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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
Inscriptional records show that from some time in the ninth or tenth century a.d. the era of b.c. 58, the chief reckoning of Northern India, became known by such names as the time called Vikrama, Vikrama-kāla, i.e. “the time or era of Vikrama,” Vikrama-saṁvat, the years of king Vikrama, the years founded by Vikramā-ditya, the years elapsed since the time of king Vikrama. The same source of information shows that, at a later time, the Śaka era of a.d. 78, which, though it too was of northern origin, became the chief reckoning of Southern India, came to be known by such names as Śālivāhana-Śaka, i.e. “the Śaka or era of Śālivāhana,” the Śaka or era of the glorious and victorious king Śālivāhana, the years of the Śaka or era established by Śālivāhana. And the popular belief, as presented, for instance, in the introductory passages of some of the Pañchāṅgs or Hindū almanacs from which I have given extracts in this Journal, 1911, p. 694, is that the Vikrama era was founded by a king Vikrama reigning in b.c. 58 at Ujjain, in Mālwā, and the Śaka era was founded by a king Śālivāhana reigning in a.d. 78 at Pratishṭhāna, which is the present Paiṭhaṇ, on the Gōdāvarī, in the Nizam's territory.
page 809 note 1 See Professor Kielhorn's examination of this question in the Ind. Ant., vol. 20 (1891), p. 404Google Scholar ff. His earliest instance of the word vikrama being used in connection with the era, in a not quite clear sense, namely, in the expression vikram-ākhya kāla, “the time called vikrama,” is one of the year 898, in a.d. 842, from an inscription at Dhōlpūr(p. 406, No. 10). His earliest instance of the era being plainly attributed to a king Vikrama was a literary one of the year 1050, in a.d. 993 (ibid., No. 40). An earlier instance is known now from the Ēkliṅgjī inscription, which is dated in the year 1028 of king Vikramaditya, in a.d. 971: JBBRAS, vol. 22, p. 166.Google Scholar
page 809 note 2 The exact expression Śālivāhana-Śaka is mostly confined to dates recorded in prose. In dates in verse, other ways of introducing the name Śālivāhana were followed, and the shorter form Śālivāha was sometimes used, to suit the metre: see, e.g., Professor Kielhorn's List of the Inscriptions of Southern India in Epi. Ind., vol. 7Google Scholar, appendix, Nos. 465, 475, 503, 519, 1004, 1005. This clipped form is also found occasionally in prose: see, e.g., ibid., No. 527. Compare Sātavāha as the shorter form of Sātavāhana: see p. 817 below, note 5.
It seems very likely that, when the expression Śālivāhana-Śaka was introduced, the word śaka had already acquired its secondary meanings of ‘era, year’, the first of which it has, for instance, in the term śakakārakāḥ, “founders of eras:” see JRAS, 1911, p. 694.Google Scholar
In the present day, the usual style of dating is, for the era of b.c. 58, Saṁvat 1973, “(in) the year 1973,” and for the era of a.d. 78, Śakē 1838, without the use of either name, Vikrama or Śālivāhana: it is doubtful whether, in the latter expression, the word śaka conveys to most people any meaning beyond that of ‘year’.
page 810 note 1 See his remarks in Ind. Ant., vol. 26, p. 150.Google Scholar
page 811 note 1 For references to publication, etc., see Professor Kielhorn's List of the Inscriptions of Southern India, Epi. Ind., vol. 7, appendix, No. 253Google Scholar; the reference there to Colebrooke's Essays, vol. 2Google Scholar, should be to p. 240 (2nd ed.).
page 811 note 2 Kielhorn's Southern List, No. 370.
page 811 note 3 Ibid., No. 976.
page 811 note 4 Ibid., No. 379.
page 811 note 5 Ibid., No. 455.
page 812 note 1 I quote from ink-impressions which I had made many years ago. Dr. Barnett is editing the record from my ink-impressions, with a facsimile, in the Epi. Ind., vol. 13 or 14.Google Scholar
page 813 note 1 The record is being edited from these impressions, with a facsimile, by Dr. Barnett in the Epi. Ind., vol. 13 or 14.Google Scholar
page 813 note 2 We have here the derivative śāka, ‘of or belonging to the Śakas’, which afterwards acquired the meaning of ‘year’: see, e.g., note 2 on p. 815 below.
page 814 note 1 Pāli, Sanskṛit, and Old-Canarese Inscriptions, No. 22: or Dixon's collection of photographs (1865), No. 2.
page 814 note 3 It may be noted that the given year is Vijaya, Śālivāhana-Śaka 1276 (current), = a.d. 1353–54; and the given tithi is Māgha śukla 15, falling in February, a.d. 1354. Another copper-plate record of Bukkarāya I, from Pōtagānahalli in the Tumkūr District of Mysore, seems to give the next instance, slightly later in the same year a.d.: according to the published text, Epi. Carn., vol. 12Google Scholar (Tumkūr), Pg. 74, it is dated in the year Jaya, Śālivāhana-Śaka 1277 (current), = a.d. 1354–55, with the details Vaiśākha bahula 10, falling in May, a.d. 1354.
