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470 POLITICAL HISTORY OF ANCIENT INDÍA •
(a) If we admit that Kujūla-Kadphises and Hermaios reigned about 50 A.D. and that Kanishka founded the Śaka era in 78 A.D. we have scarcely 28 years for the duration of the end of the reigns of Kadphises I and the whole of the reign of Kad phises II.
(But the date, A.D. 50; for Kadphises I is uncertain. Even if we accept it as correct, the period of 28 years is not too short in view of the fact that Kad phises II succeeded an octogenerian. When Kadphises I died “at the age of more than eighty” his son must have been an old man. It is, therefore, improbable that his reign was protracted.")
(6) Marshall, says Prof. G. Jouveau-Dubreuil, has discovered at Taxila in the Chir Stūpa a document dated 136 which, in the Vikrama era, corresponds to 79 A.D., and the king mentioned therein is probably Kadphises I, but certainly not Kanishka.
(Now, the epithet Devaputra applied to the Kushān king of the Taxila scroll of 136, is characteristic of the Kanishka group, and not of the Kadphises kings. So
Regarding the objection that the Saka era was foreign to the north it may be pointed out that the era of 58 B.C., was equally foreign to the extreme northwest of India. The assertion that the Saka era was never used in the north-west simply begs the question. It assumes what it has got to prove, viz., that the reckoning used by the house of Kanishka does not refer to the Saka era. The very name Saka points to its foreign, and possibly north-western, origin, as the imperial Sakas resided in that region, and it is only the viceroys who dwelt in Mālwa, Kāthiāwār and the Deccan. . On the analogy of every famous Indian regnal reckoning it may be confidently asserted that the Saka era, too, originated with a sovereign and not with a mere viceroy.
1 I am glad to note that a somewhat similar suggestion is now made by Dr. Thomas in Dr. B. C. Law Volume, II. 312. It is, however, by no means clear why it is said that the possibility of the identification of Devaputra with Kanishka 'has been ignored'. The Kadphises kings meant here are Kujūla (Kadphises 1). and Vima (Wema) and not Kuyula Kara Kaphsa whose identification with Kadphises I is a mere surmise. Kara or Kala probably means a Mahārājaputra, a prince (Burrow, The Language of the Kharoshthi Documents, 82). Even if Kuyula Kara be identical with Kujūla (cf. Corpus, II, i. lxv) and the Kushān king of the Taxila inscription of 136, it may be pointed out that it is by no means certain that the date 136 refers to the Vikrama era.
