Book 9 — APPENDIX.

APPENDIX A. ON SOME DISPUTED POINTS OF INDIAN CHRONOLOGY.

Throughout the preceding pages the dates of kings’ reigns, where quoted, have been assumed as known, and the eras from which they are calculated as ascertained. This has been done in order not to interrupt the narrative of events by introducing a chronological disquisition at every point where a date occurs; but no one at all familiar with the subject needs to be told that the dates of mediæval dynasties in India are far from settled, and that few are universally acquiesced in. Great progress has, it is true, been made in the last ten or twenty years in clearing away the difficulties that surround the subject. So much is this the case, that there are only one or two dates of sufficient importance to affect our reasoning which still remain in doubt; but though this may be true, there are many others about which the world in general feel considerable hesitation. It consequently becomes almost indispensable to state briefly the grounds on which the chronology used throughout this work is based, in order that the correctness of most of the inductions stated in it may be estimated at their true value.[660]

The earliest reasonable statement bearing on the subject which we possess is in the 9th chapter of Arrian’s ‘Indica.’ It is there stated—quoting from Megasthenes—“That from Bacchus (Ixwaku) to Sandrocottus (Chandragupta), the Indians reckon one hundred and fifty-three monarchs, who reigned during the space of six thousand and forty-two years.”

The first part of this statement is eminently satisfactory, as it seems clear from it that we possess in the Puranas the same lists as were submitted to the Greeks in the fourth century B.C. In the Solar lists, we have in the Treta Yug sixty-two reigns, from Ixwaku to Rama.[661] There is no complete Lunar list in that age. For the Dwapar age we have three Solar lists: one for Kusha to Vrihadsana, thirty-five reigns; another from Dishta to Janamejaya, thirty-three reigns; and a third, from the son of Swadhaja, the father of Sita, wife of Rama, to Mahabasi, thirty-four reigns. In the Kali Yug we have no complete Solar list, but the Lunar list gives fifty descents from Jarasandha to the last Nanda. This gives 145 or 146 reigns, or rather too few. But the Lunar lists, from the Dwapar Yug, give forty-four from Puru to Yudhishihira, and fifty from Yadu to Krishna, so that the average is as nearly as may be that stated by Megasthenes.

The second part of the statement, giving these kings’ reigns an average duration of nearly forty years, must of course be rejected, but it is satisfactory to find that, at that early age, the falsification of the chronology had only gone to the extent of duplication, and that the monstrous system of Yugs, with all their attendant absurdities, had not then been invented.

Though it may not at present be capable of direct proof, I have myself no doubt that the date assigned by the Hindus for the Kali Yug (3101 B.C.) is a true date, though misapplied. It either was the date when the Aryans assumed that their ancestors had first crossed the Indus, or when they had first settled on the banks of the Saraswati or the Ghoghra. It forms no part of any subsequently invented system, and seems the only one fixed point in a sea of falsification. Assuming it for the present, and deducting Chandragupta’s date from it, we have 3101-325 = 2776 years from Ixwaku to Chandragupta, which, divided by 153, gives the reasonable number of eighteen years for the duration of each king’s reign. Of course it is not contended that these lists are absolutely to be depended upon—many names may be lost, and many misplaced, from the carelessness of copyists, or from other causes; but, on the whole, when treated in this manner, they afford a reasonable framework for the reconstruction of the ancient history of India, and one that accords perfectly with all we at present know about the ancient history of the immigrant Aryans.

If this view can be sustained, the events which are described in the Ramayana—not of course the poem, which is comparatively modern—took place about 2000 years before Christ. Adhering to the above average, we gather that the events described in the ‘Mahabharata,’ in like manner, occurred 900 years before Chandragupta, or 1225, or more precisely, according to the Puranic chronology, thus—

B.C.

Chandragupta325

Sisunagas, 360 years360

Sunakas128

Sabadeva to Ripunjaya, 23 reigns at 18 years414

1227

which may probably be taken as very near the true date.

It must for the present remain an open question whether the dates just quoted can be so established as to stand the test of the exigencies of modern critical acumen. It would be very satisfactory if this could be so accomplished. In the first place, because it would afford a firm basis for all our reasoning regarding the ancient history and ethnography of India, but also because it would prove that the Puranas do contain the germs of truths which, when properly investigated, may lead to the most important deductions. My own impression is entirely in favour of the existence of the requisite materials for the purpose; but the fashion has been lately to pooh-pooh the whole thing, and no attempt has been made—so far as I know—by any competent scholar, to investigate the matter on scientific principles.

Be this as it may, when we come to the Anjana era, 691 B.C.,[662] and the life of Buddha, we tread on surer ground; and it is fortunate for our purposes that it so, as with the life of Buddha the mediæval history of India may be said to commence, and unless his date and that of his successors can be established with at least approximate certainty, the history of architecture in India must remain unintelligible. In this instance, however, the materials, I believe, exist in abundance. They have not, it is true, been as yet investigated to such an extent as to render any point certain, but the difficulties are daily disappearing, and as every point gained adds materially in throwing light on others that have hitherto been considered unsettled, we may hope before long to see the whole satisfactorily resolved.

There is perhaps no single point in the whole early history of India on which the chronicles of Ceylon and Further India are so distinct and unanimous than that Buddha died—as they express it, attained Nirvana—at the age of eighty years, in the year 543 B.C., or in the year 148 of the Eetzana[663] or Anjana epoch.[664]

Attempts have recently been made, it appears to me on the most illogical and insufficient data, to invalidate this conclusion. There is an admitted falsification in the Ceylonese annals, as set forth in the ‘Mahawanso,’ of sixty years about this date; but as Turnour, who first pointed it out, explained also the reason for it,[665] the rectification is easy, and the result clear. It seems that Vijaya, the first Indian immigrant or conqueror of Ceylon, landed in the island 483 years B.C., or thereabout; and the reigns of his successors, down to Devenampiyatisso, the contemporary of Asoka, when added together, amount to only 236 years. When the annals came to be expounded in the ‘Mahawanso,’ it was thought expedient, for the good of religion, that the coming of Vijaya should be coincident with the death of Buddha; and as the sacred era could not be disturbed, Asoka’s reign was carried back so as to admit of the adjustment. This was effected principally by reducing the epoch of the nine Nandas from 100 years, at which the Puranas place them, to forty-four, and by other slight alterations. The sixty years was afterwards recovered by small increments to subsequent reigns, not of much consequence, but injuriously affecting the correctness of the whole chronology of the ‘Mahawanso,’ down to about A.D. 400, when it was compiled in its present form. As the date of Asako’s reign is perfectly well known (272-236 B.C.), we have only to reject the most improbable coincidence of Vijaya landing on the day of Buddha’s Nirvana, which there is nothing to support, and the whole becomes clear, and everything falls into its place.[666]

Besides the Ceylonese lists, and those quoted by Crawfurd from the Burmese annals,[667] the Puranas afford us two, quoted below, which are of great interest to us, and the whole are so marvellously coincident, that there seems very little doubt of their general authenticity.

Solar List.Lunar List.

Saisunaga Dynasty reigned 360 years.

B.C. B.C.

Kritanjaya 691 Sisunaga 685

Rananjaya — Kakavarna—

Sanjaya — Kshemadharman—

Sakya — Kshetranjas—

Suddhodana — Bimbisara 603

Kanwapana, 9.

Bhumiputra, 14.

Ratula — Ajatasatru551

Prasenajit — Udayaswa519

Kshudraka — Dasaka503

Kundaka — Nagadasoka495

Suratha — Sisunaga471

Sumitra451? Kalasoka453

Maha Nanda425

Sumalya—

7 Nandas—

Interregnum Kautilya ending325

With regard to the first or Solar list, Professor Wilson remarks, that “Sakya is no doubt the name of the author or reviver of Buddhism, but is out of place, as he was the son and not the father of Suddhodana.”[668] This, however, is only one of the numerous instances in which the grandson takes his grandfather’s name, and which is an interminable cause of confusion in Indian chronological inquiries.[669] Gautama, as we know, never ascended the throne, but devoted himself to his religious duties, but his son Ratula succeeded his grandfather. In like manner, the Prasenajit in the list is not the cousin and companion of Buddha, but the grandson, or grand-nephew of that earlier king of the same name. Sumitra, the last name mentioned in the Bhagavat Purana, seems to have ascended the throne about 451. There are no exact dates for fixing this event, and with him perished the long line of Solar monarchs, who for more than twenty-six centuries—if our chronology is correct—had influenced in so marked a manner the destinies of India.

It was during the reign of Kalasoka, the eleventh king of this dynasty, that the second convocation was held, 100 years after the Nirvana. This, too, it has recently become the fashion to doubt. The accounts, however, in the ‘Mahawanso,’ and the pointed mode in which it is referred to in the Burmese annals, seem sufficient to settle the point. Like Vijaya’s landing in Ceylon on the day of Buddha’s Nirvana, Prome is said to have been founded 443, the year of this convocation.[670] They must have believed strongly, or they would not have attempted the adjustment.

As before mentioned, we have neither buildings, nor coins, nor inscriptions belonging to this period, nor indeed any material facts that would enable us to verify the chronological data. It is, however, so near the time when these became abundant, that it does not seem unreasonable to hope that some such evidences may turn up. Till something is found, the absence of all such materials must remain as a curious piece of evidence regarding the important influence that the contact of the nations of the West had on the arts and civilization of India at the time.

Maurya, Sunga, and Kanwa Dynasties.

Chronology. Buildings.

Maurya Dynasty, 130 years.

B.C.

