18G2.] Vestiges of tie Kings of Gwalior. 397 



If it be so, still the question would occur, were the calculations of the 

 almanac from which the date was taken, founded upon the meridian 

 of Ujjayini the best known of India ? or of Lanka ? or of Kanouj ? or of 

 Gwalior ? and if the last, when was the moon's age reckoned ? at its 

 beginning, the middle, or the end ? Without these data, no calcula- 

 tion can be so exact as to give us the era of a document from its 

 date, much less to point out its correspondence with a foreign era 

 with the circumstantiality of new styles and old styles. The testi- 

 mony of Alberuni leaves no doubt as to the existence of an era of 

 the Guptas, and a priori one would suppose that the era which 

 would be current in the time of a Gupta sovereign would be that of 

 his family. To controvert such an idea, it is necessary that we should 

 have something more satisfactory than the ex-cathedra opinion 

 of a single individual. Mr. Thomas and Col. Cunningham are still 

 at issue as to the commencement of the Gupta era, and as long as 

 that point remains unsettled and the date of the Toramana of Kash- 

 mir is not proved to be different, the conjecture regarding the iden- 

 tity of the several Toramanas of Eran, Gwalior, Kashmir, and, I 

 may add, of the third Girnar inscription adjoining that of the bridge 

 of Palasini, will maintain its ground, and the date of that prince left 

 to float between the middle of the 5th to the end of the 6th century. 

 The several dates already assigned to Toramana are, 1st 87-3 B. C. by 

 Professor Wilson, 2nd, 88-9 B. C. by Major Troyer, 3rd, 415 A. C. by 

 Col. Cunningham, 4th, 110 to 120 A. C. by Mr. Hall, 5th, middle of the 

 fifth century by myself, 6th, seventh century by Dr. Bhau Daji. 



Taking Toramana and his son to have been suzerains and the Palas 

 vassals or feudatories, we know not whether on the demise of the former, 

 the latter assumed independent sovereignty or continued in subjugation 

 to their neighbours ; but we find that in the third quarter of the 9th cen- 

 tury, they were placed in subordination to a Bhoja Deva, who called 

 himself a " paramount sovereign." His name occurs in an inscription 

 marked No. 4* on Col. Cunningham's plates, (pi. II. fig. 4,) and found 



* No. 2 though placed immediately after the record of Pashupati is apparently 

 of a very modern date. It records the dedication of a temple to Sriinad Adivaraha 

 or the Boar incarnation of Vishnu, and alludes to the Ramayana. The charac- 

 ters of the record are slightly removed from the modern Devanagari, but its 

 language is very corrupt, and so intermixed with provincial Hindu! and Mar- 

 hatti (?) as not to admit of a reliable translation. 



No. 3 is similar in character to the above and being imperfect is not intelligi- 

 ble. The first line has the name of one Sri Chandra-hiika, but who he was, the 

 monument sayeth not. 



