Chronological Systems of Gujarat

Author(s): Bharati K Shelat
Publisher: Pranav Shelat

Page 77

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THE CHRONOLOGICAL SYSTEMS OF GUJARAT
the Dholapur Inscription of Cahamāna King Candamahasena, dated in the Vikrama year 898 which corresponds to 842 A.C.69
The traditional account about the establishment of this era by king Vikrama, therefore, hardly appears acceptable at its face value. Moreover, it is also difficult to identify this king Vikrama with any known eminent king of the 1st cent. B.C.
Some scholars like Dr. D.C. Sircar70 attributed the establishment of the Vikrama era to the Parthian ruler Vonones. In favour of his theory he opined that early Indian rulers used to date their records according to their regnal reckoning which fact points to the absence of any popular era in ancient India. The use of an era is first noticed in India in the records of ScythoParthians and the Kushans, who were responsible for its popularisation in this country. Moreover, the name of the month in the date of the Taxila Inscription of the year 78 is Parthian. It is, therefore, quite probable that the first year of the reign of Vonones, the earliest independent ruler of Drangiana, came to be regarded as the beginning of a new reckoning that was instituted to oust the imperial Parthian era of 248 B.C. As he seems to have flourished about the middle of the 1st cent. B.C., it is not unreasonable to place his accession in 58 B.C. which is the epoch of the earliest extant Indian reckoning of a historical character. It is thus possible that the Scytho-Parthian era starting from the
69. Bhandarkar's List, No. 27
70. D. C. Sircar, IE. pp. 256 f.