Thomas has based all his calculations on M. Reinaud's translation of the passage in Abu Rihán, which gives the year 319 A.D., for the beginning of the Gupta era, and also for the final extinction of the Gupta dynasty. In adopting this version of Abu Rihán's statement, Mr. Thomas is obliged to search for some other epochs as the starting points from which to count the dates of the Surashtra and Gupta coins. The earlier era which he uses for this purpose is that of Sri Harsha,* which was entirely unknown until the publication of M. Reinaud's extracts from Abu Rihán. This era dates from B. C. 457, and the epoch of the Sáh kings of Surashtra is thus fixed between 157 and 57 B. C.†

8. Between the Sáh kings and the Guptas, Mr. Thomas interposes the Indo-Scythians, whose conquest he places in 26 B. C., and he proposes to count the date of Chandra Gupta's inscription at Sánchit from 78 A. D., which is the well-known commencement of the Sáka era. This will place the reign of Chandra Gupta in 78 + 93 = 171 A. D., and the reign of Buddha Gupta in 78 + 165 = 243 A. D., after whom there is time for the reigns of a few more princes before the asserted extinction of the family in 319 A. D.

9. My reasons for assigning the Guptas to a later period have been given already; and I will

See Mr. Thomas's Essay, p. 43.

+ See Mr. Thomas's Essay, p. 45.
See Mr. Thomas's Essay, p. 5.

now state as briefly as possible all my objections to Mr. Thomas's chronology.

1st. According to the Chinese historians, the power of the Indo-Scythians remained in full force until 222 A. D.; after which it began to decline. This statement is supported by Ptolemy the geographer, who between A. D. 140-160, assigns the whole valley of the Indus, including Sirastrene, or Surashtra, to the Indo-Scythians.

2nd. Samudra Gupta, according to the Allahabad and Bhitari inscriptions, was the fourth prince of the Gupta dynasty, and if we allow twenty years to each reign, Samudra will date from 60 to 80 of the Gupta era, or from 138 to 158 A. D. But in the Allahabad pillar inscription, Samudra mentions the Sháhán-sháh (that is, one of the Sassanian kings of Persia) as his contemporary, whose dynasty did not attain the throne until A. D. 223; and as in his account of the tributary and conquered provinces he omits Magadha, Suráshtra, and Ujjayani, it has been inferred by James Prinsep, and is admitted by Mr. Thomas himself, that these provinces must have formed his own proper dominion. But as Sirastrene belonged to the Indo-Scythians at the very date that must be assigned to Samudra by Mr. Thomas's chronology, we must either reject his scheme altogether, or conclude, that both the Chinese historian and the Alexandrian geographer were in error.

* Journal vi. 975.

3rd. The independence of the native princes of Gujrat between 157 and 57 B. C. is completely at variance with the Greek accounts of Menander's conquest of Sarioustos or Surashtra, between 160 and 130 B. C., which is further authenticated by the longprotracted currency of his coins at Barygáza or Baroch.

4th. The alphabetical characters of the Surashtran coins * are so widely different from those of the Pillar and Rock inscriptions, and at the same time are so much similar to those of the Guptas, that it is impossible not to conclude that there must have been a long interval between Asoka and the independent Sáh kings, and an almost immediate succession of the Sáh kings by the Guptas. But Mr. Thomas's proposed chronology exactly reverses this conclusion, by making the interval between Asoka's death and the earliest date of the Sůrashtra coins not more than sixty-five years, while the interval between the last of the Sáh kings and the rise of the Guptas is one · hundred and thirty-five years, or more than double the other.

* Another evidence in favour of the later date of the Sah kings of Gujrat is furnished by the gateway inscriptions at Sánchi. These date in the early part of the first century of our era (see No. 190); and though they show the nearest approach to the forms of the Sah alphabet, yet the latter is certainly posterior to the Sánchi inscriptions. This result agrees with the period which I have assigned to them, from A.D. 222 (the beginning of the Indo-Scythian decline) to A.D. 380, the accession of Samudra Gupta.

5th. The author of the Periplus of the Erythræan sea, who lived between 117 and 180 A. D., states that ancient drachmas of Apollodotus and of Menander were then current at Barygáza.* This prolonged currency of the Greek drachmas points directly to the period of the Indo-Scythian rule; for though we have some hundreds of their gold coins, and many thousands of their copper coins, yet only one solitary specimen of their silver coinage has yet been discovered. The Indo-Grecian silver probably continued current until after 222 A. D., when the IndoScythian power began to decline. From this period, about 250 A. D., I would date the independence of the Sáh kings, and the issue of their silver coinage, which was a direct copy in weight, and partly in type, from the Philopater drachmas of Apollodotus.

9* We have thus a continued series of silver currency in Gujrat for upwards of six hundred years, from Menander's conquest, in B. C. 150-140, to Budha Gupta's death, in about 510 A. D. From this period thick silver pieces of the same type and of the same value, but one half more in weight, were issued by the Balabhi kings down to the Mahomedan conquest. In the more precious metal the coinage of the Indo Scythians was immediately succeeded by the golden dinars of the Guptas, whose earliest pieces are almost

* Hudson, Geogr. Min., i. 87—“ Vixit, teste Suida, Hadriani, Marci et Antonini temporibus;" that is, between 117 and 180 A.D., or about 160 A.D.

exact copies of the well-known Ardokro coins of Kanishka and his successors.

10. The importance of establishing the correct era of the Guptas becomes apparent when we learn that Chandra Gupta was most probably one of the last paramount sovereigns of India who professed the Buddhist faith. The inscriptions of his reign, which still exist at Sánchi and at Udayagiri, confirm the account of the contemporary traveller Fa-Hian; that Buddhism, though honoured and flourishing, was certainly on the decline, and that temples of the Brahmans were rising on all sides. The earliest inscription of Chandra Gupta is dated in 82 of the Gupta era, or A. D. 401. It consists of two lines carved on a rock tablet at the foot of the Udayagiri hill, which was intended for a longer inscription. There is room for five more lines; and, as no event is commemorated, it is evident that the record is incomplete. The tablet is placed to the right of the entrance of a cavetemple apparently dedicated to Surya, whose image is represented on each side of the doorway. Immediately to the left of the cave there is a large altorelievo of the Varáha or Boar Avatár, ten feet and a half in height. The inscription is partially injured by the peeling of the rock on the right hand; but the

See Prinsep, in Journal iv. 629, and Plates XXXVIII. and XXXIX., in which the imitation is clearly developed; but I was the first to point out to James Prinsep the seated Ardokro on the Indo-Scythian coins, which figure afterwards became the most common reverse of the early Gupta coins.