South Indian Inscriptions

KALACHURI CHEDI - ERA

tried to revive Pandit Bhagvanlal's theory that the era owed its origin to the dynasty of the Traikūtaks, by identifying and Traikūtakas with the Kalachuris. He suggested that Trikūta from which the dynasty derived its name was the Vindhya mountain which was so called because of its three peaks-Āmrakūta or Amarakantak, the Sālakūta of Sālētēkri in the Balaghat District and the Madhukūta or Mōhtur in the Chhindwara district. But the fact that all the early dates of the era are found in Western India-in Southern Gujarat and Western Maharashtra-is fatal to Dr. Hiralal's theory. Besides, there is no evidence to show that the Vindhya mountain was called Trikūta in ancient times. On the other hand, Kālidāsa clearly indicates in the Raghuvamśa that the mountain is situated in the Aparānta or North Konkan,¹ and this is corroborated by the discovery of the Anjaneri plates of Prithivīchandra Bhōgaśakti of the (Chēdi) year 461 , in which a Trikūta vishaya is mentoined as situated in the kingdom of Purī-Konkana (i. e., North Konkan).²

In 1933, in his History of India, 150 A. D. to 350 A. D., Dr. K. P. Jayaswal attempted to prove that the Chēdi era was started by the Vākātakas "The Purānas, " he observed, "after the fall of the Sātavāhanas register the rise of Vindhyaśakti as the next great power or as the imperial power succeeding the Sātavāhanas. An era will be naturally counted from the rise of a new power, whether at once or subsequently ..... Then the second fact to take note of in this connection is that Pravarasēna I became an Emperor and the previous Emperors i. e., the Kushānas, had in fact an imperial era. To start an era had become a chief symbol of imperial position."³ Jayaswal, therefore, concluded that Pravarasēna I of the Vākātaka dynasty who became Emperor, must have started the era, dating it from the coronation of his father. He read the dates on two coins which he ascribed to Pravarasēna I and Rudrasēna I as 76 and 100 respectively, and reffered these dates together with the date 52 of the Giñjā inscription of Mahārāja Śrī-Bhīmasēna to the Chēdi era dating from the rise of the Vākātaka power. But Jayaswal's readings of the legends and figures on these coins are extermely doubtful.⁴ Besides, his theory that the Chēdi era was really founded by the Vākātakas is disproved by the fact that the Vākātakas themselves never used it, but dated all their records in regnal years.⁵

In 1936, while editing Kōsam stone inscription of Mahārāja Bhīmavarman, dated in the year 130, in the Indian Culture, Vol. III, pp. 177 ff., Mr. A. Ghosh drew attention to certain palæographical peculiarities noticed in the record, such as the round and narrowheaded ś, the unlooped sh and s, and the undeveloped curves representing medial i-peculiarities which are known to be characteristic of Kushāna rather than Gupta inacriptions. He, therefore, referred the date 130 of that inscription to the Chēdi era. Subsequently, some more inscriptions of Prausthaśriya, Bhadramagha, Vaiśravana and Bhīmavarman were found at Kōsam and Bāndhōgarh, and some of them were published in the Epigraphia Indica and elsewhere.⁶ These records exhibited the same palæographic peculiarities which indicated that they belonged to the period of transition between the Kushāna and the Gupta age. The system of dating and the mixed nature of the language used in them were also believed to point to the same conclusion. Their dates also were, therefore, referred by some scholars to the Chēdi era. The fact that some of these records came from that part of the country which in ancient times was known as Chēdi lent colour to this view.
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¹ Canto IV, vv. 58-59.
² No. 31, 1. 38.
³ History of India, 150 A. D to 350 A. D., p. III.
⁴ See J. N. S. I., Vol. V, pp. 130 ff.
⁵ Mirashi, Nagpur University Journal , No. 3, p. 26.
⁶ See, e.g., Ep. Ind., Vol. XXIII, pp. 245 ff; Vol. XXIV, pp. 146 ff. and pp. 253 ff. etc. Also Jha Comemoration Volume, pp. 101 ff.