________________
THE PERIOD OF THE WESTERN KSATRAPAS
sense of an era and the era got associated with King Salivahana of the Deccan.16
23
The earliest association of the era with Salivahana can be traced to literary and epigraphic records of the 12th century". Accordingly, the era is at present known as Salivahana Saka.
(iii) This era is especially favourite with the astronomers and astrologers of India since long and is in vogue in the country even at present.18
From these factors it clearly appears that the current association of the era with Salivahana is of very late origin. In its early centuries beginning with at least the fifth (or possibly even the fourth) century, the era was explicitly ascribed to a Saka king or the Sakas 19.
The Jain tradition ascribes the commencement of the Saka era, to the conquest of Malwa by the Sakas. 16. The earliest association of the era with Salivahana is found in the Kannada work Udbhaṭakāvya by Somarāja composed in Ś. E. 1144 expired (1222 A C.) and the Tasgaon plates (S. E. 1172-1251 A. C.) of the Yadava king Kṛṣṇa (D. C. Sircar, IE., p. 262).
17. The earliest epigraphic records with dates in which the Ŝaka era is ascribed to King Salivahana belong to the 13th cent. A C. (D. C. Sircar, IE., p. 262).
18. In the modern period its use is common in the Deccan; it has now been adopted into the national calendar.
19. Sakan patira jyābhiṣeka Samvatsara (IA., Vol. X, p. 58), Sakanṛpatisamvatsara (IA, Vol. VI, p. 73), Sakan pasamvatsara (IA., Vol. XII, p. 16), Sakanṛapakāla (EI. Vol. III, p. 109), Saka Samvat (EI. Vol. I, p. 56), Šaka (L.IS.I.P., 63, No. 343), Saka (EI., Vol. I, p. 343).
Jain Education International
For Personal & Private Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org