism.
Jushka — Tartar Princes established Buddhism.
Kanishka — Tartar Princes established Buddhism.
Abhimanu, 79 A.D.?

Gonardya Dynasty.

Gonarda. Naga worship restored.
Vibhishana.
Indrajita.
Ravana.
Vibhishana.
Nara.
Siddha.
Utpalaksha.
Hiranyaksha.
Hiranyakula.
Vasukulo.
Mihirakula, invaded Ceylon 250?
Vaka.

Kshitinanda.
Vasunanda.
Nara.
Aksha.
Gopaditya, 330?
Gokarna.
Narendraditya.
Yudhishthira.

Aditya Dynasty.

Pratapaditya, kinsman of Vicramaditya I., 390.
Jalaukas.
Tunjina.
Vijaya.
Jayendra.
Arya Raja.

Gonardya Line restored.

Meghavahana invaded Ceylon, 472.
Pravarasena I.
Hiranya — Contemporaries of Vicramaditya.
Toramana — Contemporaries of Vicramaditya.
Matrigupta, viceroy under Vicramaditya II., 515.
Pravarasena II., invaded Siladitya of Gujerat, 560.
Yudhishthira II.
Nandravat.
Ranaditya.
Vikramaditya.
Baladitya.

Naga or Karkota Dynasty.

Durlabhaverddhana, 627.
Pratapaditya, 663.
Chandrapira, 713.
Parapira, 721.
Lalataditya, 725; died 761. Conquered
Yasoverna of Kanouje, and overran India.

When the ‘Raja Tarangini’ is spoken of, in a real Indian history, it is only in the sense of the French proverb—“Parmi les aveugles les borgnes sont rois.” It may be the best, but it is a very indifferent specimen of its class. Some of the few events it narrates are interesting and important, but they lose much of their value from the chronology to which they are attached being wilfully and systematically falsified. Even they, however, may become more valuable than they now appear, when the work is better edited than it has been hitherto. The earliest and best account we have of it is that of Professor Wilson, in the fifteenth volume of the ‘Asiatic Researches.’ The translation, afterwards published by Troyer in French, is fuller, no doubt, but is made from a less perfect manuscript, and is far less critical. Dr. Geo. Bühler, who is now in the valley, is said to have collected several additional and more complete MSS., from which it is understood he is preparing a new edition of the work. When this is done, we may be able to use it more profitably; meanwhile, for chronological purposes, we can only try and find an initial and final date, and with one or two intermediate synchronisms, try to bring the whole into an intelligible sequence; but so hopelessly is the chronology confused by its author, that this at present can only be effected by the application of a system of averages, which is, and always must be, a most unsatisfactory mode of procedure.

Rejecting at once as worthless or hopelessly lost all those parts of the history before the third century B.C., the first name we come to is the familiar one of Asoka, but here placed 1394 B.C., or more than 1000 years too early. It was in order to recover what was lost by this first error that Kalhana Pandit was forced to falsify all the dates up to the accession of the Karkota dynasty (A.D. 627), when they were known, even in his day, as certain within ten or twenty years. To effect this, he added ten, twenty, or thirty years here and there, as caprice dictated, till at last, losing patience, he gave one king, Ranaditya, in the 6th century, 300 years, instead of a possible thirty, and so made both ends meet! So history is written in the East!

After Asoka’s, the next name we meet in the lists with which we are familiar is that of Kanishka, and he plays so important a part in the history of Kashmir and Gandhara, that it would be of extreme interest if his date could be fixed with even approximate certainty. The ‘Raja Tarangini’ gives us no help in this matter. Generally, it has been assumed, principally on numismatic evidence, that he reigned either immediately before or immediately after the Christian Era;[735] but between him and Asoka our lists afford only two names. If, therefore, we are to apply to this history the same logic the very learned have attempted to apply to dates of the Nirvana in the ‘Mahawanso,’ we must either bring down Asoka to the first century B.C., or take back Kanishka to the third. As neither process is admissible, nothing remains to be done but to admit that the record is imperfect, and that it is only from external evidence that these dates can be fixed with anything like certainty.

Even admitting that Hushka and Jushka were the father and grandfather of Kanishka, which I am inclined to think may be the case, instead of his brothers, as is usually supposed, it will hardly help us much—four reigns of insignificant princes in 200 years is nearly equally inadmissible, and will not help us to fix Kanishka’s date from Asoka’s.

Recently the question has been very much narrowed by the discovery of a number of dated inscriptions at Muttra and elsewhere, in which the name of Kanishka and his successor Huvishka frequently occur—the latter always following, never preceding, the former name. It is this that makes me believe that the Hushka of the chronicle was the father of Kanishka, and nothing in that case is so probable as that his successor should take his grandfather’s name. It is almost impossible he should take his uncle’s, and as the name of Jushka appears nowhere in the inscriptions, it is natural to assume that he had passed away some time before they were written.

Be this as it may, the following table gives the inscriptions as they were found by General Cunningham:— [736]