South Indian Inscriptions

KALACHURI CHEDI ERA

249 to the Chēdi date in all cases, whether the latter fell in Ashādha or in Phālguna, as if the Chēdi year completely coincided with the Christian year. Thirdly, he took all dates without exception to be in expired years. As regards the general correctness of Cunningham’s epoch, however, there was no doubt; for, the dates he assigned to the Kalachuri kings on its basis were generally corroborated by the synchronisms known from the inscriptions of the Kalachuri, Rāshtrakūta, Chālukya, Paramāra and Pratīhāra dynasties.¹ In the introduction (pp. vii-viii) to the same volume, Cunningham adduced further evidence to support his conclusion about the epoch of the era. He pointed out that Abū Rīhān,² writing about 1030-31 A. C., referred to Gāngēya as a contemporary king of Dāhala and that from his Vikramānkacharita Bilhana seemed to have resided at the court of Rājā Karna of Dāhala from 1070 A. C. to 1075 A. C. These dates, he showed, agreed with the approximate periods which he had assigned to the Kalachuri kings by the genealogical reckoning of his chronology.

In the meanwhile, some inscriptions of the Gurjara dynasty were discovered in Western India. The dates Samvat 380 and 385 of two of them, viz., the two sets of Kairā plates of Dadda II,³ were at first referred to the Vikrama era; but after the discovery of a third grant, viz., the Ilao plates of Dadda--Praśāntarāga⁴, which was explicitly dated in the year 417 of the Śaka era, the dates of the aforementioned two Kairā grants and also the date 486 of the odd Kāvī plate⁵ of Jayabhata subsequently discovered, in all of which the era was unspecified, were reffered to the Śaka era.

In 1884, Dr. Bhagvanlal Indraji published the Navsāri grant of Jayabhata (III),⁶ dated Monday or Tuesday, the full-moon day of Māgha, Samvat 456, on the occasion of an eclipse of the moon. This grant mentions in connection with Dadda, the great-grand-father of the donor Jayabhata, that he protected a prince of Valabhī against the Emperor (Paramēśvara) Śrī-Harshadēva. Dr. Bhagvanlal naturally identified the latter with Harshavardhana of Thānēśvar and Kanauj, who ruled from 606 A. C. to 648 A. C. As Dadda, the first prince mentioned in the Navsāri grant, was thus proved to have flourished in the first half of the seventh century A. C., it was clear that the date 456 of the Navsāri grant of that Dadda's great-grandson Jayabhata could not be referred to the Śaka era. Dr. Bhagvanlal had again obtained four other grants of the Chālukya dynasty discovered in Gujarat, two of which, made by Śryāśraya-Śīlāditya, were found to be dated in Samvat 421 and 423, the third, made by Mangalarāja, in Śaka 653, and the fourth, by Pulakēśivallabha Janāśraya, in Samvat 490. From the genealogical portions of these grants it was clear that all these princes were sons of Jayasimhavarman, who was himself a son of Pulakēśin II, the famous king of the Early Chālukya Dynasty. From these data Dr. Bhagvanlal concluded that the dates 456 and 486 of the Gurjara grants and 421, 443 and 490 of the Chālukya grants referred to an era, different from the Śaka era, which was used in Gujarat in the seventh and eighth centuries A. C. He conjecturally fixed 244-45 A.C. as the initial year and 245-46 A.C. as the year I of that era, and identified it with
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¹ C. A. S. I. R., Vol. IX, pp. 84-87; 100-11.
² He is more widely known by his name Albērūnī.
³ These were discovered about 1827 A.C. They were first published by J. Prinsep in J. A. S. B., Vol. VII, pp. 908 ff. and subsequently by Dowson in J. R. A. S., (N. S.), Vol. I, pp. 247 ff. and by Fleet in Ind. Ant., Vol. XIII, pp. 81 ff.
⁴ Ed. by Dr. R. G. Bhandarkar, J. B. B. R. A. S., Vol. X, pp. 19 ff. and, with facsimiles, by Fleet in Ind. Ant., Vol. XIII, pp. 116 ff.
⁵ Ind. Ant., Vol. V, pp. 109 ff.
⁶ Ibid., Vol. XIII, pp. 70 ff.