page 814 note 3 Among ninety-three records of the Dynasties of Vijayanagara included by Kielhorn in his Southern List of Inscriptions, Nos. 454 to 546, ranging from a.d. 1340 to 1693, thirty-five (including the record of a.d. 1354, No. 455) are dated in this way; and nearly all of them are of the class of official records. Of miscellaneous records dated in the same way, there are eighteen in the same List, ranging from a.d. 1553 onwards: see No. 992 and nearly all of the following entries as far as No. 1013: these, again, are almost all from the Kanarese districts.
page 815 note 1 No such ruler has been traced in any of the records of Southern India: and in Northern India the name Śālivāhana, or anything like it, has been found, as the name of real persons, only in—
(1) a copper-plate record from the Chambā State, of about the middle of the eleventh century, which mentions a king Sālavāhana as the father of the then reigning king Sōmavarman; see Kielhorn's List of the Inscriptions of Northern India, Epi, Ind., vol. 5Google Scholar, appendix, No. 593; and now see also Vogel, 's Antiquities of Chambā State, p. 192: and—Google Scholar
(2) a Rōhtāsgarh inscription of a.d. 1631, which mentions a Tōmara prince Śālivāhana who flourished at Gwālior in or just before that year; see Kielhorn's Northern List, No. 318.
page 815 note 2 In fact, the only inscriptional instances quotable from Northern India seem to be four, as follows:—
(1) A Dēōgaḍh inscription of a.d. 1424, in which the date is given as the expired year 1481 of king Vikramāditya and Śākē śrī-Śālivāhanāt 1346: Kielhorn's Northern List, Epi. Ind., vol. 5, appendix, No. 285Google Scholar.
(2) A Chambā inscription of a.d. 1660, in which the date is given as the year 1717 of king Vikramāditya, the Śāstra year 36, and śrī-Śālivāhana-Śakē 1582: ibid., No. 320.
(3) An Udaypūr inscription of a.d. 1713, in which the date is given as the year 1770 since the time of king Vikramāditya and Śaka-vaṁśasya (read more probably varshasya) Śālivāhana-bhūpatēḥ, 1635: ibid., No. 323.
(4) A Jaisalmēr inscription of a.d. 1797, in which the date is the year 4898 expired from the time when Yudhishṭhira ascended the throne (i.e., Kaliyuga 4898), the year 1854 from the reign of Vikramārka, and Śālivāhana-Śākāt śākē 1719: see JRAS, 1911, p. 694Google Scholar.
Professor Kielhorn has given in Ind. Ant., vol. 20, p. 152Google Scholar, No. 7, a literary date of a.d. 1675, apparently from Kashmīr, which runs:— Śrī-Vikramādi[tya*]-śā[kā]ḥ 1732 śrīmad - Chhālivāhana - śākāḥ 1597 śrīmad-Auraṅga-śāha-śākāḥ 18 śrī-Saptarshi-chāra-matēna saṁvat 51. In addition to presenting the use of the name Śālivāhana, this date illustrates well the use of the derivative śāka in the sense of ‘year’: as also does the Jaisalmēr date, No. 4 above.
page 816 note 1 He also teaches, under 1. 8, Sālāhaṇa as a contracted form of Sālavāhaṇa. Regarding Hēmachandra, compare Sir R. G. Bhandarkar's remarks in his Early History of the Dekkan, in the Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency, vol. 1, part 2, p. 169: but it is Sātavāhana, Sālavāhaṇa, that the grammarian teaches; not Śātavāhana, Śālivāhana.
page 816 note 2 In his Abhidhānachintāmaṇi, verse 712, Hēmachandra gives Hāla as a synonym of Sātavāhana; and in his Dēśīnāmamālā he gives Hāla as a synonym of Sālāhaṇa in 8. 66, and Kuntala and Chaürachindha, as synonyms of Hāla in 2. 36 and 3. 7. The names Hāla and Kuntala are instructive, since they are given in the Purāṇas in their list of the kings in question, but as the names of two separate persons: see Pargiter, 's Dynasties of the Kali Age, p. 36.Google Scholar
page 817 note 1 Epi. Ind., vol. 8, p. 44, line 12.Google Scholar
page 817 note 2 Ibid., p. 33, line 14.
page 817 note 3 See p. 818 below, and note.