Chandragupta 325

Bimbisara 301 Hathi Gumpha, Udayagiri.

Asoka 276 Caves at Barabhar, Inscriptions, Lâts, &c.

Suyasas 240

Dasaratha 230? Cave at Barabhar.

Sangata 220?

Indrapalita 212? Cave at Bhaja?

Somasarman 210

Sasadharman 203 Caves at Udayagiri.

Vrihadratha 195 Rail at Bharhut.

Sunga Dynasty, 112 years.

Pushpamitra 188 Cave at Bedsa.

Agnimitra 152

Sujyeshtha 144 Caves 9 and 12, Ajunta.

Vasumitra 137

Badraka, or Ardraka 129 Chaitya Cave, Nassick.

Pulindaka 127

Ghoshavasu 124

Vajramitra 121

Bhagavata 112

Devabhuti 86 Cave at Karli.

Kanwa Dynasty, 45 years.

Vasudeva 76

Bhumimitra 67 Raj Rani cave, Udayagiri?

Narayana 53

Susarman 41

“ died 31

The chronology of these three dynasties, as recorded in the Puranas, may admit of some adjustment in detail; but the whole is so reasonable and consistent that it can hardly be to any great extent. The whole, too, is now found to be so perfectly in accord with the architecture of their age, and with such inscriptions as have been found, that I see no reason whatever for doubting its general correctness.

The cardinal point on which the whole hinges is the twelfth year of Asoka’s reign after his consecration—the sixteenth from his inauguration. In that year he published his rock-cut edicts, in which he mentions his allies, Antiochus and Antigonus, Ptolemy (Philadelphus), Magas (of Cyrene), and Alexander (of Macedonia).[671] As it happens, all these five names are mentioned together in Justin’s abridgment of Trogus Pompeius (xxvi. 2, 3 and xxvii. 1), though without giving any date. As Magas, however, died B.C. 257, and the only year in which all five were alive together was either that year or the preceding, we may safely assume that the sixteenth of Asoka was B.C. 256 or B.C. 257. If that is so it seems impossible to bring down the date of the accession of Chandragupta to a time more modern than one or two years after B.C. 325. The Ceylonese annals allow him thirty-four years,[672] but our knowledge of what happened in India in Alexander’s time forbids any such extension. On the other hand, his accession happening in the year, or the year after, the defeat of Porus, is not exactly what we would expect from the context; but there is nothing, so far as I know, to controvert it.

Even if it were not so certain as it appears to be from the statements just quoted, there can be no doubt that the chronology of this period can easily be settled from the numerous inscriptions found in the rock-cut excavations quoted in the table, as well as from coins and other materials that exist. These dynasties thus become a fixed starting-point for all our inquiries, either backwards or forwards.

Andra, or Andrabritya Dynasty.

Chronology. Buildings.

B.C.

Sipraka31

Krishna A.D.8 Cave at Nassick.

Satakarni I.10 South gateway, Sanchi.

Purnotsanga28 Caves 10 and 11 Ajunta.

Srivaswami46

Satakarni II.64 Saka Era established A.D. 79.

Lambodara120 Nahapana cave, Nassick.

Apitaka138

Sangha150

Satakarni III.168 Rudra Dama, bridge inscription, A.D. 151.

Skandhaswati186

Mrigendra193

Kuntaluswati196

Swatikarna204

Pulomavit205

Gorakshaswasri241

Hala266

Mantalaka271

Purindra sena276

Sindara381

Rajadaswati6 ms.

Sivaswati284

Gautamiputra312 Gupta Era established A.D. 319; cave at Nassick, outer rail Amravati.

Vasithi putra333

Pulomat335

Sivasri363

Skandaswati370

Yajnasri377 Cave at Nassick.

Vijaya406 Great cave Kenheri.

Chandrasri412

Pulomat422

“ died429

or436 Caves 16 17, and 19 Ajunta.

For this dynasty, as for the preceding three, we are dependent on the Puranas; but its chronology, like theirs, is so reasonable and so consistent with what we learn from other sources that I see no reason whatever for doubting its general correctness. There are slight discrepancies of course, not only as to names but as to the duration of this dynasty in the different Puranas. Thus the Vishnu Parana, according to Wilson, enumerates thirty kings, reigning 456 years; the Vayu and Bhagavat the same. The Matsya gives only twenty-nine kings, but makes them reign 460 years; but none of them give all the names, nor does the addition of the longest list extend beyond 435 years.[673] The whole, from Chandragupta to the last, are also added together (p. 232), and make up 751 years, or bringing the last of the Andras down to A.D. 426. The actual fixation of these dates will probably be found in Nassick cave inscriptions. Two of these bear dates: one, apparently in the reign of Pulomavi, or Padma, is dated nineteen from an unspecified era; the other is in the twenty-fourth year of the “modern era,” and the act recorded is, apparently, by order of Gautamiputra.[674] As it is, however, almost certain that the Gupta era, A.D. 319, was established in the reign of the last-named king, it seems probable that when these inscriptions are more carefully examined than they hitherto have been, they will fix these reigns with even greater certainty than we obtain from the Puranic dates; the one element of uncertainty being that the new era does not seem to be dated either from the accession of the king or from any great event, but four cycles of sixty years, or 240 years from the Saka era it was intended to supersede.[675]

However this may be settled, it cannot disturb either the initial or the final dates of this dynasty, nor affect to a greater extent than say ten or twelve years the period of 751, which extended from the accession of Chandragupta to the final overthrow of the Andras in or about A.D. 426.

This being so, it is evident that these four dynasties form the backbone of our mediæval chronology of India to which all minor events must be fitted, and fortunately most of them do so without any difficulty. It was the great period of Buddhist supremacy in India. There were, it is true, Buddhists in India before Asoka, but they were then only a sect, and Buddhism was a religion for two centuries after the fall of the Andras. It was then, however, a struggling faction. The modern Hindu religion was gradually raising its head under the Gupta and Ujjain princes, and in the 8th century it superseded Buddhism in most parts of India.

A great part of the uncertainty that of late years has crept into the chronology of this period is owing to the neglect with which these dynasties have been treated by modern investigators. This has arisen principally from the extreme rarity of their coins, while it has been principally from numismatic researches that progress has been made in the elucidation of many dark passages of Indian history. Coinage was, however, a most distinctly foreign importation into India. The Bactrian Greeks were the coiners par excellence, and it is through their coins, and those only, that complete lists of their kings down to 130 B.C. have been compiled. It is only from their coins also that we know the names of the barbarian kings who succeeded them, or those of the Sah kings, who appear next in our list. But the four dynasties from Chandragupta to Chandrasri were of native kings, who had only indirectly, if at all, come in contact with the Greeks, and had never learnt the art of coining, or, at least, used it to a sufficient extent to enable us to identify their names or succession from their coins. Their caves, and the inscriptions with which they covered their walls, are fast supplying the information their coins, if they had existed, would have afforded; but the investigation has not been taken up by those who have the ear of the public to the same extent as the numismatists. Enough, however, has been done to show that the materials exist for establishing the history of these dynasties on a sure basis; and when this is done from inscriptions combined with architecture, the results are more satisfactory than when dependent on numismatic evidence alone.

Sah Kings of Saurastra.

Coin Dates.A.D.

Nahapana79—

Ushavadata——

Swami Chastana——

Jaya Dama——

Jiva Dama——

Rudra Daman72151

Rudra Sinha102181

Rudra Sah104183

Sri Sah——

Sangha Daman——

Daman Sah144223

Yasa Daman——

Damajata Sri——

Vira Daman——

Isvara Datta——

Vijaya Sah170249

Damajata Sri——

Rudra Sah197276

Visva Sinha——

Atri Daman——

Visva Sah200279

22. Rudra Sinha270—

Asa Daman271280

Swami Rudra Sah292 371[676]

Swami Rudra Sah II.— —

The evidence on which the dates in the above list are founded is in curious contrast with that on which those of the previous dynasties rest. It is almost wholly numismatic. The founder of the dynasty, Nahapana, describes himself as the viceroy or satrap of King Kshaharata,[677] certainly a foreigner, who conquered the country and held it in subjection for nearly 300 years.

The one point that interests us here is to ascertain from what era the dates on the coins are to be calculated. When I previously wrote on the subject,[678] I felt inclined to adopt a suggestion that Nahapana was the founder of the era known afterwards as that of Vicramaditya, B.C. 56. I did this principally because I felt certain that no king of that name reigned in the first century B.C., and I could discover no event occurring about that time so important as to deserve to be commemorated by an era.

On the other hand, a foreign conquest and the foundation of a new dynasty were just such events as would be so celebrated; and, pending further evidence, this assumption seemed to account for what was otherwise inexplicable in the foundation of this era. Since then, however, a more careful study of Rudra Daman’s Bridge inscription,[679] and the architectural evidence detailed in the preceding pages, have convinced me that such a theory was untenable. The Bridge inscription is dated in the year 72, from the same era from which all the coins of these kings are dated. In it he boasts “that, after twice conquering the Sata Karni, Lord of Dakshinapatha, he did not completely destroy him on account of their near connexion, and thus obtained glory.” And he boasts of conquering, among other countries, Anupa, Saurastra, Asva Kutcha, Kukura, Aparanta, &c.[680]

A little further on in our history, Gautamiputra, in whose reign the era was established which was afterwards adopted by the Guptas and Ballabhis, boasts, in an inscription in a cave at Nassick, that he had conquered, among others, all the countries above enumerated, and as having re-established the glory of the Satavahana dynasty, and destroyed the race of Khagarata.[681] All this reveals a state of matters that will not accord with the Vicramaditya era, but does perfectly agree with that of Salivahana.

