South Indian Inscriptions

KALACHURI CHEDI - ERA

Kielhorn’s final view that the epoch of the Chēdi era is 247-48 A. C. was confirmed by these new dates; for, while two of them (viz., 1 and 3) might have been taken as current years with the epoch of 248-49 A. C., the other two (viz., 2 and 4) would have appeared irregular according to that epoch. The latter dates again showed that ‘Kalachuri years, occasionally and exceptionally, are quoted as current years.’

Since 1893, scholars have generally accepted Kielhorn’s conclusion that the Chēdi era commenced on Āśvina śu. di. I (corresponding to the 5th September) in 248 A. C. Mr. Sh. B. Dikshit alone, differing from Kielhorn, suggested that the Chēdi year might have commenced on the first tithi of the dark fortnight of the pūrnimānta Āśvina.¹

Pandit Bhagvanlal’s theory-that Chēdi era owed its origin to the dynasty of the Traikūtakas and was actually founded by a king named Īśvaradatta whom the Pandit considered to be an Ābhīra, and who, as shown by his coins, reigned sometime about 248-49 A. C. in Saurashtra—held the field for a long time. But in 1905, in his article ‘Trikūta and the so-called Kalachuri or Chēdi era’,² Dr. Fleet pointed out that all the early dates of the era came from Gujarat and the Thana District in Bombay and none from Saurashtra and that there was nothing to stamp the era as the Traikūtaka era; for, trhe expression in Dr. Bird’s Kanhēri plate on which Pandit Bhagvanlal relied might, in accordance with the early Hindu method of expressing dates, just as well mean ‘during the augmenting sovereignty of the Traikūtakas and in the year 245 (an unspecified era).’ Dr. Fleet proposed to identify the founder of the era with the Ābhīra Īśvarasēna (not to be confused with, or identified with, the Īśvaradatta mentioned above) or with his father, the Ābhīra Śivadatta, if he did reign.

In 1908, in his Catalogue of the Coins of the Andhra Dynasty, the Western Kshatrapas, the Traikūtaka Dynasty, etc., Prof. Rapson considered the question of the Traikūtaka era in connection with the coins of the Western Kshatrapas and the Traikūtakas. He pointed out that the dates assigned by Pandit Bhagvanlal Indraji to the coins of Īśvaradatta rested on a mistaken observation, that the dates from 171 to 176 were quite continuous on the coins of the Western Kshatrapas, and that the evidence of coins and coin-legends showed that the only interval to which the coins of Īśvaradatta could be assigned was that between 158, the last recorded date of Mahākshatrapa Dāmasēna, and 161, the year in which his son Yaśōdāman I appears as Mahākshatrapa, i.e., between 236 and 239 A. C.³ He further drew attention to the fact that the Ābhīra Śivadatta bears no royal title in the Nāsik inscription of his son Īśvarasēna, which seems to indicate that the latter was the founder of the dynasty and presumably preceded Īśvaradatta. He thus placed both Īśvrasēna and Īśvaradatta before 249 A. C. As regards the circumstances which led to the foundation of the era, he observed, “It is of course quite possible that the establishment of the era may mark the consolidation of the Ābhīra kingdom during the reign of one of their successors. There can be no doubt that the political conditions which admitted of the growth of a strong power in this part of India were due to the decline and fall of the Andhra Empire; but the foundation of an era must be held to denote the successful establishment of the new power rather than its first beginnings or the downfall of the Andhras.”4

In 1911, a large hoard of Kshatrapa coins was discovered at Sarvāniā in the former Bānswārā State Rajputana. In his detailed account of it published in the Annual Report of the Archœological Survey of India for 1913-14, pp. 227 ff., Dr. D. R. Bhandarkar examined
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¹ See his History of Indian Astronomy ( in Marāthī) (first published in 1896), second edition, p.375.
² J. R. A. S. (1905), pp. 566 ff.
³ C. A. D., pp. cxxxv-vi.
⁴ Ibid., p. clxii.