Jainism Early Faith of Ashoka

Author(s): Edward Thomas
Publisher: Trubner and Company London

Page 15

BACTRIAN COINS AND INDIAN DATES.
BY
EDWARD THOMAS, F.R.S.
A SHORT time ago, a casual reference to the complicated Greek monograms stamped on the earlier Bactrian coins suggested to me an explanation of some of their less involved combinations by the test of simple Greek letter dates, which was followed by the curious discovery that the Bactrian kings were in the habit of recognizing and employing curtailed dates to the optional omission of the figure for hundreds, which seems to have been the immemorial custom in many parts of India. My chief authority for this conclusion was derived from a chance passage in Albírúní,1 whose statement, however, has since been independently supported by the interpretation of an inscription of the ninth century A.D. from Kashmír, which illustrates the provincial use of a cycle of one hundred years, and has now
1 Alhírání, writing in India in 1031 A.D., tells us, " Le vulgaire, dans l'Inde, compte par siècles, et les siècles se placent l'un après l'autre. On appelle cela la Samvatsara du cent. Quand un cent est écoulé, on le laisse et l'on en commence un autre. On appelle cela Loka-kála, c'est-à-dire comput du peuple." -Reinaud's Translation, Fragments Arabes, Paris, 1845, p. 145.
2 This second inscription ends with the words Saka Kálagatavdah 726-that is, "Şaka Kála years slapsed 726," equivalent to A.D. 804, which is therefore the date of the temple. This date also corresponds with the year 80 of the local cycle, which is the Loka-kala of Kashmir or cycle of 2,700 years, counted by centuries named after the twenty-seven nakshatras, or lunar mansions. The reckoning, therefore, never goes beyond 100 years, and as each century begins in the 25th year of the Christian century, the 80th year of the local cycle is squivalent to the 4th year of the Christian century.-General A. Cunningham, Archæological Report, 1875, vol. v. p. 181.