Assuming that the Sata Karni dynasty is correctly represented in the Puranas, as enumerated above, Rudra Dama would, on the assumption that the dates were Samvat, have been reigning A.D. 16 (72-56), immediately after the establishment of the dynasty, and before the long and prosperous reign of Sata Karni II., which could hardly have taken place had his family been smitten so early in their career. But if we assume that it was A.D. 151 (79+72), it would coincide with the reign of the third king of that name, and at a time when, so far as we can judge from the length of the reigns, and the careless way they are enumerated in the Puranas, the fortunes of the family were considerably depressed; and it is little more than a century and a half after this time that Gautamiputra restored the fortunes of his family. Had 300 years elapsed between these two events, the family could hardly ever have attained the position it did.

Another point of more importance is, that the dates on the Sah coins—from whatever era calculated—extend only to 270-271, or doubtfully to 292.[682] If these are calculated from the Vicramaditya Samvat, they must have ceased to reign in A.D. 214, or at the latest A.D. 236, and there would have been no Khagaratas for Gautamiputra to humble after A.D. 312. On the other hand, if calculated from A.D. 79, their final extinction would have been in A.D. 349, or at latest A.D. 371. So that, though humbled by Gautamiputra, they overlap the Gupta era to some extent, which it seems is almost indispensable to account for the mode in which the Sah coins overlap and run into those of the Gupta series, on which Mr. Thomas so strongly and, it appears to me, so correctly insists.[683]

One of two things seems necessary: either that the Guptas shall be carried back so as to overlap the Sahs, dating either from the Vicramadityan or Selucidan eras, or that the Sahs be brought down so as to overlap them, if dating from the era bearing their name. Mr. Thomas and General Cunningham prefer the former hypothesis. For the reasons just stated, and others to be given further on, I feel convinced that the latter hypothesis is the only one that is in accordance with the facts of the case as we now know them.

This substitution of the Saka era for the Samvat brings what we know of the history, with what we learn from the inscriptions, and gather from the coins, so completely into accordance, that I can hardly doubt now that it is the correct view of the matter, and certainly more in accordance with the facts than that I previously adopted.

Guptas.

Although the Puranas conduct us in so reasonable and satisfactory a manner to the end of the Andrabritya dynasty, their guidance forsakes us there. After that, all the subsequent contemporary dynasties were thrown into hotch-pot—to use a legal expression—and a system of fraud and falsification commenced which is the reproach of Indian history. It is not, however, difficult to see the causes of this new and monstrous invention. For six centuries and a half Buddhism had reigned supreme in India, and the system of the Brahmans, though probably never extinct, was at least subdued and subordinate. With the decline of the Andras this state of affairs was altered. The Guptas, who immediately succeeded them, are shown, both by their coins and inscriptions, to have been followers of Vishnu and Siva,[684] and their buildings at Erun tell the same story.[685]

Though the Guptas may have inaugurated the new system, it was by the great Vicramaditya of Ujjain that it was established, A.D. 515-550. He did for the new religion what Asoka had done for Buddhism some seven and a half centuries before his time. He made a state religion in India, and established it so firmly that little more than a century after his death it seems to have superseded Buddhism altogether. It is in his reign, apparently, that the Puranic system was invented—not that the Puranas were written or all the falsifications of history invented in his day, but a commencement was then made, and by the 10th or 11th century of our era it was brought to the complete perfection of fraud in which it is now found.

One of the first necessities of the new system was to throw back the period when India was Buddhist, and to place a gulf between them and their successors. To effect this, the Puranas enumerate the following:—“After these” (the Andrabrityas) “various races will reign—seven Abhiras, ten Gardabhilas, sixteen Sakas, eight Yavanas, fourteen Tusharas, thirteen Mandas, eleven Maunas or Hunas[686]—seventy-nine princes will be sovereigns of the earth for 1399 years. Then eleven Pauras will be kings for 300 years; when they are destroyed, Kailakila Yavanas will be kings, the chiefs of whom will be Vindhya Sacti, &c.—106 years.” After various others: “The nine Nagas will reign in Padmavati, Kantipura, and Mathura; and the Guptas of Magadha along the Ganges to Pryaga.”[687] Although we cannot identify all these dynasties with certainty, we know, at all events, that, instead of succeeding one another during more than 2000 years, they were all more or less contemporary—certainly that none were earlier than the Gupta era (A.D. 319)—and that none of them survived Vicramaditya (A.D. 550). The Sakas and Maunas, or Hunas, may be those destroyed by him, but of this hereafter. The Vindhya Sactis were contemporary with the Guptas, and the Gardabhilas are somehow connected with Bahram Gaur the Sassanian; and others we recognise dimly, but they are not sufficiently important to be discussed here.

Of all these the most important are the Guptas, and fortunately their date is one of the most clearly established facts in mediæval Indian chronology.[688]

Dynasty. Coins and Dates on Inscriptions. A.D.

Sri or Raja Gupta — —

Maharaja Ghatotkacha — —

M. R. adhiraja Chandra Gupta I. 82, 93+319 = 401, 412. Caves 16 to 20 Ajunta. Buildings at Erun.

” Samudra ” — —

” Chandra Gupta II. — —

” Kumara ” 124+ ” = 443

” Skanda ” 130, 137, 141, 146+ ” = 449, 456, 460, 465

Mahendra a minor — —

Maharaja Sri Hastina 163+ ” = 482

Raja Buddha 165+ ” = 484

M. R. adhiraja Toramana 182+ ” = 501

The three last named can hardly be considered as belonging to the great dynasty, though they date from the same era, and the two first were comparatively insignificant characters. It was only Chandra Gupta I., A.D. 401, who assumed the title of Maharaja adhiraja, and founded the greatness of his race on the ruins of that of the Andrabrityas.

In addition to the above chronology, compiled from coins and dated inscriptions, Major Watson has recently supplied a most important item to their history from written records existing in Gujerat.

From this we learn that Chandra Gupta II. reigned twenty-three years after the conquest of Saurastra by his son; that Kumara Pal Gupta reigned twenty years; and that Skanda Gupta succeeded him, but lost Saurastra by the rebellion of his Senapati Bhatarka, the founder of the Ballabhi family. Two years after this event Skanda Gupta died, and, as we are informed, “at this time the Gupta race were dethroned by foreign invaders.”[689]

The era from which these dates are taken never appeared to me doubtful; and this confirms more and more the conviction that it was from the era that bears their name, A.D. 319. It could not be from the Saka era, as has generally been assumed, from the fact that Albiruni asserts that the era that bears their name, was “apparently” that of their destruction,[690] because in that case Skanda Gupta must have lived and reigned for ninety-four years in addition to the sixteen we already know, from inscriptions, he occupied the throne. A reign of 110 years seems impossible; and, if it is not so, it seems certain, for the reasons stated in my previous paper, that the Gupta era, 319, is that from which their coins and inscriptions are dated.

Besides this, there is an inscription on the rock at Junaghar, engraved by the same Skanda, the last of the great Guptas. This was not translated by Prinsep, though a copy of it was in his hands before his last illness.[691] Had he lived to translate it, my impression is that the controversy as to the age of the Guptas never would have arisen—its evidence seems so absolute. Be this as it may, it never appeared, so far as I know, in a complete form and translated, till this was accomplished by the late Bhau Daji in the sixth volume of the Bombay Journal of 1862. In it we have three dates—the Sadarsana lake is said to have burst its banks in 130, to have been repaired in 137, and a temple to Vishnu built in 138, and twice it is repeated “counting from the era of the Guptas” (Guptasya Kala). The stone is worn where the middle date occurs, but there is just space enough for these words. The same king, on the Kuhaon pillar, dates his inscription in 141,[692] but without mentioning the era, which seems to have been so usual in Bengal as not to require being specified.

Besides this, the 146[693] years from 319, which we know from their dated inscriptions that they reigned, is just the interval that is required to fill up the gap between the Ballabhis and their era which they adopted on usurping the inheritance of the Guptas, two years before Skanda Gupta’s death.[694]

One other point of considerable importance to Indian history which arises from the fixation of this date (A.D. 465-70) for the destruction of the Guptas is, that it was almost certainly the White Huns who were the “foreign invaders” that struck the blow that stopped their career. At least, we learn from Cosmas Indicopleustes, writing seventy years after this time, that the Huns were a powerful nation in the north of India in his day, and we may infer, from what he says of them, had been settled there some time.[695]

On the Bhitari Lât, Bhau Daji reads—somewhat doubtfully, it must be confessed—the fact that Skanda Gupta had fought, apparently with success, against the Hunas.[696] But the great point is that it was just about this time that the White Huns broke loose and extended their incursions east and west, so that there is not only no improbability of their being the “foreign invaders” alluded to, but every likelihood they were so. No one, indeed, can, I believe, with the knowledge we now possess, read De Guignes’ chapter on the White Huns,[697] without perceiving that it contains the key to the solution of many mysterious passages in Indian history. It is true India is not mentioned there; but from the time of Bahram Gaur in 420, till the defeat of Feroze in 475, the Persians were waging an internecine war with these Huns, and nothing can be more likely than that the varying fortunes of that struggle should force them to seek the alliance of the then powerful Guptas, to assist them against their common foe.

