Indian Antiquary Vol 37

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 62

56
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[FEBRUARY, 1908.
inscription to place it in the period which included the reigns of Rājūvula and Sodāsa. But the Sarnath inscription of the year 8 of the reign of Mahārāja Kaniaka shows that the donors of the two statues are the same. There are also reasons to make us believe that the Srāvasti inscription was incised after the Sārnath record. The subscript ya, which is always tripartite in the Sārnath inscriptions, is once bipartite in the Srävasti inscription (at the end of the second line in Pusya). This clearly indicates that the difference between the reigns of Räjūvula and Sodāsa and Kaniska cannot be 200 years. In editing the inscriptions from Sārnātb, Dr. Vogel says, that "the similarity between the scripts of the Mathurā satraps and that of the earliest of Kanižka is so striking that the two can hardly be separated by more than one century. If the former are to be placed in the 1st century B. C., paleographic evidence would point to the conclusion that the commencement of Kanigka's reign has been rightly supposed to fall in the first century A. D."30
It is evident then that the satraps of Mathurā cannot be placed in B. C. 120. Dr. Fleet's statement as to the position of the satraps has been dealt with before, aod it is also evident that the statement that Sodāsa was nearly the contemporary of Vasudeva is arbitrary. Mr. D. R. Bhāndārkar also places Kaniska 200 years after Sodāsa and makes the latter a contemporary of the Western Batrap Rudradāms. But the characters of the Junagadh inscriptions of Rudradāma are later than those of the Sārnath inscription of Kaniska, and so much later than those of the inscriptions of Sodāsa. The date of Kaniąka certainly falls before Rudradāma, and so it is not possible that Rudradāma was a contemporary of Sodasa."
The Sārnath inscription also shows that the title Mahākṣatrapa does not imply that the holder of it was an independant sovereign. Rājūvula and Sodása were probably the governors of Mathura under Azes II and Maues, who may thus be the king Moga of the Taxila copperplate inscription. Sodāsa was probably succeeded by Kharabostes and Kalni.93
The reign of the earlier Scythian princes and satraps was brought to an end by the conquest of Northern India by Wema-Kadphises about the year 60 A. D. It is also probable, as Dr. Vogel remarks, that the satraps Kharapallāna and Vanaspara were the descendants of the early Scythian satraps of Mathurā.53 The fact that the coins of Wema-Kadphises are found as far As Ghazipur does not prove that Kadphises II conquered the whole of Northern India as far as Benares. The rapee bearing the bust and name of William IV of England, issued in 1885, is current up to the present day in the Panjab and the North-Western Frontier provinces. Is this a sufficient proof of the British occupation of the Panjāb before 1848 A. Đ.? On the other band, the Sārnāth inscription of Kaniska leaves no doubt as to the fact that Benares and the adjoining territory to some extent was included in the dominions of Kanişka. It is usual to find the coins of a previous reign current in provinces conquered years later. Numerous instances may be cited of this. We may safely assume, on the authority of the Chinese historians that Yeu-kao-ching or Wema-Kadphises conquered India. Bat it is impossible to state the extent of his conquests from numismatical evidence. Certain degree of probability may be imputed to the fact that he conquered only the Panjab and the country as far east as Mathurā. Bat it is absolutely certain that Kaniske raled as far as Benares. It may be that Kaniska extended the empire up to Benares. It is not at all necessary to place the accession of Kanişka in B. C. 584 or in B. C. 235 simply because the Compendium of the We states that a Chinaman named King-la received Buddhist books from the Yue-cbi at that time. The unification of the Yue-chi might not have taken place before the initial
* R. I, Vol. VIII, p. 175.
31 The truth of these remarks oan at once be proved by comparing the characters of the Junagadh innoription (E. I., Vol. VIII, p. 86) with those of the Sārnath inscription. The characters show that Rudradāms must bave reigned at least 50 years after the incision of the Sámnath record. * J. R. A. 8., 1894, PP. 588 and 549.
* E. I., Vol. VIII, p. 173. # Philippe' translation of M. Levi's "Notes Sur les Indo-Soythes" in I. A., Vol. XXXI, p. 417. * Miss Nicholson's trapalation of Dr. Franke's "The Sok and Kanişka" in I. 4., Vol. XXXV, p. 33.