page 817 note 4 Except in the case of the Purāṇas and Vātsyāyana, I give s or ś just as it is in the texts, translations, etc., which I use. In the Raghuvaṁśa, 13. 38, mention is made of a saint whose name according to published texts was Śātakarṇi, with the palatal ś: but certainly Kālidāsa himself cannot have written it in that way; and S. P. Pandit in his edition noted a various reading giving the name as Māṇḍakarṇi, which, supported as it is by the Rāmāyaṇa, 3 (Āraṇya-k. ), 11. 11 (Bombay text), seems much more probable.
page 817 note 5 Text, 6. 367; 7. 1283, 1732: see Stein, 's translation, vol. 1, pp. 266, 368, 402Google Scholar, and the table on introd., p. 145; but in the first passage the name was used in the clipped form Sātavāha (compare Śālivāhana, Śālivāha; see page 809 above, note 2). It appears that one manuscript gives the name in 6. 367 as Sālavāha, with l instead of t.
page 817 note 6 I quote this writer from V. N. Mandlik, loc. cit. as below, p. 132. Another fanciful derivation of the name is given in the Kathāsaritsāgara (trans., vol. 1, p. 37), which explains it as meaning “he who rode on (a Yaksha named) Sāta, (in the form of a lion).” The real etymology is not known. If the two names are of Sanskṛit origin, we should look for some meaning of sāta which will go with both vāhctna, ‘a conveyance, vehicle’, and apparently karṇa, ‘an ear’. But they may be Sanskṛitized forms of vernacular names: and it is perhaps worth noting that Albērūnī (a.d. 1031), in a very short abstract of the story in the Kathāsaritsāgara, has the curious form “Samalvāhana, i.e. in the classical language Sātavāhana:” trans, by Sachau, , vol. 1, p. 136.Google Scholar
page 818 note 1 See Pargiter, , Dynasties of the Kali Age, p. 36Google Scholar. The Purāṇas do not seem to mention the family-name Sātavāhana. They give the name Sātakarṇi with the palatal sibilant: but this cannot have been the form in the early texts.
page 818 note 2 Regarding some of these literary references, see also remarks by Sir R. G. Bhandarkar, op. cit. as above, p. 169 ff.
page 818 note 3 The passage is near the end of chapter 7; trans, (1883), p. 70. The words, as given by Bhandarkar (op. cit. as above, p. 172, note) from Aufrecht, are:— Kartaryā Kuntalaḥ Śātakarṇiḥ Śātavāhanō mahādēvīṁ Malayavatīṁ [jaghāna]. It is, however, not possible that Vātsyāyana himself can have used the palatal sibilant in these two names.
page 818 note 4 See the translation by Cowell, and Thomas, , pp. 2, 252Google Scholar. The reference to the three oceans in the second passage does not mean that Sātavāhana ruled Jambudvīpa, Plakshadvipa, and Śālmalidvīpa, as was understood by the translators, but, as we know from many inscriptional passages, implies that he reigned over the whole of Southern India to the shores of the eastern, the southern, and the western seas. In the first of these two passages, the text has the words akarōt = Sātavāhanaḥ (Kashmīr ed., p. 10), where the saṁdhi (tsā, not chchhā) marks the name clearly as having the dental s, not the palatal ś. A note by the translators tells us that there is here a various reading, giving the name as Śālivāhana: this, however, can only be a late substitute.
page 819 note 1 See the translation by Tawney, , vol. 1, pp. 36–49Google Scholar: for mention of king Sātavāhana, see also pp. 32, 51. The statement about the Kathāpīṭha (p. 49) seems not very intelligible: Kathāpīṭha is the name of the first book of the Kathāsaritsāgara itself, containing chaps. 1 to 8; the story of Sātavāhana is in chaps. 6 to 8; and the story of Naravāhanadatta does not begin till book 4, chap. 23 (trans., vol. 1, p. 190).
page 819 note 2 See the translation by Tawney, , pp. 14–16Google Scholar. In the text as given by Ramchandra Dinanatha (Bombay, 1888) the forms of the name are Śālivāhana, p. 24, 1. 1, p. 26, 1. 3; Sātavāhana, p. 24, 1. 2; Śātavāhana, p. 24, 1. 4, p. 25, 11. 5, 8; Śālavāhana, p. 24, 1. 15; and Sālāhana, in Prākṛit verses, p. 26, 1. 7, p. 31, 1. 2. The form Śālivāhana occurs in the title of the story, Śālivāhana-prabandha (against Sātavāhana-kathā in the story itself), and as the name of the anthology of gāthās. Incidental mention is made of probably the same king as Śātavāhana, text, p. 308, 1. 15, or Sātavahana, trans., p. 194.
page 820 note 1 See the abstract of this story given by V. N. Mandlik in his paper “Śālivāhana and the Śālivāhana-Saptaśatī,” JBBRAS, vol. 10, p. 131 ft.Google Scholar
page 820 note 2 About this work, see Mandlik, V. N., loc. cit. as above, p. 136Google Scholar; and Bhandarkar, , op. cit. as above, p. 171.Google Scholar