Precisely the same impression is conveyed by what is said by Ferishta and the Persian historians[698] of the history of that time. Nothing can now, however, be more easily intelligible than the visit of Bahram Gaur to India when first attacked by the White Huns. His marriage with an Indian (? Gupta) princess of Canouge; the tribute or assistance claimed by Feroze and his successors on the Persian throne, are all easily explicable, on the assumption that the two nations were at that time engaged in a struggle against a common enemy. This, too, explains the mention of the Shah in Shahi on Samudra Gupta’s Allahabad inscription.[699] Hence, too, the decided Persian influence on the gold coinage of the Canouge Guptas,[700] and the innumerable Sassanian coins of that period found in all parts of the north of India.[701] In all this the Sassanians seem inseparably mixed with the Guptas. The Persians, however, came eventually victorious out of the war. The great Guptas were struck down at some date between 465-70, or very shortly afterwards. The struggle, however, was apparently continued for some time longer by a subordinate branch of their successors; inasmuch as we learn from an inscription found at Aphsar in Behar,[702] that the fourth of that dynasty, Damodara Gupta, “successfully encountered, at the battle of Maushari, the fierce army of the Western Huns.” This event may have stopped the career of the Huns in India, in which case it could not well have taken place before the year 535, when Cosmas Indicopleustes is supposed to have written his ‘Topographia Christiana;’ but it is by no means clear that he was not describing events that took place when he was himself in India some time previously. But be this as it may, it brings us to the time when the battles of Korûr—of which more hereafter—and Maushari freed India from the Sakas and Hunas, who had long held her in hated subjection. As I shall presently attempt to show, it appears to me hardly doubtful that these two battles were fought between 524 and 544; and they thus fix one of the most important epochs in mediæval Indian history. Indeed, so near each other are these two events in date, that I sometimes feel almost inclined to fancy they may be only different names for the same battle. At all events, they almost certainly represent parts of the same campaign which freed India in that age from the Yavanas; and that it was to commemorate the glories of these struggles that the Vicramaditya Samvat was instituted. This expulsion of the Yavanas was, too, the first serious blow that was struck at Buddhist supremacy, and from the effects of which it never afterwards completely recovered.

Ballabhi Dynasty.

Dates on Inscriptions.A.D.

Bhatarka Senapati—465 or 470

Dharasena ”——

Dronasinha——

Dhruvasena Maharaja—} Cotem. Vicramaditya

Dharapatta—} Dynasty

Grihasena—} of Ujjain,

Sridhara Sena—} 470 to 550.

Siladitya I.——

Charagriha I.——

Sridhara Sena II.272591

Dhruvasena II.—Cotem. Hiouen Thsang

Sridharasena III.——

Siladitya II.356675

Charagriha II.——

Siladitya III.——

Siladitya Musalli400718

However mistaken Albiruni may be in his dates, there is little doubt that he is quite correct in his statement to the effect that “L’ère de Ballabha est postérieure à celle de Saca de 241 ans. Apparemment Ballabha suivit immédiatement les Gouptas, car l’ère des Gouptas commence aussi 241 de l’ère de Saca.”[703] This we learn also, with the particulars how it happened, from Colonel Watson’s account of the transaction; while Colonel Tod’s celebrated Puttun Somnath inscription makes it also certain that the Ballabhi era commenced A.D. 319.[704] This being so, it seems difficult to understand why the era should have been called that of Ballabhi as well as that of the Guptas, unless it were that it was adopted by the first-named dynasty, and that they dated from it their acts and inscriptions, which are extremely numerous. There may be reasons why this should be otherwise; but, though the point has been generally and fiercely contested by eminent Indian chronologists, I fail to appreciate the arguments brought forward in favour of either the Vicramaditya or Saka eras,[705] and look upon their own era (A.D. 319) as certainly the one from which all the Gupta inscriptions are dated.

My impression is, that this would never have been considered doubtful but for an incautious statement by Colonel Tod that Ballabhi was destroyed by the Parthians A.D. 524,[706] in the reign of a Siladitya, its last king. Its inhabitants were, according to this account, slaughtered with the usual romantic incidents; but after a while a remnant established themselves in Sidhapore, and finally built a new capital, which they called Anhilwarra.

The utter falsity of the information so supplied to Colonel Tod is proved by the fact that when Ballabhi was visited by Hiouen Thsang, 115 years after its reputed destruction, he found it not only standing, and neither Sidhapore nor Anhilwarra thought of, but the old capital still remaining one of the richest and most prosperous cities of India, and its king one of the three greatest kings of northern India. The king’s name was Dhruvapaton, and he was a nephew or grand-nephew of Siladitya of Malwa, and the son-in-law of Siladitya, the reigning king of Canouge.[707] Lastly, we have the dates in copper-plates of a Dhruvasena, one in 310+319=629; the other 322+ 319, or 641,[708] the very year that Hiouen Thsang met him at Allahabad, if we assume them dated from the Ballabhi Samvat.

It would be satisfactory if we could determine the date of the destruction of Ballabhi with precision, as it is one of these events that mark an epoch in Indian history. It was one of the concluding acts of the old drama that closed the mediæval period of Indian history, and ushered in the dark ages which lasted more than two centuries from that time.

The materials for this hardly exist at present, though it may be approximated. We have numerous inscriptions of this dynasty, dated 310, 326, 338, 348, &c.,[709] or A.D. 629, 645, 657, 667 respectively, if the figures are all correctly read, which is not quite clear; and lastly, Mr. Burgess reports one dated 400, or A.D. 719, belonging to the last Siladitya, and consequently approaching very nearly to the event. Two accounts are current as to the mode in which the destruction was effected: one, that it was caused by an earthquake, which may have happened at any time;[710] the other (by Tod), that the city was destroyed by the Parthians. If it was by a foreign foe, it could only have been by the Mahomedans. They were on the Indus in strength in 22 Hegira,[711] or A.D. 644, or before Hiouen Thsang had left India, and no foreigner could have crossed the Indus or attacked Ballabhi after that time, or for some years before it, without being noticed by Mahomedan historians. They remained there in strength till after Mahomed Kasim, 711-715,[712] and it was to him that I was at one time inclined to ascribe the destruction. If, however, Mr. Burgess’s date is correct, his death was three years too early. But I do not think it at all improbable that Ballabhi is one of the cities—Barus and Uzain—said to be plundered by Junaid in A.D. 725 or 726.[713] Barus looks very like Baroach, and Uzain is almost certainly Ujjain—but whether Maliba is Ballabhi, I must leave others to determine.

All the accounts agree that Anhilwarra Puttun was founded Samvat 802, or A.D. 746,[714] which may be correct within a year or two; but from the accounts we have, it is clear that an interval of from twenty to thirty years must have elapsed between the two events, during which the inhabitants of the destroyed city sought refuge at Punchâsur and Sidhapore before they undertook the building of their new capital. If, therefore, we assume 725 as the date of the destruction of Ballabhi, we shall probably not err more than a year or two either way.

The earliest date of this family yet discovered is one on a copperplate of Dharasena II., which has been read by Professor Bhandarkar as 272,[715] or, according to the views here adopted, 591. It is hardly probable that any much earlier will be found; for it must be borne in mind that though the Ballabhis wrested the sovereignty of Gujerat from the Guptas two years before Skanda’s death (ante, p. 724), neither the first nor second of the race ventured to assume even the modest title of Raja; they were content to remain Senâpatis, or Generals. The third calls himself Maharaja; but their greatness only culminated in or about A.D. 650, when one of them, Sri Dharasena III., became Maharaja Adhiraja—King of kings or Emperor of Northern India.[716] The reason of this, as we shall presently see, was that the family that really succeeded the Guptas in the place of supreme authority in India was that of Ujjain, the second or third monarch of this race being the celebrated Vicramaditya, whose date, for reasons to be given hereafter, seems almost certainly to have been from 515 to 550. Be this as it may, as we shall presently see, it seems quite certain that a great Brahmanical revival took place in the beginning of the 6th century, which quite overshadowed all the Buddhist dynasties in northern India. For a while these were again eclipsed by a reflex wave of Buddhism, which for a century—A.D. 550-650—again illumined India. It was a last expiring effort, however, and after the last-named date it was only a struggle for existence on the part of the Buddhists, and in another century they are known no longer in those central countries where they had so long reigned supreme.

Chalukya Dynasties.

Western Branch. Capital Kalyan. Eastern Branch. Capital Rajmehendri.

