Indian Antiquary Vol 61

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, S Krishnaswami Aiyangar, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarka
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 115

JUNE, 1932)
NOTE ON A FIND OF ANCIENT JEWELLERY IN YASIN
103
following: Sri-Sake trayodas-adhika-trigat-ottara-sahasra-gate.10 If any inscription from Northern India is required in support of this proposition, it is supplied by the Somavamsi king Karnardja of Kakaira, bearing the date Chaturddas-ottare 8=eyam=ekádase(60-)sate Sake.11 In both these cases Saka has been used in the sense of "the years of the Saka era." It thus seems that the years of the Kțitayuga in course of time similarly came to be known as merely Krita. In fact, Krita was considered to be the actual designation of these years. This is clearly shown by the phrase Krita-samjñite which occurs in a Mandasor record. 12 From this it is evident that Krita denoted not only an epoch, but also the years of that epoch. There is therefore no reasonable ground against the supposition that the Vikrama years were originally the years of the Ksitayuga and that this epoch was ushered in most probably by Pushyamitra, the founder of the Sunga dynasty. NOTE ON A FIND OF ANCIENT JEWELLERY IN YÅSIN.
BY SIR AUREL STEIN, K.C.I.E. IN November, 1930, Mr. J. H. Todd, then Political Agent in Gilgit, was good enough to bring to my notice an interesting find of ancient trinkets and other small objects which had been made on the once cultivated stretch of ground known as Dasht-i-Tata in the Hindukush valley of Yâsîn belonging to the Gilgit Agency. As I was then travelling in Chineso Turkestân no inspection of the objects was possible for me at the time. But when, on my return to Kashmir in June, 1931, I passed through Gilgit, Mr. Todd very kindly handed me tha collection of objects for examination, with a view to a record of the find being published. In compliance with this request the present brief report has been prepared.
No detailed information is available as to the exact circumstances of the find. But according to the statement supplied by the Khushwaqt Governor of Yasîn to Mr. Todd, it was made by villagers of Yasin while digging up a small mound on the Dasht-i-Taus. This locality, which is known by tradition as having been once irrigated, was visited by me in 1913 in the course of my third Central-Asian expedition. Its old remains as far as traceable above ground have been described in Innermost Asia, i. pp. 43, 44. The area of old cultivation Obuupies a plateau on the right bank of the Yâsîn river and extends from about two and a half miles above the village of Yâsîn for a distance of three miles up the valley.
On it is found a large ruined circumvallation, built with rough stonework, which is vaguely ascribed to some Chinese invasion in the old times.' No information is available as to where the digging took place nor whether the objects sent by the Governor were all excavated in one place. But there is some reason to suspect that the villagers' digging was not confined to a single spot and that the articles sent are only specimens of the proceeds! which attended this "irresponsible excavation." The fact that most of them are of gold suggests that there was encouragement for extending it before further disturbance of the ground was stopped under instructions from the Political Agent.
Comparieon of the objects with those which I cleared in 1913 from burial deposits near Dudukôt in Darel, the tract due south of Yasin on the other side of the range separating the Gilgit river valley from the Indus, 1 suggests a similar provenance for them. Those Darel objects had certainly been deposited with remains of cremated bodies. The same was the case also with the small jewels and beads found by me in 1927 within a cinerary jar close to the ruined Buddhist Vihara of Shahi Yola-mîra, at Tôr-dherai in the Lôralai District of Balûchistan. The discovery at this site of potsherds inscribed in Kharoşthi characters of the Kushan period makes it highly probable that this cinerary deposit of Tôr-dherai belongs to the early centuries of our era.
10 J.B.B.R.A.S., Vol. IV. p. 115 f.
11 Ep. Ind., Vol. IX. p. 186, 1. 15. Compare also the date 944 of the Kalachuri era which is described as " 944 years named SAhasamalla" (Memoire A.S.I., No. 23, p. 137, v. 53).
19 D. R. Bhandarkar's List of Inscr. of North Ind., No. 3. 1 See Innermost Asia, i. Pp. 24, 25, 29.
2 See my Archæological Tour in Wazfristan and Northern Baluchistdn (Memoirs of the Archaeological Survey of India, No. 37), pp. 69 sq.