1855.] Ancient Indian Numerals. 565 



in the present enquiry, as to what cycle these figures refer ; it is 

 sufficient that the same era must have been used to date both Gupta 

 coins and Gupta inscriptions. It must be admitted that these new 

 lights necessitate a reconstruction of the order of succession assigned 

 to the Sah kings, but as no great reliance has ever been claimed for 

 the published lists, which were avowedly framed upon the most 

 inconclusive materials, we need not hesitate in modifying any previ- 



1854, p. 704) is found to range from 167 to 77 B. C, when tried by the Sri Harsha 

 cycle of Albiruni, 457 B. C. This interval falls between 147 and 57 B. C. If 

 the Seleucidan era be preferred, the Sah period will have to be assigned to B. C. 2 

 to 88 A. D. I had before remarked, that "The claims of the Seleucidan era (1st 

 Sept. 312 B. C.) to be considered as the cycle in use under the government of the 

 Sah kings, are by no means to be lightly passed over, if we bear in mind on the 

 one hand the possible subjection to Greek supremacy implied by the superscription 

 of that language on the local coins, and on the other, the care with which the 

 recognition of this era was enforced in the provinces more directly subject to the 

 Seleucidan rule, as we learn that it was "used all over the East by the Jews, 

 Christians, and Mohammedans. The Jews still style it the JEra of Contracts, 

 because they were obliged, when subject to the Syro-Macedonian princes, to express 

 it in all their contracts and civil writings," Grough, Seleu., 3. "In Maccabees, 

 i. 10, it is called the JEra of the Kingdom of the Greeks," Gough, 4. (J. R. 

 A. S. XII. 41) nevertheless, I should ordinarily be disposed to give the preference 

 to an Indian cycle. 



The Vaiabhi copper-plate grant of Sri Dhara Sena, dated in three hundred and 

 twenty ? — when applied to the Vikramaditya Samvat of 56 B. C. gives A. D. 324 ; 

 if tested by the Saka era of 79 A. D. the return will be 399 A. D., neither of these 

 dates could be much objected to, but possibly the former will best meet the general 

 wants of the case. Though I am free to confess that I was formerly disposed to 

 doubt the universality of the use of the Vikramaditya era (J. R. A. S. XII. 5) my 

 suspicions on the subject being excited on remarking the extensive prevalence of 

 the employment of the Saka cycle, in the grants published by Elliot and Wathen 

 of so early a date as 490 and 567 A. D. (J. R. A. S. IV. V.), yet if we are to 

 trust to Albiruni, we must clearly yield the preference to the Vikramaditya era in 

 the localities he indicates in the passage rendered by M. Reinaud " L'ere de Vikra- 

 maditya est employee dans les provinces meridionales et occidentales de l'Inde," 

 regarding tbe Saka kal it is added " Les personnes qui se servent de lere de Saca, 

 et ce sont les astronomes" — (Fragments 145). An item of negative testimony of 

 some value towards establishing local usage, is further afforded by the insertion of 

 the Vikramaditya and the exclusion of the Saka method of computation in the 

 grant which determines the epoch of the Valabhis (Tod, I. 801). 



