South Indian Inscriptions

KALACHURI CHEDI - ERA

But the Chandravallī inscription of the Kadamba king Mayūraśarman,¹ which may be referred to the fourth century A.C., mentions the Ābhīras separately from the Traikūtakas. This suggests that the two dynasties, though contemporary, were no identical. The Ābhīras, who probably had their stronghold in Khandesh,² held imperial sway, while the Traikūtakas, who rose to power in the Nasik District, may have been a feudatory family owing allegiance to the Ābhīras. As stated before, the Purānas assign a period of only 67 years to the reign of ten Ābhīra kings. This is abnormally low. Perhaps the expression sapta-shashti śatān=īha,³ stating the period of Ābhīra rule, which occurs in a manuscripts of the Vāyupurāna, is a mistake for sapta-shashtim śatañ=ch=ēha.⁴ In that case the Ābhīra rule may have lasted for 167 years or till 415 A. C. After the fall of the Ābhīra dynasty the Traikūtakas attained imperial position. As shown elsewhere, Mahārāja Indradatta, the first known Traikūtaka king, seems to have flourished in the period circa 415-440 A. C.⁵ He and his successors continued the era started by the Ābhīra Īśvarasēna, as it had by that time become ‘the habitual and well-established reckoning of the country.’ The history of other Indian eras shows that once an era becomes current in a part of the country and the people become accustomed to it, it continues to be used long after the founder or his family has ceased to rule. The era of Harsha, for instance, continued to be used long after him though his empire crumbled to pieces almost immediately after his death. It is, therefore, not surprising that the era of the Ābhīras also remained current in Gujarat, Konkan and Maharashtra long after the downfall of the Ābhīra dynasty.

LOCALITY OF THE ERA
The earliest date of the era is K. 9, which belongs to the reign of the founder, the Ābhīra king Īśvarasēna. The next three dates, viz., K. 67, 107 and 117 come from Khandesh and are furnished by the grants of a feudatory family which plainly owed allegiance to the contemporary Ābhīra Emperors. We have then the dates K. 102 and 167, the first from Kānākhērā near Sāñchī and the second from the former Barwāni State, which belong to the reigns of the Śaka king Śridharavarman and Subandhu of Māhishmatī respectively and clearly show that the era had spread beyond the Narmadā in the North. The three following dates K. 207, 241 and 245 belong to the Traikūtakas who succeeded the Ābhīras in Gujarat, Konkan and the Nasik District. Following upon these is the date K. 292 of No. 11. It belongs to the reign of Mahārāja Sangamsimha, who seems to have occupied Central Gujarat after the fall of the Traikūtakas. The next date K. 322 of No. 120 comes from the Nagpur Districts of Madhya Pradesh, and belongs to the reign of Svāmirāja, who was probably a feudatory of the Kalachuri Krishnarāja.

Of the Kalachuris of Māhishmatī who succeeded the Traikūtakas in Gujarat, Konkan and Maharashtra, we have the next three dates, viz., K. 347, 360 and 361 of Nos. 12, 14 and 15, one of which belong to Gujarat and the other two to the Nāsik District of Maharashtra. The inscriptions of the Gurjara kings who held Gujarat north of the Kīm after the fall of the Kalachuris furnish the next eight dates, viz., K. 380, 385, 391 392 (in two grants) 427, 456, 460 and 486 (in two grants) of Nos. 16-20, 121 and 21-24. Contemporaneously with these, we have two dates, viz., K. 404 and 406 of Nos. 25 and 26, belonging to the
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¹ A. R. A. S. M. (1929), p. 50.
² Ābhīra kings were ruling at Bhambhāgiri (Bhāmēr in the Pimpalner tālukā of West Khandesh) till the time of the Later Yādava king Simhana. Ep. Ind., Vol. XXV, p. 203. .
³ D. K. A., p. 46, n. 37. .
⁴ For a similar expression, see pañcha varsha-śatān=īha (ibid., p. 47), which Pargiter takes as ‘probably meaning 105 years’. Ibid., p. 72, n. 15. .
⁵ See below, p. xlii.