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No. 7.)
THE ARA INSCRIPTION OF KANISHKA II: THE YEAR 41.
199
It will be seen that we have here to do with a different way of dating. The name of the month is not given. Instead the season is mentioned and the nomber of the month within the season. If we bear in mind that all these inscriptions are written in the Brahmi alphabet, which we might style the national Indian script, and that they were all issued in India proper, it becomes likely that this change in expressing the dates is due to the influence of national Indian methods.
So far as I can see, we possess two other ancient inscriptions which immediately present themselves for comparison, vie.
No. 949 : Maharajasya Trikamatasya sa 60 4 gri 3 di 5, “in the 64. year (during the reign) of the Maharaja Trikamata, in the 3. (month of) summer, on the 5. day," and,
No. 59 : Su[a]misa mahakshattrapasa Sodasasa savatsara 702 hämaitamasë 2 divase 9, " in the 72. year (during the reign) of Svāmin Mahakshatrapa Sodasa, in the 2. month of winter, on the 9. day."
Of these I have not sufficient materials for judging about the Bodh Gaya record No. 949.1 The Sodasa inscription, which hails from Mathură, like most of the Brähmi inscriptions of the Kushaņas, is, to judge from paleography, pertainly older than them.
We do not know for certain in which era the Sodass inscription of Sam. 72 is dated. I do not think it ponsible that it can be the same as in the Taxila plate of Sam. 78. I think that Patika, who isgued that record, is identical with the Mahakshatrapa Padiks of thu Mathuri lion capital, which mentions Sudasa, ie. Sodása, as Kshatrapa. In the Taxila plate Patika is not oven Kshatrapa. Dr. Fleet thinks that we have to do with two different Patikas; but I cannot agree with him, because I do not think it possible that the Taxila plate is as late as the Sodasa inscription. Paleographically I think we must place it before the Takht-i-Babi record, and I should certainly think that it must go back to about the last years before or the very first years after the birth of Christ. The Sodasa record is found on & sculptured stone-slal, and Sir John Marshall some time ago informed me that he thinks it impossible to relegate the soulpture to an earlier date than the 1st century A.D. I therefore think it necessary to Insume that the Sodasa inscription is dated in the Vikrama era. Moreover, so far as I can nee, we have a distinot indication that the dating according to three seasons, each comprising four months, was later on considered as a characteristic feature of the Vikrama' era. It is Well known that in the oldest inscriptions which give a name to this era it is designated as a Malaya reckoning. In two of the most ancient instances of its use, in the Mandasör inscription of the time of Naravarman and in the Mandasör insoription of the time of Kumäragapta I, the season is expressly mentioned. Moreover, we have three inscriptions where the era is designated as krita. In the Bijayagadh inscription of Vishņuvardhana* we read : kritēshu chaturshu varahafatöskurashdoirdēshu 400 20 8 Phalgupabahulasya pafichadassyām, “after four hundred and twenty-eight, 428, krita-years, on the fifteenth of the dark fortnight of Phalguna"; the Mandasor inscription of the time of Naravarman has : frirMuālavaganāmnata prakasta kritasanjfitë e kashashtyadhika prāpta samāśatachatushtayè prāvsik(t)-kala fubhi prapte ...m[@]ghi pranritto ... dinė Afrojatuklasya pańchamyām," when the auspicious year four hundred increased by sixty-one, used in the illustrious Mâlava gaps and named kita, had arrived, when the glorious rainy season had arrived, while the clouds were dancing, on the fifteenth day of the bright fortnight of Asvoja"; and finally, the Gangdhär inscription of the
1 To judge from the remarks by Dr. Blooh, Jo. Bong. 41. 800., VOL. LXVIL, P. I. p. 282, it is perhape dated in the Kanishka er. • TRA8., 1918, p. 100L.
• Ct. JRAS, 1914, p. 986. . Gupta Inver, p. 258.
#p. Ind., VOLXII, p. 320.
