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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[DECEMBER, 1888.
would recommend itself to the Early them was a family, the name of which is not Guptas. And we have next to inquire whether mentioned in the inscriptions, but which in there may have been any such era beyond the the Varikávali is called the shâkuri family, limits of India proper.
issuing its charters from the house or palace By a comparison of the dates of Sivadêvacalled Kailasakațabhavana, and uniformly I. and Amsuvarman, at page 210 above, I have using the Harsha era. The other was the already shewn, in a general way, that the LichcXhavi family, distinctly so named in Gupta era was in use beyond the north the inscriptions, and in the Varnéávali allotted eastern frontier of India, in Nepal; a fact to the Suryavamsa or solar lineage, issuing its which is duly corroborated by the results for charters from the house or palace called the date in the inscription of Månadeva of the Managriha, and uniformly using an era year 386. We must, therefore, now see what with the Gupta epoch. more particular information can be gathered That the Lichchhavi clan or tribe was from the epigraphical records of that coun- one of great antiquity and power, in the try.50
direction of Nepal, is shewn by the writings of In the Corp. Inscr. Indic. Vol. III. Ap- Fa-Hian and Hinen-Tsiang, which connect pendix IV., I have given an account of such them with events that preceded the nirvana of the inscriptions from Nepal as have any of Buddha. No exception, therefore, need be bearing on the question now under considera- taken to the general outlines of the long tion; this account being recast and enlarged account in one of the inscriptions, which, so from my original paper on “The Chronology far as the Nepal branch of the tribe is conof the Early Ralers of Nêpůl," published in cerned, gives us the first really historical this Journal, Vol. XIV. page 342ff., & refer- member of it in the person of Jayadeva I., ence to which will suffice for present purposes. who, by the ordinary allowance of time for The actual dates of them range from A.D. each Hindu generation, must be referred to 635 to 854; and give a fairly clear idea of the the period A.D. 330 to 355. history of the reigning families of the country Proof of friendly relations between the during that period. They shew two separate Early Guptas and the Lichchhavis, at an houses, raling contemporaneously, and mostly early time, is given by the marriage of on equal terms; and each preserving certain Chandragupta I. with Kumaradêvî, the daughdistinctive characteristios of its own. One of ter of Lichchhavi or of a Licbchhavi king.
And here we may note that the Kings of Valabbloan bove bad nothing to do either with the introduction of an ere into Nepal, or with the borrowing of an ons from that gantry. As I have already had Occasion to remark. the members of the Valabht family, for the first six or seven generations, inclusive of Bhatarka, were mere feudatory Senapatis and Maharajas; and these members of the family, at any rate, cannot possibly bave conquered Nepal, or even have extended their territory up to the confines of that conntry. The first of the family who elaimed to be paramount sovereign is Dharasēna IV., with the dates of 326 and 830 : and with the titles of Paramabhattaraka, Mahardjadhiraja, and Parame Svara, in common with all his fuccessors; and also with that of Chakravartin, which,
ot being armed by any of his suc008sore, mby perhaps indicate that his power whs more extensive than theirs ever WM. Now, in passing, if we refer his first date of 326 to the epoch of A.D. 819-20, the result, A.D. 615-16, brings us to a very suitable period indeed for him to assume the position and titles of a paramount sovereign vie. to the commencement of the anarohy which, as Me-twan-lin tells us (ante, Vol. IX. p. 20), attended the death of Harshavardhana,"the warlike lord of all the region of the north.". It ended in the complete disruption, for the time of the kingdom of Kanagj. Ambuvar. man became paramount in Nepal, and Adityasena in Magadhs; and the opportunity was of course taken advantage of by Dharsséns IV. to assert his independence in the west of India. But, to say nothing of the improbability of the thing on other grounds, the fact that Ambuvarman became king of Nepal is in itself enough to prevent our admitting the possibility of a conquest of that
country by Dharasens IV. Referring the same date of 326 to the three earlier proposed epoohs, we have respeo tively A.D. 108, 492, and 516. For these periods there is. perhaps, no particular objection to our assuming, for the Bake of argument, that Dharasena IV. may have extended his power over a considerable portion of Northern India, in the parts nearer to Kathi&wid and Gujarat. But the Valabht charters, in which a conquest so extensive as that of the whole of Northern Indis up to Nepal, or inclusive of that country, would most certainly have been recorded, give not the slightest hint of any such event at any time in the history of the family. In fact, with the exception of the allusion to the overthrow of the Maitrakas by Bhatarka, they give absolutely no detailed information at all in conneotion with any of the successes claimed by the members of this family; which tends to shew very painly that, from beginning to end, the Valabhi power was purely local. And, in connection with the earlier proposed epochs, even if Dharasens IV. did conquer Népal, or Northern India up to the frontier of Nepal, and did introduce there the era of A.D. 319-20, the question still remains, and cannot be answered, - Why should he act with such extreme inconsistency as to introduce there this era, which, according to those who have sought to establish those epocha, was not brought into actual use in his own territory, instead of the Gupia era, which he him. self and his successors continued to employ for all the official purposes of their own kingdom ?
01 See Legge's Travels of Fi-Hien, pp. 71, 76; Beal's Buddhist Records of the Western World, Vol. I. Pp. xiii. li. lv. and Vol. II. pp. 67 note, 70, 73, 77 note, 81.
