1862.] 
397 
Vestiges of the Kings of Gwalior. 
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 Ujjayim 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 wmuld 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 demiseof 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 Blioja 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 Pashupatiis apparently 
of a very modern date. It records the dedication of a temple to Srimad Adivaraha 
or the Boar incarnation of Yislinu, and alludes to the Ramayana. The chai'ac- 
ters of the record are slightly removed from the modern Devanagari, but its 
language is very corrupt, and so intermixed with provincial Hindui 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-inika, but who he was, the 
monument sayeth not. 
