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472 POLITICAL HISTORY OF ANCIENT INDIA
Indian way of dating. · Are we to conclude from this that the Kharoshthî dates of Kanishka's inscriptions are not to be referred to the same era to which the dates of the Brāhmî records are to be ascribed? If Kanishka adopted two different ways of dating, we fail to understand why he could not bave adopted a third method to suit the local conditions in Western India. Sten Konow himself points out that in the Saka dates we have the name of the month as in the Kharoshthi records with addition of the Paksha. "The Śaka era which (the Western Kshatrapas) used was a direct imitation of the reckoning used by their cousins in the north-west, the additional mentioning of the 'palsha' being perhaps a concession to the custom in the part of the country where they ruled.” It is not improbable that just as Kanishka in the borderland used the old Śaka-Pahlava method, and in Hindusthān Proper used the ancient Indian way of dating prevalent there, so in Western India his officers added the 'palesha' to suit the custom in that part of the country.)
1 Ep. Ind., XIV, p. 141. For an exception see ibid, XXI. 60.
2 As to the statement of Fleet endorsed by S. Konow. Corpus, 1xxxvii, that the use of the Saka era was foreign to Northern India attention may be invited to Kielhorn's List of Ins. of Northern India, Nos 351, 352, 362, 364-365, 368, 379. etc. So far as North-West India is concerned there is as little positive proof of the early use of the Vikrama era as of the era of 78 A.D. The paucity of early records dated in the Saka era in the valley of the Upper Ganges and its tributaries is possibly due to the fact that the era of 58 B.C. already held the field. Later eras of undoubtedly northern origin, like those of the Guptas and Harsha, have practically been forgotten, but the era of 58 B.C. is still in use. In Southern India the case is different. The use of regnal years in the records of the Mauryas (many of which are located in the south) and those of the Śātavāhanas, Chetas, and other early dynasties, proves beyond doubt that there was no early reckoning in use that could compete with the new era that was introduced by the Saka satraps. The story of the foundation of the CbālukyaVikrama era suggests that the Saka reckoning was at times deliberately sought to be discontinued because of its foreign association. This might have happened in the north as well as in the south,
