Indian Antiquary Vol 47

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 23

JANUARY, 1918
NEW LIGHT ON THE GUPTA ERA AND MIHIRAKULA
19
save the god Siva. The real meaning of the verse, in which this fact is stated, and which was misunderstood by the translators of the Gupta inscriptions, has been pointed 3 out by the present, writer and by Dr. Kielhorn. Like the Mihirakula of the inscriptions the tyrant Kalkiraja came immediately after the Early Guptas ; that is to say, he overthrew the Early Gupta sovereignty. The Mihirakula of the inscriptions was therefore a tyrant and must be identical with the tyrant Mihirakula of Hiuen Tsiang and of the Rajatarangini. Then again, like the tyrant Mikirakula, the tyrant Kalkirâja (A.D. 472-542)44 was reigning in A.D. 520 when the Chinese pilgrim Song Yun visited this country, and was still on the throne when the Greek monk Cosmas came to India about A.D. 530. There is no denying the cogency of these arguments, which lead to the inevitable conclusion that Kalkirâja was only another name of the famous tyrant Mihirakula. It is to this great Hûna conqueror that the Jaina author Somadeva, contemporary with the Råsprakûta king Krisparâja III, alludes when he says 45.
नामुबहस्तोऽशोधिती वा कश्चित्स्वमण्डलविषये प्रविशेनि(निर्गच्छेहा । श्रूयते हि किल हूणाधिपतिः पण्यपुटवादिभिः सुभटैश्चित्रकूटं जमाह ।
The Jaina version of the story of Mihirakula has this advantage over the Buddhist and Brabmanical versions that, while the two latter afford no clue to the real date of the tyrant, the former gives the exact dates of his birth and death. Not only is the approximate date of the tyrant deduced from inscriptions and coins amply corroborated by the Jaina authors, but they supplement, in a material degree, the information which we owe to those two independent sources.
The famous tyrant Mihirakula, accounts of whose cruel deeds have been preserved to us in Buddhist, Jaina and Brahmanical literatures, was then born on the 1st of the bright half of the month Karttika in Saka 394 expired, the cyclic year being a Magha-samvatsara, corresponding to A.D. 472. And he died at the age of 70 in Saka 464 or A.D. 542. Jinasena assigns to him a reign of 42 years, while, according to Gunabhadra and Nemicandra, he reigned 40 years. Deducting 42 or 40 from A.D. 542 we get A.D. 500 or A.D. 502. We shall accept A.D. 502 for the initial year of Mihirakula's reign. His fifteenth regnal year must be A.D. 517. His father Toramâna's first year may be safely taken to be A.D. 500, coming after Gupta Samvat 180 or A.D. 499, the latest date for Budhagupta. And the figure 52 found on Toramâna's silver coins corresponds to A.D. 500, the initial year of his reign. If calculated backwards, the figure 52 brings us to A.D. 448,46 which is thus the exact date of the foundation of the Hûna empire in the Oxus Basin.
The tyrant Mihirakula died in A.D. 542, just a century before Hiuen Tsiang was on his travels, and exactly 241 years before Jinasena wrote his passage relating to the Guptas. Jinasena says that he owes his information to chroniclers who proceded him (
ETH). These, chroniclers must be as near in time to the period of the Hûna sovereignty as Hiuen Tsiang himself. In the light of these facts we feel that we are in a position to discard as baseless the opinion of the Chinese pilgrim that Mihirakula lived some centuries previously,'
43 See my paper entitled " Nripatunga and the authorship of the Kavirajamärga. Jour. Bom. Br. R. A. S., Vol. XXII, p. 82 ff; ante, Vol. XVIII, p. 219.
44 See below, on this page. 45 vifaa Bombay edition, p. 79. 18 V. Smith's Early History of India, 3rd ed., r. 316, note 3