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AUGUST, 1883.]
the era of Vikramaditya, 56 B.C., was a date arrived at by taking the date of the great battle of Korur, in which Vikramaditya, i.e. Harsha of Ujjayini, finally defeated the Mlechchhas, 544 A.D., and by throwing back the beginning of the new era 6 + 100 (or 10 +60) before that date, i.e., 56 B.C. By a similar process, i.e. by adding 10+100 years, another chronological era, called the Harsha era, was fixed at 456 B.C., though it never seems to have come into actual
use.
MISCELLANEA.
This certainly seems very plausible. We could thus understand why much that was said originally of the Vikramaditya of the sixth century A.D. was reflected on the purely nominal Vikramâditya of the Vikramâ era 56 B.C., the inventor of the era being projected 600 years before his actual reign, a period when there is really no monumental, numismatic, or historical evidence of the existence of any such king.
It has been said that there is as yet no other evidence for this battle of Korur (Kurukshetra ?) besides Albiruni's statement. But Albiruni does not invent battles. He tells us what he was told, and he may sometimes have misunderstood what he was told. But in our case the chronological side of the argument is too strong to be set aside by mere general suspicions and surmises, though, no doubt, it would have to yield to contemporaneous evidence which should make a great battle against foreign invaders at that time and in that place impossible. Besides, the statements of Târânâtha as to Harsha's victory near Multan, though no doubt very modern, cannot be due to mere accident.
Others had guessed at such a solution before Mr. Fergusson, but what I admire in him is his pluck, and the clearness with which he puts forward his theories.
Nothing, I feel sure, has injured Sanskrit studies
This battle of Korur is described by Albiruni in his account of the Saka era. (Reinaud, Fragm. Arabes et Persans, pp. 140f.), and Bhao Daji, Journal of the Bombay Br. R. Asiatic Society, vol. VIII. (1864), p. 242; Reinaud, Mémoire sur l'Inde (1849), p. 79. This battle of Korur may be the same as that of Multan mentioned by Taranatha, Sri Harsha abolished the teaching of Mlechchhas by massacring them at Multan.' Asanga and Vasubandhu were his contemporaries (900 p. B. N.), his predecessor was called Gambhirapaksha, his successor Slla, Ind. Ant., vol. IV. (1875), p. 365,
See Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. XIV. (1880), p. 273. The same date, 466 Saka-544 A.D. is mentioned in the Satrunjaya Mahatmya as the beginning of Vikramaditya's reign; Keru. Preface, p. 15, on the authority of Wilford. Bühler, however, calls the Satruñjaya Mahatmya 'a wretched forgery of the 12th or 14th century. It has been edited by Professor Weber.
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. XII. (1880), p. 275; Reinaud, Mémoire sur l'Inde, p. 136. It is strange that Albiruni should not have guessed the real state of the case, when he was told by a native that Harsha lived 400 years before Vikrama; but that
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so much as the want of a certain amount of scientific manliness and straightforwardness on the part of scholars, who never venture to say Yes or No! and who always involve a crowd of reasons for and against in a cloud of words difficult to construe. Mr. Fergusson, whether he is right or wrong, at all events puts down his foot firmly and sticks to his colours as long as he can. There is an immense advantage in this. If he is wrong, he can be knocked down, and no one is likely to defend again what he has been unable to uphold. If he is right, there can be no mistake as to where he has planted his standard, and others may safely push forward beyond the point which he has reached.....
The contest has been going on for some time, Dr. Bhao Daji arrived at the conclusion that 'not a single inscription or copper-plate grant is dated in the Vikrama Samvat before the eleventh century of the Christian era, and that the Vikrama Samvat was brought into use on the revival of Jainism and the establishment of the Anhilpura dynasty in Gujarât.' Mr. Fergusson' thought at first that the Vikrama era was invented in the age of Bhoja of Dhârâ (A.D. 993), or rather by the revived Chalukyas (A.D. 1003). This, however, was going too far. General Cunningham in his Archaeological Reports, vol. II, p. 266, denies indeed the possibility of any inscription being dated in the Samvat era in 747, and reads in consequence the date of one of Tod's inscriptions, not 747-56-691, but 747+78-825-6. Afterwards, however, on p. 68, he speaks of an inscription dated 811, which he interprets in the Vikrama era, i.e. 754-5 A.D., and which he quotes as the earliest inscription he is aware of, dated in that mediæval era. Sir Walter Elliot published translations of some Châlukya inscriptions in 1836 (J. R. A. S. vol. IV. (1837), p. 14), in which the incipient substitution of the Vikrama for the Saka
according to the Almanack of Kasmira Harsh ought to be placed 664 years later, i.e. 608 A.D. The number of years may not be quite right, but what really took place is clearly indicated.
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Many years ago Holtzmann (über den greich. Ursprung des indischen Thierkreises, p. 19), remarked, to assign to Vikramaditya the first year of his era might be quite as great a mistake as we should commit in placing Pope Gregory XIII. in the year 1 of the Gregorian calendar, or even Julius Cæsar in the first year of the Julian period, to which his name has been given, i.e. in the year 4713 B.C.' See Weber, Sanskrit Literature, p.202.
Journal of the Bombay Br. Royal Asiatic Society, vol. VIII, p. 242 note.
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. IV. (1870),
p. 132.
There is no contradiction in this, as Mr. Fergusson seems to think (Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. XII. (1880), pp. 271, 272); but what seems strange is that on other occasions General Cunningham should translate Sam. 5 as B.c. 52. See Archæological Survey Rep., vol. III., p. 31.