1. Jaya Sinha Vijayaditya. 2. Raja Sinha, Rana Raga, Vishnu Vardhana. 3. Vijayaditya II. 4. Pulakesi, A.D. 489? 5. Kirtti Varma I. 6. Mangalisa. 7. Satyasraya began to reign 609. 8. Amara. 9. Aditya. 10. Vikramadiya I. 11. Vinayaditya, Yuddha Malla, began to reign A.D. 680. 12. Vijayaditya III. began to reign A.D. 695. 13. Vikramaditya II. began to reign A.D. 733. 14. Kirtti Varma II. 15. Kirtti Varma III., cousin of the last, A.D. 799. 16. Tailapa. 17. Bhima Raja. 18. Ayya, or Kirtti Varma IV. 19. Vijayaditya IV. 20. Taila Bhupa II. or Vikramaditya III., in A.D. 973 restored the monarchy which had been for some time usurped by the Ratta Kula. He died A.D. 997. 21. Satyasraya II. Irivi Bhujanga Deva, A.D. 997. 22. Vikramaditya V. began to reign about A.D. 1008 (?) 23. Jaya Sinha Deva, Jagadeka Malla, about A.D. 1018 (?) 24. Someswara Deva I., Trailokya Malla Ahawa Malla, about A.D. 1040. 25. Someswara Deva II., Bhuneka Malla A.D. 1099, expelled by his brother. 26. Vikramaditya VI., Kali Vikrama, Tribhuvana Malla, in A.D. 1076. 27. Someswara Deva III., Bhuloka Malla, A.D. 1127. 28. Jagadeka Malla, A.D. 1138. 29. Tailapa Deva III., Trailokya Malla, A.D. 1150. 30. Someswara Deva IV., Tribhuvana Malla, A.D. 1182. Dethroned by Bijjala Deva of the Kalabhuriya line. 1. Vishnu Vardhana II., or Kubja Vishnu Vardhana, conquered Vengi A.D. 605. 2. Jaya Sinha I. 3. Indra Raja, his brother. 4. Vishnu Vardhana III. 5. Manga Yuva Raja. 6. Jaya Sinha III. } 7. Kokkili. } brothers. 8. Vishnu Vardhana IV. } 9. Vijayaditya I. 10. Vishnu Vardhana V. 11. Narendra Mriga Raja. 12. Vishnu Vardhana VI., or Kali Vishnu Vardhana. 13. Vijayaditya II., or Guna Gunanka Vijayaditya, conquered Kalinga. 14. Chalukya Bhima I., his brother. 15. Vijayaditya III., or Kollabhiganda Vijaya. 16. Amma Raja. 17. Vijayaditya IV., or Kaudagachita Vijaya. 18. Talapa. Usurper. 19. Vikramaditya V., the son of a brother of Amma Raja I. 20. Yuddha Malla. 21. Raja Bhima II. 22. Amma Raja II. 23. Dhanarnava. Interregnum of twenty-seven years. 24. Kirtti Varma, son of Dhanarnava. 25. Vimaladitya, his brother. 26. Raja Raja Narendra. 27. Rajendra Chola. 28. Vikrama Deva Kulottunga Chola. 29. Raja Raja Chola, viceroy for one year. 30. Vira Deva Kulottunga Chola, or Saptama Vishnu Vardhana. Viceroy from A.D. 1079 to 1135.

After this the southern part of these dominions fell under the sway of the Hoisala Bellalas, whose rise in the Mysore dates from A.D. 984; their destruction by the Mahomedans in 1310. After Vira Deva Kulottunga Chola the country fell under the sway of the Kakatya dynasty of Worangul, of whom Pratapa Rudra was the chief (A.D. 1162). The latest of their inscriptions is dated A.D. 1336.

The two lists in the preceding page are among the most interesting and most important of those we possess, inasmuch as they contain the backbone of all we know regarding the Chalukyas, and are, in fact, what justify us, historically, in erecting their style into a separate division, different from the other forms of architecture known in India.

What we know of these dynasties is almost wholly due to the intelligent zeal of Sir Walter Elliot, who, during his residence in India, made a collection of 595 inscriptions from various parts of the Dekhan. From these he abstracted the lists he first published in the fourth volume of the Royal Asiatic Society; but afterwards much more in detail in the ‘Madras Journal,’ in 1858, from which these lists are copied verbatim.[717] Some of the inscriptions were translated and published with those papers, and others by Major—now General—- Le Grand Jacob, in the Bombay Journal (vol. iii. p. 206, et seqq.), and other notices of them are found among Mr. Wathen’s inscriptions in various volumes of the ‘Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society.’ But we shall not know more than a fraction of what we ought to, and might know, till Sir Walter Elliot’s inscriptions are translated and published.[718] When this is done, and the architecture of the Nizam’s territory explored, the Chalukyan style will take its place worthily between the Dravidian and Indo-Aryan styles, and will, if I mistake not, be found equal to either, both in importance and in artistic merit.

Fortunately there is no mistake or doubt about the era from which the Chalukyan inscriptions are dated: the Ballabhi branch succeeding to the possessions of the Guptas in Gujerat, naturally adopted their era, but the southern branch being entirely detached from any such association, adopted the Saka era (A.D. 79), which was then, so far as is known, the only other era at that time in use in India. What is equally important is, that there seems only one doubtful date among all those quoted in the lists—that of 411 Saka (A.D. 490), attached to the name of Pulakesi I. In his first paper,[719] Sir Walter Elliot thought it so improbable, that he rejected it altogether; and Professor Eggeling tells me he has strong reasons for suspecting the copperplate on which it is found to be a forgery.

As an initial date it does not appear impossible, if my views are correct, though certainly improbable. If Bhatarka Senapati wrested Gujerat from Skanda Gupta two years before his death, or in 463 or 468, it is by no means impossible that the fourth from him may have been reigning in A.D. 490, but the difficulty is the other way. There seems no doubt, from Mr. Burgess’s Badami inscriptions,[720] that Mangalisa succeeded his brother Kirtti Varma in 567, and it does seem impossible that he should have been the son of one who was reigning in 490, especially if he continued to reign till 609. If Mangalisa was the son of Pulakesi, which there seems no reason for doubting, it is evident that the central figure of his date must be altered to a higher number; but to what extent we shall not know till it is ascertained whether Vijaya was the son or grandson of Bhatarka Senapati. In the meanwhile, however, if we, as an hypothesis, add fifty years to the date of 411, and make it 461, or A.D. 540, it will allow Pulakesi a reign of twenty-seven years before the accession of Mangalisa in 567, which will bring the whole within the limits of probability, and seems perfectly consistent with the context.

With the seventh king we tread on surer ground. He was the king who, when bearing his grandfather’s name, Pulakesi, Hiouen Thsang visited in 640,[721] and was, as his inscriptions tell us,[722] the hero of those wars with Harsha Verddhana, or Siladitya of Malwa, which Ma-twan-lin so graphically describes as occurring in 618 to 627. From that time the dynasty seems to have flourished till the death of Vicramaditya II. He ascended the throne 733, and died about 750, or twenty-five years more or less after the destruction of the Ballabhi branch. After this, as Sir Walter Elliot expresses it, “the power of the Chalukyas was alienated for a time, or had suffered a partial obscuration, till the time of Teila, who is described as restoring the monarchy in 973.”[723] After this it enjoyed two centuries of prosperity, till it was finally extinguished—their northern possessions passing to the Kalabhuryas—their southern to the Hoisala Bellalas of Dwarasamudra or Hullabîd.

The history of the younger branch of this family will be more interesting to some future historian of Indian architecture than it is to us at the present day. Their possessions lay principally below the Eastern Ghâts, on the shores of the Bay of Bengal, in what are generally known as the three Circars, extending from Gangam—in their day I believe—to Mahavellipuram; but of their architecture we know nothing. No traveller educated in architectural matters has yet visited that country; and though it sounds like a paradox to say so, what we do know of it we learn from buildings not erected by them, and in a country they never seem to have possessed. It is only from the buildings of Pratapa Rudra at Worangul and elsewhere above the Ghâts that we can appreciate the perfection to which they had brought their style.

From the meagre extracts from the inscriptions of Pulakesi I., which Sir Walter Elliot gives in his first essay on this subject,[724] there seems little doubt that he was the king who, 100 years before Hiouen Thsang’s time, harried the monastery at Amravati,[725] and abolished Buddhism in those parts. It seems also more than probable, as he conquered the Chola, and burnt Conjeveram, that he also expelled the Pallavas, and commenced the works at Mahavellipur. If the rock-cut monastery mentioned by Fa Hian and Hiouen Thsang, and so often referred to above, existed at all, it was in his territories, and may still exist in the Nizam’s. If it did so, nothing seems more probable than that he should seek to mark the boundary of his southern conquest by similar works. Knowing all this, we see also why there should be so much similarity between Mangalisa’s cave at Badami, and the nearly contemporary caves at Mahavellipur. We know, too, that there is a vast tract of country in Central India, extending east and west from shore to shore, and north and south from Sadras to Ellora, which is covered with buildings of great beauty and interest, but which nobody cares to explore. We know also that there exists in the Asiatic Society’s rooms a volume which contains their history, and that of the dynasties who built them, but which nobody cares to read. Knowing how easily all this could be remedied, it is tantalising to close this history with so meagre a sketch of the Chalukyan style as that contained in the preceding pages, but as the principles of the Indian Council seem fixed, its description must in all probability be relegated to a subsequent generation.

Ujjain and Canouge Dynasties.

Reign. Date.

Vasu Deva

Vicramaditya I. of Ujjain 25 470?

Sri Harsha 20 495?

Vicramaditya II. the Great 35 515

Siladitya I. of Malwa 30 550

Prabhukara 25 580

Raja Verddhana 5 605

Siladitya II. of Canouge 40 610

Died and troubles commenced — 648-650

Although the Ballabhis wrested the province of Gujerat from the failing hands of Skanda, the last of the Great Guptas, two years before his death, in or about 470, they remained long in a subordinate position. Their earliest inscription yet found dates only in 593, and their one Emperor or Raja Adhiraja, Sri Dharasena III., only ascended the throne after the Canouge dynasty were struck down in 648-50.

