1848.] through Afghanistan and India. 37 



Tha-ka-ta-kiu-to, or Takata Gupta. 



Pho-lo-a-yi-to, „ Baladitya. 



Fa-che-lo, „ Vajra. 



Two of these Princes, namely, Bndlia Gupta and Baladitya, are already 

 known to us from inscriptions and coins, and a third, Vajra, is known 

 from coins alone, but the others are mentioned nowhere else to my 

 knowledge. 



In 1842 I had already identified Chandra Gupta, or "moon-cherish- 

 ed," with the Yu-gai, or " moon-beloved," of the Chinese authors, who 

 was reigning in A. D. 428. Afterwards in 1843, when I first pro- 

 cured a copy of the Foe-ktje-ki, I extended this identification to the 

 line of Princes mentioned above, and at the same time I arranged the 

 whole dynasty chronologically according to the various data which were 

 then known. Thus according to the inscription on the gateway of the 

 Sdchi tope near Bhilsa, Chandra Gupta was reigning in the year 79f of 

 the Gupta era — and, following the record of the Kuhaon Pillar, Skanda 

 Gupta died in 1 33 of the same era : whilst, according to the Eran 

 Pillar, Buddha Gupta was reigning in 165 of the Gupta era. Besides 

 these three distinct dates of their own era, we have the year of Yu-gai, 

 A. D. 428, already mentioned, and the period of Siladitya's reign im- 

 mediately preceding II wan Thsang's visit. With these data to guide 

 me the chronological arrangement of the different Princes of the Gupta 

 dynasty already known to us from coins and inscriptions and from the 

 faithful though brief records of the Chinese writers, was an easy task. 

 As by this arrangement the accession of Gupta, the founder of the 

 dynasty, appeared to have taken place in the first half of the 4th cen- 

 tury of our era, it very soon struck me that the Gupta era was most 

 probably the same as the Balabhi era ; more particularly as it is certain 

 that Ujain and Surashtra were subject to the Guptas, whose silver coins 

 are of the same type, weight and fabric with those of the undoubted 

 coins of Balabhi. This identification of the two eras appeared so pro- 

 bable that I at once adopted it. Lastly, in January 1847, on receipt of 

 Reinaud's " Fragmens Arabes et Persans, &c." I found, to my equal 

 wonder and delight, a decided proof that my identification of the two 

 eras was correct. According to Abu Rihan al Biruni, who accompanied 

 Mahmud Ghaznavi to India, the year 1088 ofVikramaditya, or the year 

 953 of Sake was the year 712 of the Ballaha era, and also that of the 



