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civilized as much as the religion of the latter colored their own. Some of these un-Aryan peoples were probably part native, part barbaric. There is much doubt in regard to the dates that depend on accepted eras. It is not certain, for instance, that, as Müller claims, Kanishka's inauguration coincides with the Çaka era, 78 A.D. A great Buddhist council was held under him. Some distinguished scholars still think with Bühler that Vikram[=a]ditya's inauguration was 57 B.C. (this date that used to be assigned to him). From our present point of view it is of little consequence when this king himself lived. He is renowned as patron of arts and as a conqueror of the barbarians. If he lived in the first century B.C. his conquest amounted to nothing permanent. What is important, however, is that all Vikram[=a]ditya stands for in legend must have been in the sixth century A.D. For the drama, of which he is said to have been patron, represents a religion distinctly later than that of the body of the epic (completed in the sixth or seventh century, Bühler, Indian Studies, No. ii.). The dramatic and astronomical era was but introductory to Kum[ra]rila's reassertion of Brahmanism in the seventh century, when the Northern barbarian was gone, and the Mohammedan was not yet rampant. In the rest of Northern India there were several native dynasties in different quarters, with different eras; one in Sur[=a]shtra (Gujar[=a]t), one again in the 'middle district' or 'North Western Provinces,' one in Kutch; overthrown by Northern barbarians (in the fifth century) and by the Mohammedans (in the seventh and eighth centuries), respectively. Of these the Guptas of the 'middle district,' and the Valabh[=i]s of Kutch, had neither of the eras just mentioned. The former dated from 320-321 (perhaps 319), the latter from 190 (A.D.). The word samvat, 'year,' indicates that the time is dated from either the Çaka or Vikram[=a]ditya era. See IA. xvii. 362; Fergusson, JRAS. xii. 259; Müller, India, What Can It Teach Us? p. 282; Kielhorn, IA. xix. 24; xxii. 111. The Northern barbarians are called Scythians, or Huns, or Turanians, according to fancy. No one really knows what they were.]