The interval between these two events we are now happily able to fill up with two of the most illustrious dynasties of India—the first including the reign of the great Vicramaditya of Ujjain, who is to the Hindus what Solomon is to the Jews, or Asoka to the Buddhists. The last-named religion, as mentioned above, was becoming effete about the middle of the 5th century, and the Guptas were introducing the modern Brahmanical faith in its place. What, however, they were only feebly attempting, the Ujjain dynasty accomplished with a brilliancy that has eclipsed everything that happened before or since in India, in the eyes of the Hindus at least. All that is great in science, or in poetry, or the arts, shone forth around his wonderful throne—the exact counterpart of Solomon’s—and all that subsequently took place in India bears the stamp of his greatness. It seems, however, to have been too bright to last. The four succeeding monarchs were Buddhists—of a singularly tolerant type it is true—but still certainly favourers of that religion. The last of them, Siladitya, was the king at whose court Hiouen Thsang sojourned in 636, and afterwards in 642, and where he witnessed the festival of the distribution of alms so often alluded to above. Hiouen Thsang gives the date of his death categorically, 650, and adds, though in the form of a prophecy, that after that, “l’Inde entière sera en proie à des troubles affreux—et des hommes pervers se feront une guerre acharnée.”[726] This is more than confirmed by Ma-twan-lin, but with an apparent discrepancy of date, to the extent, it may be, of two years.[727] It was in fact the commencement of those troubles which extinguished Buddhism, then in Central India, and a century later abolished it wholly, except in some remote corners of the land.

Whether he died in 648 or 650, there is no doubt, from the numerous incidents our Chinese traveller recounts, that this Siladitya ascended the throne 610, one year after his great rival, Pulakesi II., of Kalyan, who, as pointed out above, began to reign in 609, and fought with him with varying success in 618-627.

For the chronology of the four preceding reigns we have nothing but the assertion of Hiouen Thsang, that “suivant la tradition”[728]—and in another place, “on lit dans l’histoire de ce royaume,[729] que le trône était occupé il y a soixante ans par un roi nommé Siladitya;” and further, that he reigned fifty years, which would carry us back to 530 for the accession of this king, supposing the passage was written in 640.

Notwithstanding the confidence with which it is stated, I have no hesitation in rejecting as excessive 110 for the length of the reign of three kings, two of whom were brothers. I do so with the more confidence, as our author, though so exact a geographer, and recorder of things he saw, is in no one instance to be depended upon for his dates. He resided, for instance, for five years at Nalanda, and must have had access to its records, yet he tells us that the convent existed for 700 years,[730] and then gives the names of the five kings by whom the various parts were built from that time to his day, but sees no absurdity in representing these in all instances as the son of the one next named previously. Each, according to his account, must have reigned more than 100 years! To what extent this date of the accession of Siladitya must be curtailed can only be ascertained from subsequent discoveries or investigations. For the present it will suffice to abridge it by twenty years, which will bring it in accord with all that we at present know from other sources.[731]

When we turn to the other end of our list, we have certainly three—probably four kings—for whom we must find room in eighty years and one of the three, the great Vicramaditya, must have had a long reign. Professor Wilson ascribes to him thirty-five years,[732] and I know of no authority better than his, especially for the history or chronology of this period. The Hindus themselves, with their usual carelessness, have forgotten to record it; and though there are certain dates in the Puranas and elsewhere, there are no means of testing their accuracy; for his accession, however, there are one or two that are worth recording. Thus, Wilford reports that this Vicramaditya ascended the throne of Malwa 441,[733] reckoning from the first of Salivahana, or, 520; or, according to the Agni Purana, 437 years after the same epoch, or 516,[734] which, I believe, may be the exact year; and there are several other dates which might be used to confirm this assumption, but there are no means of testing the genuineness.

Assuming this for the present, it leaves only forty-five years for the two or three preceding reigns; and it seems hardly sufficient for the purpose, for, as we shall presently see from the ‘Raja Tarangini,’ there were nine descents between Pratapaditya, the friend of the first Vicramaditya, and Matrigupta, the protégé of the second. Of course there may be considerable overlapping among the first and last of these nine kings, but it seems impossible to compress the whole within a shorter period than has been allowed.

However the small discrepancies of this dynasty may hereafter be adjusted, it is satisfactory to know that there is probably no date that will admit of a greater correction than say ten years, if so much, and the age of the last king, Hiouen Thsang’s friend, enables us to feel perfectly certain as to the dates of his son-in-law, Dhruvasena, of Ballabhi, of Sasanka, of Pundra Verddhana, of Kumara, of Kamarupa, and of Pulakesi II. of Kalyan. We have thus at least one fixed point in our mediæval history which is quite certain, and from which we can calculate backwards and forwards without difficulty, and is also an interesting one, as its final date, 650, is the beginning of the end which was consummated, as we shall see in the next section, by Laladitya just one century later.

Kashmir.

Asoka, 276 to 240 B.C. Jaloka. Damodara. Hushka — Tartar Princes established Buddhism. Jushka — Tartar Princes established Buddhism. Kanishka — Tartar Princes established Buddhism. Abhimanu, 79 A.D.? Gonardya Dynasty. Gonarda. Naga worship restored. Vibhishana. Indrajita. Ravana. Vibhishana. Nara. Siddha. Utpalaksha. Hiranyaksha. Hiranyakula. Vasukulo. Mihirakula, invaded Ceylon 250? Vaka. Kshitinanda. Vasunanda. Nara. Aksha. Gopaditya, 330? Gokarna. Narendraditya. Yudhishthira. Aditya Dynasty. Pratapaditya, kinsman of Vicramaditya I., 390. Jalaukas. Tunjina. Vijaya. Jayendra. Arya Raja. Gonardya Line restored. Meghavahana invaded Ceylon, 472. Pravarasena I. Hiranya — Contemporaries of Vicramaditya. Toramana — Contemporaries of Vicramaditya. Matrigupta, viceroy under Vicramaditya II., 515. Pravarasena II., invaded Siladitya of Gujerat, 560. Yudhishthira II. Nandravat. Ranaditya. Vikramaditya. Baladitya. Naga or Karkota Dynasty. Durlabhaverddhana, 627. Pratapaditya, 663. Chandrapira, 713. Parapira, 721. Lalataditya, 725; died 761. Conquered Yasoverna of Kanouje, and overran India.

When the ‘Raja Tarangini’ is spoken of, in a real Indian history, it is only in the sense of the French proverb—“Parmi les aveugles les borgnes sont rois.” It may be the best, but it is a very indifferent specimen of its class. Some of the few events it narrates are interesting and important, but they lose much of their value from the chronology to which they are attached being wilfully and systematically falsified. Even they, however, may become more valuable than they now appear, when the work is better edited than it has been hitherto. The earliest and best account we have of it is that of Professor Wilson, in the fifteenth volume of the ‘Asiatic Researches.’ The translation, afterwards published by Troyer in French, is fuller, no doubt, but is made from a less perfect manuscript, and is far less critical. Dr. Geo. Bühler, who is now in the valley, is said to have collected several additional and more complete MSS., from which it is understood he is preparing a new edition of the work. When this is done, we may be able to use it more profitably; meanwhile, for chronological purposes, we can only try and find an initial and final date, and with one or two intermediate synchronisms, try to bring the whole into an intelligible sequence; but so hopelessly is the chronology confused by its author, that this at present can only be effected by the application of a system of averages, which is, and always must be, a most unsatisfactory mode of procedure.

Rejecting at once as worthless or hopelessly lost all those parts of the history before the third century B.C., the first name we come to is the familiar one of Asoka, but here placed 1394 B.C., or more than 1000 years too early. It was in order to recover what was lost by this first error that Kalhana Pandit was forced to falsify all the dates up to the accession of the Karkota dynasty (A.D. 627), when they were known, even in his day, as certain within ten or twenty years. To effect this, he added ten, twenty, or thirty years here and there, as caprice dictated, till at last, losing patience, he gave one king, Ranaditya, in the 6th century, 300 years, instead of a possible thirty, and so made both ends meet! So history is written in the East!

After Asoka’s, the next name we meet in the lists with which we are familiar is that of Kanishka, and he plays so important a part in the history of Kashmir and Gandhara, that it would be of extreme interest if his date could be fixed with even approximate certainty. The ‘Raja Tarangini’ gives us no help in this matter. Generally, it has been assumed, principally on numismatic evidence, that he reigned either immediately before or immediately after the Christian Era;[735] but between him and Asoka our lists afford only two names. If, therefore, we are to apply to this history the same logic the very learned have attempted to apply to dates of the Nirvana in the ‘Mahawanso,’ we must either bring down Asoka to the first century B.C., or take back Kanishka to the third. As neither process is admissible, nothing remains to be done but to admit that the record is imperfect, and that it is only from external evidence that these dates can be fixed with anything like certainty.

Even admitting that Hushka and Jushka were the father and grandfather of Kanishka, which I am inclined to think may be the case, instead of his brothers, as is usually supposed, it will hardly help us much—four reigns of insignificant princes in 200 years is nearly equally inadmissible, and will not help us to fix Kanishka’s date from Asoka’s.

Recently the question has been very much narrowed by the discovery of a number of dated inscriptions at Muttra and elsewhere, in which the name of Kanishka and his successor Huvishka frequently occur—the latter always following, never preceding, the former name. It is this that makes me believe that the Hushka of the chronicle was the father of Kanishka, and nothing in that case is so probable as that his successor should take his grandfather’s name. It is almost impossible he should take his uncle’s, and as the name of Jushka appears nowhere in the inscriptions, it is natural to assume that he had passed away some time before they were written.

Be this as it may, the following table gives the inscriptions as they were found by General Cunningham:— [736]

In the Indo-Pali Alphabet.

Mathura.—Kanishka.Maharaja Kanishka. Samvat 9.

Huvishka.Maharaja Devaputra Huvishka. Samvat 39.

Maharaja Rajatiraja Devaputra Huvishka. Samvat 47.

Maharaja Huvishka. Samvat 48.

Vasudeva.Maharaja Rajatiraja Devaputra Vasu (deva). Samvat 44.

Maharaja Vasudeva. Samvat 83.

Maharaja Rajatiraja, Shahi, Vasudeva. Samvat 87.

