The Spread of the Saka Era to South India
By V. V. Mirashi
Summary
V.V. Mirashi’s article ‘The Spread of the Saka Era in South India’ is a rejoinder to comments by D.C. Sircar regarding Mirashi’s earlier hypothesis that the Saka era reached the Deccan through a dynasty of Saka chiefs. Mirashi first notes two records Sircar supplied but emphasises that they do not invalidate his thesisfile:///home/oai/share/split_pdfs/the_spread_of_the_saka_era_to_south_india.pdf#:~:text=distant%20Gujarat%20there%20was%20%E0%AB%A9,successors%20were%20ruling%20may%20also. Sircar cited a Kadamba grant of the king Vishnuvarman mentioning the village Herbbata in Mahisa-visaya, arguing that Mahisa country cannot have extended into the southern Hyderabad state as Mirashi had suggested. Mirashi counters that there were several regions called Mahisa or Mahisaka across India, including a territorial division in Gujarat, as evidenced by a Rastrakuta grant of Karka Suvarnavarsa that mentions Brahmanapallika located in Mahisaka Forty-twofile:///home/oai/share/split_pdfs/the_spread_of_the_saka_era_to_south_india.pdf#:~:text=distant%20Gujarat%20there%20was%20%E0%AB%A9,The%20name%20Mahisa%20or. He suggests that the dynasty of the Saka king Maina Mahisa and his successors might have ruled in the Hyderabad region and that the Mahisa designation could have been used in multiple locales. The article supports this conjecture by citing place-names derived from Mahisa—Maski, Maswadi, Masir, Maskeri, Masangi and Masnur—found in the Kanarese districts of the Hyderabad and Bombay states. Coins bearing legends of Maina Mahisa’s dynasty have been discovered at Kondapur and Maski, strengthening the case for a regional power therefile:///home/oai/share/split_pdfs/the_spread_of_the_saka_era_to_south_india.pdf#:~:text=country%20where%20Miana%20Mahisa%20and,of%20Mahisaka%20as%20conjectured%20by. Mirashi reiterates that his main argument is that the Saka era, first recorded in Early Chalukya inscriptions, must have been used earlier by this Mahisa dynasty and subsequently adopted by the Chalukyas. He emphasises that the Saka era appears suddenly in Chalukya records without prior local antecedent, implying it was borrowedfile:///home/oai/share/split_pdfs/the_spread_of_the_saka_era_to_south_india.pdf#:~:text=Saka%20era%2C%20which%2C%2010%20the,been%20well%20established%20in%20their. Mirashi acknowledges that no copper-plate grants or stone inscriptions of Maina Mahisa’s dynasty using the Saka era have yet been found but contends that the absence of such evidence does not disprove the theory. He points to the Purāṇas, which mention a powerful Saka king Maina, as evidence that the family possessed enough prestige to spread an erafile:///home/oai/share/split_pdfs/the_spread_of_the_saka_era_to_south_india.pdf#:~:text=Maina%20of%20the%20Mahisa%20dynasty,further%20corroborated%20by%20the%20type%E2%80%94. The article concludes by inviting Sircar and other scholars to examine the coins and assess the hypothesis further. Mirashi maintains that until another explanation of how the Saka era reached the Deccan is provided, his conjecture remains plausible.
Conclusion
Mirashi defends his hypothesis that the Saka era was introduced to South India by the Mahisa dynasty led by the Saka king Maina Mahisa. By showing that multiple regions bore the name Mahisa and presenting numismatic and toponymic evidence of a Saka power in the Hyderabad area, he argues that the Saka era reached the Deccan before its adoption by the Chalukyas. Although the theory remains provisional due to a lack of dated inscriptions, Mirashi contends it is the most plausible explanation until alternative evidence emergesfile:///home/oai/share/split_pdfs/the_spread_of_the_saka_era_to_south_india.pdf#:~:text=Saka%20era%2C%20which%2C%2010%20the,been%20well%20established%20in%20their.