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• THE DATE OF KANISHKA'S CHAPLAIN 469 (South) Kośala (in the Upper Deccan). Lastly, the catalogues of the Chinese Tripitaka state that An-Shih-Kão ( 148-170 A.D.) translated the Mārgabhūmi Sūtra of Sangharaksha who was the chaplain of Kanishka.? This shows conclusively that Kanishka flourished before 170 A.D.3 The arguments against the theory of Dr. Majumdar are equally applicable to the surmise of Sir R. G. Bhandarkar who placed Kanishka's accession in A.D. 278.
4. According to Fergusson, Oldenberg, Thomas, Banerji, Rapson and many other scholars. Kanishka was the founder of that reckoning commencing A.D. 78, which came to be known as the Saka era. This view is not accepted by Prof. Jouveau-Dubreuil on the following grounds :
1 Rājatarangini, I. 173 ; Harsha-charita (Cowell). p.252 ; Watters, YuanChwang. II, p. 200. The epithet trisanudrādhipati which the Harsha-charita (Book VIII) applies to the śātavāhana friend of Nāgārjuna cannot fail to remind one of Gautamiputra śātakarpi 'whose chargers drank the water of the three oceans' (tisamudatoyapitavāhana), or one of his immediate successors.
2 Eliot, Hinduism and Buddhism, II, p. 64n. Bunyiu Nanjio's Catalogue, App. II, 4.
3 According to the theory of Dr. Majumdar, Vāsudeva I ruled from (249+74) 323 to (249 +98) 347 A.D. But Chinese evidence places a Poutiao (Vasudeva ? in 230 A.D. The Khalatse Ins. also presents difficulties.
4 For the origin of the Saka era see Fleet, CII., preface 56; JRAS, 1913, pp. 635, 650, 987 ff. ; Dubreuil, A. H. D., 26; Rapson Andhra Coins, p. cv; S. Konow, Corpus, II. i. xvi f. Nahapāna, who was not even a Mahākshatrapa in the years 42-45, and who never became a paramount sovereign, could not possibly have been the founder of the era. The theory which represents Nahapana as the founder of the era used in his inscriptions (dated 42-46) is also contradicted by a Jaina tradition (relied on by Sten Konow, Corpus, II. i. xxxviii) which assigns to him (Nahavāhana) a period of only 40 years. Chashtana has no better claims and the evidence of the Periplus shows that he could not have ruled at Ujjain in 78 A.D. As to the theory that Kadphises II founded the reckoning in question, it may be pointed out that no inscription or coin of this monarch contains any date which is referable to an era of his institution. The only Scythian king who did establish an era in the sense that he used a regnal reckoning that was continued by his successors, is Kanishka. And the only reckoning that is attributed by Indian writers, since the days of the early Chalukyas, to a Scythian king is the Saka era of 78 A.D.
(contd.)