Raja Vasudeva. Samvat 98.

In the Bactrian-Pali Alphabet.

Other localities.—Bahawalpur.Maharaja Rajadiraja Devaputra Kanishka.

Samvat 11, on the 28th of the (Greek) month of Dæsius.

Manikyala Tope.Maharaja Kaneshka, Gushana vasa samvardhaka.

“Increaser of the dominion of the Gushans” (Kushans). Samvat 18.

Wardak Vase. Maharaja rajatiraja Huveshka. Samvat 51, 15th of Artemisius.

In addition to these Bactrian-Pali inscriptions, we have a record of a king called Moga (Moa?), on a copper plate from Taxila, wherein the Satrap Liako Kusuluko (Kozola?) speaks of the 78th year of the “great king, the great Moga,” on the 5th of the month of Panæmus.

In addition to the inscriptions bearing these names, General Cunningham quotes a great number of others, with dates in the same Samvat era, extending from the year 5 to the year 281, but without any kings’ names in them. Their purport, however, and the form of the characters used, he considers sufficient to show that they form a connected series dating from one and the same era, whatever that may be.

Here, therefore, we have an era, which we may safely assume was established by Kanishka, either from the beginning of his reign, or to mark some important event in it, and which was used after his time for two or three centuries at least. The question is, was that the era since known as that of Vicramaditya, dating from 56 B.C., or was it the Saka era of King Salivahana, dating 135 years after that? General Cunningham unhesitatingly adopts the former; and though it is not a subject to dogmatise upon, I am much more inclined to adopt the latter.

In the first place, because I can find no trace of any such era being in use before the cataclysm in A.D. 750. Bhau Daji states that he knows no inscription dated in it before the 11th century.[737] General Cunningham says it was not used as early as 826,[738] but, in another place, quotes an inscription in 754.[739] I know of none earlier; and can trace no allusion to any king of the name of Vicramaditya in the first century B.C., and no events that could have given rise to an era in 56 B.C. No trace of it is found in Thibet, in Burmah, or Cambodia, and it never was heard of in Ceylon or Java. In all these countries the Saka era is known and was used, and it seems strange that an era established by so powerful a Buddhist king as Kanishka should have endured for two or three centuries, and then perished, without leaving a trace in any Buddhist country, and then, after the 8th century, been revived and adopted by the Brahmans for their chronology. It may be so; but it is so strange, it seems to require some strong evidence to make it credible, and none such has yet been advanced.

Hitherto Kanishka’s date has been assumed almost wholly on numismatic evidence, but it seems to me without sufficient grounds. In all the lists hitherto published,[740] there are at least a dozen barbarian kings, several of whom, from the extent of their mintages, must have had long and prosperous reigns. To compress the whole into the sixty-four years that elapsed for the destruction of the Bactrian kingdom (120 B.C.), and the era of Vicramaditya (56 B.C.), seems to me a very strong measure, for which I can see no justification. To allow each, on an average, sixteen years’ reign, seems very much more probable, especially as many more names may yet be discovered—and even without them this would take us on to the Saka era (A.D. 79) without difficulty. One of them, Gondophares, as we shall presently see, reigned for twenty-six years at least.

The Roman consular coins found by M. Court, above referred to (ante, p. 79), were so worn as to be hardly legible, and though, therefore, they limit the antiquity of his reign certainly to this side of 44 B.C., they by no means prove that he was so early. On the contrary, the coins being worn, seems to prove that they were old before being buried; the probability is that they may have belonged to some pilgrim, or missionary, in the West, and had become sacred relics before they were enshrined. If Kanishka had merely wanted foreign coins, Greek or Roman, he might have had hundreds of perfect ones at his command. There must have been some other and holier motive for their deposit than merely to mark a date.

Every one has heard of the legend of St. Thomas the Apostle visiting the court of Gondophares, and, some add, being beheaded by his order. It may be a legend, and not one word of truth in it, but those who invented it in the second or third century must at least have had the means of knowing what was the name of the king who was on the throne of Gandhara at, or immediately after, the time of the Crucifixion. This name appears frequently on coins and inscriptions, and, from the numismatic evidence, has been placed by all as anterior to Kanishka, and I fancy that no one looking at the coins can well arrive at any other conclusion. If this is so, and he was reigning at any time between A.D. 33 and 50, Kanishka certainly belongs to the latter half of that century.

Against this it must be stated that both General Cunningham and Professor Dowson read an inscription of this king found at Takht-i-Bahi, as dated in his twenty-sixth year—one says in the 103rd,[741] the other 100th,[742] of the same Samvat as the inscription of Kanishka—a date which would answer perfectly for the legend. If this is so, there is an end of the controversy; but the stone is so worn, and the writing so indistinct, that I cannot see in the photographs of it what these gentlemen find there, and others are equally unable to do so; and besides this, it is such a wrench to all numismatic evidence to place the coins of Gondophares 100 years after those of Kanishka, that we must have more evidence than this imperfect inscription affords before we adopt its epochal date. The regnal date seems quite clear.

There is one other point of view from which this question may be regarded, but which it is difficult to express clearly without going to a greater length than our limits will admit of. It is the date of the third convocation, as the northern Buddhists call it—the fourth, according to the southern. It was held certainly under Kanishka’s auspices, and I cannot help fancying about the year 70 or 80 A.D. At that time, at least, Buddhism seems to have made a great stride in Thibet, in Burmah, and the East generally. It was about this time that it was fabled to have been first carried to Java, and about the time when it was first introduced in China.[743] It looks so like one of those outbursts of missionary zeal that followed all the three previous convocations, that I cannot help fancying that this one was held in the latter half of the first century, and that the era of the king who held it was allowed in all Buddhist countries to supersede that of the Nirvana, which, as far as I can see, was the only one that had existed previously in India.

To argue this out fully would require more space than its importance for architectural purposes would justify; but its bearing on the age of the Gandhara monasteries is in some respects considerable. If they are as modern as I suspect them to be, the more modern date for Kanishka would accord better with the known facts than carrying his date up before the Christian era.

Proceeding onward, the next name we come to of any importance is Mahiracula, who is said to have invaded Ceylon. There is, however, no trace of any such invasion at that time, which, by the application of averages would be about 180 A.D., if Kanishka ruled before, and 250 if after, the Christian Era. His date would be interesting if it could be ascertained from his connexion with Baladitya, the king of Magadha, whose story Hiouen Thsang tells in such minute detail.[744]

The Aditya dynasty opens with a king who is said to have been a kinsman of Vicramaditya, and is evidently the grandfather of the great king of that name, who figures prominently in the next dynasty as the patron of Matrigupta. The story of the latter is told in great detail in the ‘Raja Tarangini,’ and is one of the most curious episodes in the history. He was sent to Kashmir four years before the death of Vicramaditya (550), and on hearing of his patron’s decease, resigned his viceroyalty, and retired to Benares, leaving the throne to his successor, Pravarasena.

In speaking of the dynasty of Malwa, only twenty or twenty-five years were allowed for the reign of Sri Harsha, and only eighty for the whole duration, from the fall of the Guptas, 470, to the death of the great Vicramaditya, 550, a period, it seems from the evidence of the ‘Raja Tarangini,’ it is impossible to contract. Pratapaditya, the kinsman of the first, was, we are told, the great-grandfather of Megavahana, the first king of the next dynasty, and then we have one more king before we reach Hiranya, who is said to have been contemporary with the second Vicramaditya. Of course there may have been considerable overlapping at both ends, and the lives of the Kashmiri kings may have been short; but as we have six intermediate kings in the one list between the two Vicramadityas, and only one in the other, it seems that the last could hardly have ascended the throne before 515, if so early.

One of the acts of Pravarasena was to invade Siladitya, the first Ballabhi king of that name ruling in Gujerat. We have not, it is true, any dated coins or inscriptions belonging to him, but we have of his next successor but one, Sri Dharasena II., 593 (ante, p. 730), so that any date between 550 and 570 would answer perfectly well for this war, and the fact of its being so is in itself almost sufficient to establish the correctness of the chronology we are now trying to explain.

Since I wrote last on the subject, a passage has been pointed out to me[745] in Rémusat’s ‘Nouveaux Mélanges Asiatiques’ (vol. i. p. 197), which enables us to fix the chronology of the Naga dynasty within a year or two for extreme deviation. It seems that the third king, Chandrapira, applied to the Chinese Emperor for assistance against the Arabs in 713, and that the Emperor conferred the title of King on him in or about 720. As he was on the throne only eight years and eight months, there is no room for deviation in this date, and it carries with it those of his predecessors and followers. It thus becomes clear that Durlabha I. was the king who was on the throne when Hiouen Thsang resided in the valley, 631-633, and also when he passed near it on his return home in 643, all which is perfectly consonant with what we find in his text; and it also fixes the date of Lalitaditya, one of the most important kings in the list, with almost absolute certainty, as 725-762.[746]

Without placing implicit reliance on all that is said in the ‘Raja Tarangini,’ with regard to the exploits of this king, or of his having overrun and conquered all India, from beyond the Himalayas to Cape Comorin, still a sufficient residuum of fact must remain to enable us to see that the troubles which had begun in 650, on the death of Siladitya of Canouge, had laid India prostrate at the feet of any daring adventurer.

From whatever side we approach it, we can hardly fail to perceive that a great revolution took place in India about the year 750. All the old dynasties are then swept away, and for 200 years we have nothing but darkness, and when light again dawns, about two centuries afterwards, the map is re-arranged, and new dynasties and new religions have taken the place of the old.

