4G E. C. Bayley — The Kanishka dales. [Feb. 



But while going so far with the Babu, he must wholly demur to his 

 conclusion that the Kanishka dates belonged to the same epoch, and were part 

 of the same series of dates. No doubt there was a Kanishka date of the 9th 

 Sambat, and no doubt also one of Chandra Gupta of the 93rd year, but it 

 was palpably impossible that they should belong to the same series of dates, 

 for with the Mathura and other inscriptions, we had now a clear series of 

 dates of Kanishka and his successors Havishko and Vasu Deva (the Boz Deo 

 of the Indo-Scythians) the dates of the latter coming as low as Sambat 96. 



Now we had Chandra Gupta's date of 93 and these two ' dates would 

 overlap, and there would be not only this difficulty, but supposing the 

 San da inscription with this date to be that of Chandra Gupta the first, 

 there would yet be no place for the two kings who we know preceded 

 Chandra Gupta I, viz., Sri Gupta and Ghatot Kacha. There was nothing 

 however, to show that this inscription really belongs to Chandra Gupta 

 the first. Indeed General Cunningham on apparently good grounds assigned 

 it to Chandra Gupta the second,* in which case no less than four previous 

 kings would have to be provided with a place in the series ! ! 



Mr. Bayley stated that his own belief was, that the dates of the Kanishka 

 dynasty referred to an earlier era, which he believed to be the Vikrama- 

 ditya era, he had some time since come to this conclusion from his own 

 enquiries, without being aware that General Cunningham had anticipated 

 him, though he differed from the learned General in believing that this era 

 took its rise from the occasion of Kanishka himself and not from that of 

 Volumokadpheses as General Cunningham held. 



He thought it was probable, as he understood was General Cunnino>- 

 ham's belief also, that the Guptas first superseded the Indian branch of the 

 Indo-Scythian invaders ; those who came down to the eastward and were in 

 consequence involved in a contest with the Western branch of the Indo- 

 Scythians situated as we know from many au thorites in the Western Punjab 

 and Scind, and that the great victory from which the Saka era took its rise was 

 one in which the leader of the Western Indo-Scythiansf was defeated and 

 slain by one of the Gupta kings possibly either Ghalot Kacha or Chandra 

 Gupta the 1st. The latter certainly adopted the title of Vikramaditya, while 

 on a coin of the former he was described as the conqueror of the " Ansu" J 

 at least as Professor Hall reads the somewhat doubtful legend. In either 

 case, if the Vikramaditya era answer to the Kanishka era Sri Gupta would 



* As a matter of fact, General Cunningham assigns a Gupta inscription at Garhwa 

 in the Allahabad district not without some grounds dated in 86 to Chandra Gupta II. 



f I doubt if any of the Guptas or at least the early kings of that dynasty ever 

 established their rule in any part of the Panjab or even in the northern extremity 

 of the Doab. 



% Ancnz Asii ? cf. C. Arch. Reports, Vol. II, p. 43. 



