Epigraphia Indica Vol 21

Author(s): Hirananda Shastri
Publisher: Archaeological Survey of India

Page 77

58
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
[VOL. XXI.
that he effected the reconquest in person. That may have been done by one of his governors or generals, e.g., by Nahapana. And subsequently the Saka rulers of those reconquered districts began to date their records from this reconquest, through which their rule had been established.
There are also other considerations which speak against ascribing the introduction of the historical Saka era to Kanishka. It is hardly possible to deny the justice of the remark made by M. Sylvain Lévi1 about the defeat of the Yue-chi Shahi by Pan-ch'ao and about the Yue-chi ruler paying tribute to China in A.D. 90, that ' it was not Kanishka, at the apogee of his reign and power, who consented to such a humiliation'.
So far as I can see, weighty reasons speak against the theory that Kanishka's era was the historical Saka era. It cannot be proved simply by being repeated, without any real reasons. We cannot definitely settle the question about its epoch, but we can confidently state that it was not A.D. 78.
Traditional tales, corroborated by epigraphical evidence, lead to the conclusion that Kanishka added a large territory in Northern India to the Scythian Empire, and it is not to be wondered at that his era was introduced everywhere in the north, though an old Saka era still lingered on in the North-West, and even seems to have been occasionally used in Mathurā.
Our inscription brings an addition to our knowledge about the chronology of his successors, in so far as it reduces the interval between Väsishka and Huvishka to some few months. The latest recorded date of Vasishka is some day in the third month of Hemanta, i.e., of Pausha, in the year 28, and our record shows that Huvishka was on the throne less than eight months afterwards. He is designated as devaputra Shahi, and the imperial title is not applied to him in any record before the year 41. It is therefore possible that another Kushāņa was the real suzerain at the centre of Kushāņa power, in Badakshan. But it is evident that the person at whose request our record was drawn up in Mathura owed allegiance to Huvishka.
The purport of the inscription is to record the endowment of a punyaśälä, a hall for acquiring merit through distribution of alms, with an akshaya-nivi, i.e., a permanent endowment, wherewith the capital could not be touched. On behalf of the donor, about whom I shall make some remarks below, two śrenis or guilds were entrusted with the management of 550 puranas each. The name of the first śrēni is written in the part of the stone which has been broken off, and I can only read the last two aksharas raka. The second was the samitakara-érēņi, i.e., probably the makers of samitā, wheat-flour.
Out of the interest realized from month to month the expenses are to be covered for serving hundred Brāhmaṇas in the hall, and for daily keeping some provisions at the door for the benefit of hungry and thirsty indigent people, and distributing them on the same day (supposing sadyam to be synonymous with sadyah), viz., 3 adhaka of groats, one prastha salt, one prastha saku, 3 ghataka and five mallaka harita-kalapaka. The reading saktuna, i.e., saktūnām, is uncertain, the akshara ktu being apparently identical with kri in kritena, 1. 8. The meaning of the word saku is, as already remarked, unknown to me. Harita-kalapaka must be bundled fresh vegetables. The measures aḍhaka and prastha are known, the latter being a fourth of the former. I do not know anything about the size of the ghataka, jar, and mallaka, bowl.
The punyasälä is characterised as prächini, i.e., evidently eastern,' perhaps in order to distinguish it from another, western, hall It is further said to be chatudié, i.e., chaturdis, opening towards the four quarters.
1 J. A. IX, ix, 1897, p. 26, Ind. Ant., XXXII, 1903, p. 422.
Cf. the Kankall Tilä inscription of the year 299, if this is a genuine record.