This reign, too, forms a most appropriate termination to the principal division of our architectural history. The coins of his rival, Yasoverman of Canouge, found in the great Tope at Manikyala, prove the completion of that great Buddhist monument, just 1000 years after the style had been inaugurated by the great Asoka, and in that thousand years all that is important in Buddhist architecture is included. The fact, too, of his being the builder of the great Naga temple at Marttand, the earliest, so far as I know, in Kashmir, marks the commencement of a new architectural era, the fruits of which we see when the curtain again rises. The Jaina religion, with its new style of temples, had entirely replaced Buddhist forms over the greater part of India, and the Vaishnava and Saiva religions reigned supreme everywhere else, in the forms in which we now find them, after the lapse of nearly another 1000 years’ duration. As, however, there are no chronological difficulties with regard to these later dynasties, the discussion of the dates of the kings’ reigns who built them has evidently no place in this Appendix.[747]

Era of Vicramaditya.

Before concluding this Appendix, I would like to be allowed to explain an hypothesis which, if it can be sustained, not only clears up what has hitherto been a great mystery, but gets rid of a quantity of rubbish which obscures the chronology of the period. It does not, however, alter any date, nor affect them further than, if true, it confirms some, which, if it prove groundless, are deprived of its support.

No one has yet been able to point to the name of Vicramaditya as belonging to any king in the first century B.C., or to any event likely to give rise to an era being dated from it.[748] What, then, was the origin of the era dating from 56 B.C., and how did it arise and obtain its name?

My belief is that the solution of the mystery will be found in a passage in Albiruni, the meaning of which he did not profess to understand, combined with two or three passages in the ‘Raja Tarangini.’

The passage in Albiruni is to the following effect:—“L’ère de Saca, nommée par les Indiens Sacakala, est postérieure à celle de Vicramaditya de 135 ans. Saca est le nom d’un prince qui a régné sur les contrées situées entre l’Indus et la mer (le Golfe du Bengale). Sa résidence était placée au centre de l’Empire (Muttra?), dans la contrée nommée Aryavartha. Les Indiens le font naître dans une classe autre que celle des (Kchatrias?): quelques-uns prétendent qu’il était Soudra et originaire de la ville de Mansoura. Il y en a même qui disent qu’il n’était pas de race indienne, et qu’il tirait son origine des régions occidentales. Les peuples eurent beaucoup à souffrir de son despotisme, jusqu’à ce qu’il leur vînt du secours de l’Orient. Vicramaditya marcha contre lui, mit son armée en déroute, et le tua sur le territoire de Korour, situé entre Moultan et le Château de Louny. Cette époque devint célèbre, à cause de la joie que les peuples ressentirent de la mort de Saca, et on la choisit pour ère, principalement chez les astronomes.”[749]

It seems impossible to apply this narrative to any events happening in the first century B.C., not to mention the inherent absurdity of Vicramaditya establishing an era 56 B.C., and then 135 years afterwards defeating the Saka king on the banks of the Indus. If it meant anything, it might point to the origin of the Saka era, not that of Vicramaditya.

Turning from this to the ‘Raja Tarangini,’ we find the following passages in Troyer’s translation:—

“Ayant fait venir ensuite, d’un autre pays, Pratapaditya, parent du roi Vicramaditya, ils le sacrèrent souverain de l’Empire.

“D’autres induits en erreur ont écrit que ce Vicramaditya fut le même qui combattit les Çakas; mais cette version est rejetée.”[750]

A little further on we have: “Dans le même temps—the death of Hiranya—l’heureux Vicramaditya, appelé d’un autre nom Harcha, réunit comme empereur à Udjdjayini l’Empire de l’Inde sous un seul parasol....

“Employant la fortune comme moyen d’utilité, il fit fleurir les talents: c’est ainsi qu’encore aujourd’hui les hommes de talent se trouvent la tête haute au milieu des riches.

“Ayant d’abord détruit les Çakas, il rendit léger le fardeau de l’œuvre de Hari, qui doit descendre sur la terre pour exterminer les Mletchhas.”[751]

Before going further, it may be as well to point out what appears to be a fair inference from the above. That the first Vicramaditya, the friend of Pratapaditya, was so near in date to the second—he, in fact, appears to have been his grandfather—as to be confounded with him, and to have the name of Sakari applied to him, which in fact belonged to his grandson, the real destroyer of the Sakas.

My conviction is, that these paragraphs refer to one and the same event; and, assuming that the battle of Korûr was fought 544—the year before Vicramaditya sent Matrigupta to be his viceroy in Kashmir—what I believe happened was this: Some time after 750, when the Hindus were remodelling their history and their institutions, so as to mark their victory over the Buddhists, they determined on establishing two eras, which should be older than that of the Buddhists, A.D. 79, and for this purpose instituted one, ten cycles of sixty years each, before the battle of Korûr, and called it by the name of the hero of that battle, the most illustrious of their history; the other ten centuries, or 1000 years before the same date, and called it by the name of his father, Sri Harsha—a title he himself often bore in conjunction with his own name—the first consequently dated for 56 B.C., the second from 456. It need hardly be added that no Sri Harsha existed in the fifth century B.C., any more than a Vicramaditya in the first.

The co-existence of these eras may be gathered from the following passage in Albiruni:—

“On emploie ordinairement les ères de Sri Harscha, de Vicramaditya, de Saca, de Ballabha, et des Gouptas.” “D’après cela, en s’en tenant à l’an 400 de l’ère de Yezderdjed, on se trouve sous l’année 1488 de l’ère de Sri Harscha—l’an 1088 de l’ère de Vicramaditya—l’an 953 de l’ère de Saca—l’an 712 de l’ère de Ballabha, et de celle des Gouptas (A.D. 1032).”—‘Journal Asiatique,’ series iv. vol. iv. pp. 280, 286.

The Sri Harsha era, exactly 400 years before that of Vicramaditya, was avowedly conventional, and seems never to have come into use, and no further mention is made of it afterwards.

If this view of the matter can be sustained, the advantage will be not only that the date of the battle of Korûr, and of the expulsion of the Sakas, Hunas, Yavanas, &c., from India will be fixed with mathematical precision in 544, but that one of the greatest mysteries connected with the history of the period will be cleared up, and the revival of the Hindu religion relegated to a much later period. If, on the other hand, it can be shown that this view of the matter is not tenable, we shall lose these advantages, but it will require a great deal more than that to prove that Vicramaditya, or any Hindu king, reigned in the first century B.C. Buddhism was then in its palmiest state, and there is no trace of the Hindu religion then existing, and the expulsion of Sakas, Yavanas, and Hunas did not take place for long afterwards.

Be this as it may, having now cursorily run through the whole chronology, in so far as it admits of controversy, I feel very confident, on a calm review of the whole, that none of the important dates quoted above can be disturbed to a greater extent than say ten, or at the utmost twenty years—except, perhaps, that of Kanishka. From the Anjana epoch, 691 B.C., to the death of Lalitaditya, A.D. 761, all seems now tolerably clear and fixed, and, with a very little industry, minor blemishes might easily be swept away. If this were done, the chronology of mediæval India for the Buddhist period might be considered as fixed on a secure and immoveable basis of ascertained facts. The advantages of this being done can hardly be over-estimated for improving our knowledge of India generally, while, among other things, it would give a precision and solidity to all our speculations about that country, which, for want of it, have hitherto been generally so vague and unsatisfactory.

APPENDIX B.

The following are the last of the twenty-four Buddhas, beginning with Dipankara I., who appeared to instruct and enlighten mankind, and to whom Sakya Muni succeeds in the present Kalpa:

22.Kakusanda, born at Khémawatinagara. His Bo-tree the Sirisia (Sirisa accasia).

23.Kanagamma, born at Sobhawatinagara. His Bo-tree the Udambara (Ficus glomerata).

24.Kassyapa, born at Baranasi-nagara, Benares. His Bo-tree the Nigrodha (Ficus Indica).

Gautama, born 623 B.C., at Kapilawasta. His Bo-tree Pipphala (Ficus religiosa). [752]

APPENDIX C. THE TWENTY-FOUR TIRTHANKARAS OF THE JAINS.

Name. Distinctive Sign. Born. Died.

1 Adinatha or Vrishabha Bull Ayodhya Gujerat

2 Ajitanatha Elephant ” Mt. Sikhar, Chodri

3 Sambhunatha Horse Sawanta ” Parisnath

4 Abhainandanatha Monkey Ayodhya ”

5 Sumatinatha Chakwa (Red Goose) ” ”

6 Supadmanatha Lotus Kausambhi ”

7 Suparswanatha Swastika Benares ”

8 Chandraprabha Crescent Moon Chandripur ”

9 Pushpadanta Crocodile Kakendrapur ”

10 Sitalanatha Tree or Flower Bhadalpur ”

11 Sri Ansanatha Rhinoceros Sindh ”

12 Vasupadya Buffalo Champapuri Champapuri

13 Vimalanatha Boar Kumpatapuri Mt. Sikhar

14 Anantanatha Porcupine Ayodhya ”

15 Dharmmanatha Thunderbolt Ratanpuri ”

16 Santanetha Antelope Hastinapura ”

17 Kunthanatha Goat ” ”

18 Aranatha Fish ” ”

19 Mallinatha Pinnacle Mithila ”

20 Munisuvrata Tortoise Rajgriha ”

21 Naminatha Lotus, with stalk Mithila ”

22 Neminatha Shell Dwarika Mt. Girnara

23 Parswanatha Snake Benares Mt. Sikhar

24 Vardhamana or Mahavira Lion Chitrakot Pawapuri