70
•;.-.. event of sufficient importance to mark the commencement of a new era, they hit on the name of • Vikramaditya as the most illustrious known to
, them and his victory at Karur, the most important
# event of his reign.
(vii) That, since the date of victory A. D. 544 was too
, recent to be adopted, they antedated the epoch by
ten cycles of sixty years, thus arriving at B.C. 56
and not content with this devised another era,
which they called the Harsha era from the other
part of his name and the epoch of which was fixed
at B. C. 456 by placing it ten even centuries be-
r fore the date of Karur. It is an actual fact that
the name of Vikrama does not occur in connection
with the era of B. C. 57 until a Comparatively
recent date.
* But this theory of Mr. Fergtisson's is vitiated throughout by the undue reliance which he placed on the quasi-historical records of the Rajatarangini. The early chronology of Kashmir has still to be fixed and the means of adjusting it are to he found in A. D. 533 as the date of Mihirakula, who according to the book itself reigned in 8th century B, C. And if the date of Harsha of Ujjain is really dependent on the date of Hiranya of Kashmir, it certainly cannot be placed as early as 6th century A. D.
Besides^ the new Mandassor inscription, which was composed and engraved when the year 529 had expired from the tribal constitution of the Malavas, gives us, through his feudatory Baiidfauvaraan, the date of the year 403 of the same era for Kumara-gupta* This proves :•—st Saka era of Kanishka; .,