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words, we have to do with the initial stages of that development which finally led to the recasting of Indian astronomy and the Indian calendar on purely scientific lines.
The question then arises whether we should not be justified in applying the methods of the Siddhantas to the date of the Taxila silver scroll. It is true that the Siddhantas are later than the inscription. According to Dr. Thibaut, the Sarya-Siddhanta and rome other Siddhantas are probably at least some centuries older than 500 A.D., but not necessarily more than two or three centuries older. But then it should be borne in mind that the Siddhantas are the result of a long development and not the first laying down of scientific astronomical principles. It is, therefore, not excluded that their methods can be used for a still older period. The question is not so much what the general Indian astronomer knew about calendar matters in the first century A.D., as what the Indo-Skythian successors of the Greek princes had learnt from their predecessors and how they had arranged their Greco-Indian calendar.
I do not myself understand anything about astronomy, and I cannot, therefore, form an independent opinion. I have, however, submitted the question to my friend the Dutch scholar Dr. W. E. van Wijk, who has been good enough to calculate which years between A.D. 50 and 80 had an intercalated Ashādha according to the Siddhantas. He has informed me that such was the case in the years 52 and 71 A.D., and Mr. Sewell has accepted this result.
Of these two dates only the former one is possible. For, if Sam. 136 corresponded to 71 A.D., the 5th Panemos 78, the date of Patika plate, would correspond to 13 A.D., only two years before the Sodasa inscription, and two years are not sufficient for covering the events falling between the two records. The year 52, on the other hand, excellently suits the facts as we know them. If it shonld prove to be right, the date of the Gudufara inscription would correspond to 10 March 19 A.D., 1.6., about 60 years before the beginning of the Saka era, and if Kapsha, 1.e., Kujúla Kadphises, were then twenty years old he would have been born in 1 B.C. The year 103 would have begun in October 18, and the accession of Azes, if the figure 26 refers to an era instituted by him, would fall in the year 9-8 B.O., wherewith it is impossible to know whether the use of the term varsha for year' points to a year beginning with the rains and not with the autumn.
If this result is accepted, it would become possible to give the dates corresponding to those occurring in other Kharðshthi records of the older series. The Patika plate of the 5th Panemos 78=June 6 B.C.; the Machai inscription of the year 81=4-3 B.C.; the Mount Banj inscription of the year 102=18-19 A.D.; the Paja inscription of the 15th Sråvaņa 11l=23 June 27 A.D.; the Kaldarra inscription of the 20th Sråvaņa 113 = 5 July 29 A.D.; the Panjtar inscription of the 1st Srāvana 122=7 June 38 A.D.; the Taxila silver scroll of the 15th of the first Ashadha 136=17 May 52 A.D.; the Dewai inscription of the 8th Vaisakha 200=24 March 116 A.D.; the Loriyān Tangai inscription of the 27th Prðshthapada 318=27 August 234 ; the Jamalgarbi inscription of the lat Aspaia (P) 359=September 276 A.D.; the Hashtnagar inscription of the 5th Proshthapada 384=7 June 300 A.D.; the Skārah Dheri inscription of the 10th (or 20th) Ashādha 399=28 April or 8 May $15 A.D.
I give these identifications with every reserve. Future research may make it necessary to fix the initial point of the era some few years later than I have done, but the relative chronology is, I think, certain. The new arrangement also removes a great difficulty which has been felt by everybody who has studied the history of the Indo-Skythians: the many different eras supposed to be used side by side in their records. The late Dr. Fleet consistently maintained that all the dates of Indo-Skythian records should be referred to the Vikrama era, which he held to be introduced by Kanishka. I do not think that anybody holds that view at the present date.
Astronomie, Astrologie und Mathematik, p. 46. * See Acta Orientalia, III, pp. 82 f.
