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224
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[AUGUST, 1881.
based on a most thorough examination of 3. The name of the Pablava nation being these coins, leave no donbt that the coins of found in the Radrad&man inscription (Kshatrape Kumâragupta follow directly after the latest year 72); also the same name occurs in an Kshatrapa coins, of which they are imitar inscription of another dynasty chronologitions.
cally connected with the Kshatrapas," which Now Kumaraga pta's date is deter- probably precedes the Rudradáman inscription mined first by the inscriptions which give the by several decades. Professor Nöldeke believes year 93 (of the Gupta era of course) as the that this nåme, derived from Parthave, does latest date of his father, and the year 130 as not belong to the period anterior to the first the earliest date of his son. With these accords century A. D." the date on a coin of Kamaragupta himself Such being the state of the case, it would represented by the symbol for 90, after which is be possible to identify the Kshatrapa era with a unit that cannot be made out.
the era of Kanishka, i. e, the Saka era (A. D. We have, therefore, Kshatrapa coins with 78). The approximate position which we have the date of 300, and following them a Gupta coinarrived at for the Kshatrapa era, would not be with the date of 90 and odd, and we conclude incompatible with this identification, and if we therefrom that the Kshatraps epoch must be believed that the satraps of Kathiâwâd were placed at least about 200 years before the Gupta viceroys of the mighty Saka kings, the use of epoch, or about A. D. 120, taking the latest
the Saka epoch in their inscriptions and on limit.
their coins would be most natural. It is evident, however, that between the last | Notwithstanding, I think that preference coins of the earlier series and the first coins of must be given to the opinion that the Kshathe later series an interval of time may have trapa era was one of those local ones, so frequentelapsed which may possibly extend throughly employed in India, which are restricted to several decades. After the reign of the last Ksha- the limits of a petty state, rising with the trapa whose coins we possess, a period of trou- dynasty, and disappearing with its fall. We bles may have followed which has left no trace
shall have afterwards to state arguments that in numismatics. The real initial date of the make the Kshatrapas' supposed dependence Kshatrapa era therefore may possibly fall 88 on the Saka kings somewhat improbable, and far back as the last decades of the first century
which point to their having been subject, at A.D. Too great an interval, however, in the least at first, to the sway of a South Indian series of coins between the Kshatrapas and dynasty. It must be remembered besides, that Kumaragupta will scarcely be deemed very the Kshatrapa inscriptions constantly lead back probable, and besides the following reasons would the genealogy of these princes to Chashtana, oppose our assigning to the Kshatrapa epoch &
and with this the coins agree: for Chashtana date considerably earlier than what we have
is the first prince known to us on whose coin shown to be the latest limit:
the so-called Shah head is found. He appears 1. The very debased condition of the Greek
therefore to have been the founder of the dynasty. legends on the Kshatrapa coins; see von Sallet Now Chashtana was the grandfather of Ra1. c., pp. 67 seq.
dra daman, whose inscription is dated from 2. The later form of the lettor m occurring 72; thus Chashtana's date falls too near the on an inscription of the Kshatrapa year 127 epoch of the Kshatrapa era not to make it (see above.) We have shown that this form of preferable to connect the origin of the era with the letter m does not appear on the North
Chashtana rather than with the Saka king Indian inscriptions, to which it properly belongs, Kanishka. before the end of the first century of the From the Kshatrapa dynasty we go back a Saka era.
step and inquire into the dates of those princes
No. 10 of Mr. Newton's plate. Comp. Thomas, The Gupta Dynasty, p. 47, or Arch. Sur. Rep., vol. II, p. 62.
os Inscription of Palumáyi, No. 28 of Mr. West's Negik series, in which Paļumáyi calls his father the destroyer of the Bakna, Yavanas, and Palhavas. We shall epeak of the chronology of the cave inscriptions immediately afterwards.
** See Professor Nöldeke's remarks ap. Weber, Indische Literaturgeschichte (2nd edition), p. 338, or Hist. Ind. Liter., p. 188.
66 See No. 7 of Mr. Thomas's plate (Dynasty of the Guptas). I read the legend: rajfia mahakshatrapasa Pla motikaputrasa Chashganasa.
