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CHAPTER X
DATE OF KHĀRAVELA
Of all questions concerning Indian History, dates are the most puzzling. Rarely are they recorded in literature and tradition too is faulty at almost every step. As a general rule, it is necessary, therefore, to receive deductions on the subject with some reservation. For what appears most satisfactorily established by one set of data, has been entirely upset by another evidence or interpretation.
The date of Kharavela has been a subject of wide controvercies for long. We know of Emperor Kharavela from the Hathigumpha record. It gives the chief events of the emperor's life year by year. Here he is called 'Adhipati', while in his Chief Queen's record, engraved in the Svargapuri (or Mañchapuri) cave, he is styled Chakravarti'. But neither of the records contain even a single word about Kharavela's ancestors or parentage, which might have helped us in fixing his position in the chronological scheme of ancient Indian history. Nor is there mentioned directly an ara or date by which we can determine the exact years of Kharavela. We have, therefore, to depend upon certain internal and circumstantial in order to determine his date evidences.
Of the earlier scholars, Pt. Bhagwanlal Indraji was the first who believed that the inscription was incised in the 13th year of Kharavela's reign, which corresponded to the 165th year of the Maurya era, counted from the date of Aśoka's Kalinga-vijaya in 255 B. C.1 He thus
1. Actes du Sixieme Congres International des Orientalists, Pt. III, Sec, ii, pp. 152-77.
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