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No. 5.]
HARAHA INSCRIPTION OF ISANAVARMAN.
113
By far the most noteworthy point in this inscription is the date. I believe this is the only dated record of the Maukhari kings that has yet come to light. The year is thus given in words in v. 21 : During the year of six hundred autumns increased by eleven, when Isänavarman, who vanquished bis foes, was the lord of the earth. The era to which this year belonga has not been fpecified, but the use of the term sarada in will indicate that it is identical with the Mālava, or Vikrama, era which as the late Professor Kielhorn elucidated long ago, began in autumn (barad). Different questious connected with the origin, name and use of his reckoning have been fully dealt with by other scholars, and it will be superfluous to discuss them here. The corresponding date of the Christian era is 554.
Isanavarman, as has just been said, was ruling in the year 611. As he was a contempor. ary of Kumāragupta of Magadha, with whom, according to the Apbead inscription, he was at war, and, as according to the Asirgash copper seal inscription he was the father of Sarvavarman, this record will go to fix the time of these rulers as well with great certainty. But this date of fśānavarman calls for some remark. No dated reegd of his rule being available, scholars had to make conjectures regarding his date. Cunningham, for instance, gave circa A.D. 560 and Dr. Hoernle A.D. 564. Mr. V. Smith wanted to nove it back and bring it to A.D. 502. But now the new epigraph has removed all doubts and established the date, and wo can re-examine the dates on his coins as well as those on the coins of his son and successor, namely, Sarvavai man, that have been brought to light. The Hon'ble Mr. Burn has summarized their dates as follows:
(1) Isanavarman : 54 (Cunningham, Coins of Ned. India, ii, 12, and V. A. Smith in Jur. Beng. As. Soc., 1894, p. 193); 55 (Cunn. Arch. Surv. Rep., IX, p. 27, where the name is read as Sāntivarma).
(2) Sarvavarman : 58 (V. A. Smith, 1.c.); 234 and 28-. (3) Avantivarman : 57, 71, and 250.
Assuming that a new Maukhari era commenced about 500 A.D., he converted these dates into the following years of the Christian era :
Isänavarman 553. - Sarvavarman 553, 54 or 55, 567.
Avantivarman 556, 569, 570.. .
He further observed that the dates of Sarvavarman and Avantivarman overlapped and that it was possible to read 67 insteid of 57 on the latter's coins.
In this connection I think the following observations will not be out of place. Avantivarman is known to us from the Harshacharita as the father of Grahavarman, the brother-in-law of Harsha and the husband of Rājynsii, who met his death at the hands of a king of Malwa about 605 A.D. From the Deo-Baraṇārk inscription of Jivitagupta II it would appear that he was the son and successor of Sarvavarman Maukhari. This syuchronism will bring Sarvavarman and Avantivarman to about 560 and 580, respectively, giving an average of some 20 years to each of them, and make 67 as the more probable reading of the date of Avantivarman. But
The dictionary gives redundant' as one of the meanings of atiriketa. This would suggest that 11 is to be deducted from 600. But no instanee is known to me where the word is used in this way. * Ind. Ant., Vol. XX, pp. 407 1.
Corp. Inser. Ind., Vol. III, No. 42. • History and coinage of the Gupta period, Jour. Beng. 41. Soc., 1834, p. 195.
J. R. A. S., 1906, p. 817.
• The genealogy given in the footnote No. 3, page zi, of the translation of the Harshacharita by Cowell and Thomas cannot hold good as regards Susthitavarman, the contemporary of Aility asēns, who flourisbed about A.D. 647. (V. A. Smith, Early History of India, 3rd edition, p. 313.)
