________________
No. 39.)
KALAWAN COPPER-PLATE INSCRIPTION OF THE YEAR 134.
255
the fictitious Vikramaditya and Sālivāhana), whether living or dead at the time of the record or even of any official-is mentioned in such a connection without some title or another. And for this reason, if for no other, I am of opinion that the word ayasa does not give a proper name." “Even if the word ayasa stood before the statement of the years, so that the translation would actually be '(in) the year 136 of Aya,' this record would still, on the analogy of every known early Indian record, place Aya in the year 136 of some era not founded by him."
If therefore the word ayasa, ajasa in the silver scroll and the Kalawān records means "of Azes," as I believe it does, it must be explained in a different way, and I believe that a clue can be found in another Taxila inscription.
During the excavations at Sirkap in the winter 1926-27, Sir John Marshall found a worn silver vase of duck shape, bearing a Kharoshthi inscription round the neck. Photographs and impressions were sent to me after the manuscript of my edition of Kharoshthi inscriptions in the Corpus had been sent to press, and I could not do more than give a short account of the record. In my reading it begins ka 191, and I was not able to give a satisfactory account of the initial ka.
In his review of my edition Professor Thomas proposed to read saka 191, because "we seem to detect before the ka a sign which presents a great resemblance to sa." Mr. Hargreaves Was good enough to ask his deputy, Mr. Dikshit, to make a careful examination of the original, und he reported that no trace of any letter can be found. A plaster cast was prepared for my use, and this cast shows distinct traces of a sa, in the same way as the photograph reproduced on Plate XVI d of the Corpus, and I have no doubt that here mechanical reproductions are more reliable than our eye, and that we must actually read saka 191.
Professor Thomas is certainly right in maintaining that saka 191 is a clear reference to an era designated as a Saka institution, and if we substitute the fuller form samvatsaraye 191 sa kasa, in the year 191 of Saka, we would have an exact parallel to saṁvat saraye 134 ajasa.
Saka in the silver vase inscription is not the name of an individual ruler, but a dynastic designation, characterizing the era as connected with Saka rule, and the parallelism points to the eonclusion that ayasa, ajasa should be explained in a similar way. The word has been added in order to show that the era was different from another reckoning, that connected with Şaka rule, and itself introduced or adopted by another, non-Saka, dynasty.
The successors of the Sakas in Taxila were the Pahlavas, and among them the Azes kings must have been better known than the rest. The Azes coins are more numerous than all other coins found at the ancient site, and they seem to have been "struck and restruck for the best part of a hundred years," as Sir John Marshall has been good enough to tell me. To the Takshabilā people, therefore, the name of Azes would naturally be well known, and become almost tantemount to a designation of the whole dynasty, especially after the Pahlavas had been ousted by the Kushānas. If it was found necessary to characterize the era used under Parthian rule, it would therefore be natural to do so by adding the word "of Azes", without thinking of any individual king, but only of the late dynasty : " in the year 80-and-so, Azes style".
If this explanation is right, it follows that the addition ayasa, ajasa, does not characterize the era as instituted by Azes, but simply as connected with Parthian rulers. And as a matter of fact there are no indications to show that the Parthians introduced an era of their own, or any feature in the dates of records issued under Parthian rule which makes us think of the era as Partnian,
The Parthians brought Greek institutions and notions with thein, and in a Parthian ers we should expect to find traces of the Greek calendar. It is, however, noteworthy that in India
1 Corpus, pp. 81 f. * Göttingische gelehrte Anzeigen, 1931, p. 4.
