THE HISTORICITY OF VIKRAMADITYA AND SALIVAHANA

- A golden era made ignored by British historian-An Intrigue exposed by Kota Venkatachalam

By Dr.Kalikivayi Mahankali Rao Ph.D

History is not a description of the destiny of a people; each civilization develops a characterof its own. Character is destiny said Dr.Radha Krishnan. It is applicable both for individuals aswell as nations. History is a portrayal of an unfolding of destiny of a people who appear onworld stage as and when their time comes to reveal value based life patterns relative totheir perception of god, man and nature. It is their own Weltanschuung – a world view of their own. In the sense History is an exercise in the evaluation of a society in terms of ahistorical teleological purpose to fulfill which a particular civilization comes in to existenceand vanishes in the sands of time, like the Greek, Roman, Egyptian etc. This phenomenonhas been put forward poignantly by WILL DURANT.“A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within” This is what happened to all civilizations except Bhartiya civilization. This Phenomenon callsfor an objective analysis of their social structure, stratification and functional aspects of those extinct civilizations. Social structure sustains itself through its stratification to meetthe functional needs of occupational differentiation – a kind of division of labor to meet theneeds of production and distribution systems. There should exist a strong systemic relationbetween them for any civilization to last long. Egyptian, Greek and Romanian civilizationsare conquering civilizations.“Man is the measure of all beings”-This is the metaphysical statement or premise on whichtheir civilizations are based. They have been built to show their military might. To keep theirpeople happy and prosperous their Emperors went on military expeditions with mightyarmies to conquer nations and brought wealth and enriched their people, brought slaves inhoards as work force. Some feeble attempts were made by some philosopher statesman likeMarcus Auralius Caesar to make their nations republic. But all failed due to political turmoiland intrigues that prevailed at those times. Seneca was persecuted by Emperors Caligulaand Nero. Socrates was poisoned and Greece succeeded in forming a mutually warring citystates. Plato and Aristotle were reduced to a state of philosophers of state ignoring theirmetaphysical outpourings of highest order. George Santayana of Spain writes that there areonly two metaphysical nations in the world, one is Bharat and the other is Greece. When theneighboring states of Greece invented superior alloy metal to make swords and otherweapons of warfare, the Greeks were decimated in all the wars. Similarly when theGermanian Barbarians invented the powerful Cross-Bow with a longer strike range the

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Roman Empire collapsed within a short period leaving nothing for posterity to cherish exceptthe ruins that mourn silently with eerie winds around. Reminding the glory mayhem thathappened for ‘THE GLADIATORS’ in a 64 day festival in Rome to celebrate their victories inthe wars. The arena of the coliseum was soaked with the innocent blood of the Gladiators. Incontrast the Bhartiya tradition of the concept of mother earth as a cow to be milked and notdestroyed is the very basis of sustainable development epitomized in the Upanishadicsaying exhorting humanity with the Upanishadic dictum.“Tena tyaktena bhunjita”-Take from nature whatever is required to sustain in accordancewith your need and not according to your greed. The Bhartiya tradition sets before us thespiritual goal of Sanatana dharma and the socio-religious goal of Dharma in accordance withwhich our social codes (smritis) are composed. These social codes are revised time andagain according to the changes in Yugas i.e. Yuga dharma. This reflects that our Bhartiyacivilization constitutes a highly organized society with a strong social institutional basis forspiritual, religious and social goals. Taking an overall picture, we have to take intoconsideration the cultural-spiritual-ethical notion of dharma as the social foundation for awell ordered functional society. These dharmic values were implemented in the lives of ourkings and people in our puranas and epics. To create such a tradition it requires hundreds of years history. This history is embedded in our 18 puranas. Purana means “purapinavah”-though old, yet ever new. Puranas have been edited and updated time to time hencethey are ‘though old, yet ever new’. Puranas are the primary source for writing the ancienthistory of Bhaarat. V.A.Smith admits:”The most systematic record of Indian historicaltradition is that preserved in the dynastic lists of the puranas”, five out of the eighteenworks of this class namely; vayu, matsya, Vishnu, bhramanda and bhagavata contain suchlists. But Pargiter tampered the text of puranas and advised his co-workers to rely onBhavishya Purana. V.A.Smith admires F.E.Pargiter that he has succeeded in his work “TheDynasties of Kali Age” in obtaining the most-definite results which was challenged by KotaVenkatachalam. This paper intends to highlight the glaring disparity in assigning correcttiming of the periods to all dynasties with reference to the historicity of emperorsVikramaditya and Salivahana. Kota Venkatachalam tells us: “The Bhavishya Mahapurana, inthe form it is available is highly interpolated by the western scholars to create doubts aboutits authenticity. From the very early times Christian missionaries of all denominations wereunited in their endeavor to destroy or discredit our ancient literature as they would nottolerate the existence of our great works which contained the history of the earth and theuniverse for crores of years before the creation of the world they described in the Bible(Ancient Hindu History Part 1, pp210-211).

VIKRAMADITYA AND SALIVAHANA ERAS

The Vikramaditya and Salivahana eras begin with 57 BCE and 78 CE respectively. Acontroversy has been raging regarding the founder of these two eras. Contrary to ourexpectation V.A.Smith writes:“The popular belief which associates the Vikrama era of 58-57 BCE with a Raja, Vikramadityaor Bikram of Ujjain at that date is erroneous. There was no such person then. It is howevertrue that probably it was invented by the astronomers of Ujjain. The first name of it wasMalwa era. The term Vikramakala used in the later times must refer to one or other of themany kings with the title of Vikramaditya or Vikrama, who was believed to have establishedthe era. The king referred to may be presumed to be Chandragupta II. Vikramaditya who

conquered Ujjain about CE 390, The Gupta and Saka eras Changed their names similarly,becoming known in after ages as Valabhi and the Salivahana eras respectively “

So it is impossible that the western scholars should be ignorant of the accounts of Vikramaand Salivahana in Bhavishya-maha-Purana; They purposely ignored the four dynasties of Agni Vamsa which covered over a period of about 1300 years, from 101 BCE to 1193 CE i.e.from the time of Vikramaditya to the time of Prithvi Raja taking Bhojaraja alone from the listof the Panwar dynasty leaving the era-founders, Vikramaditya and Salivahana in theintervening period. Even before Vikramaditya the four dynasties of Agni Vamsa covered overa period of 291 years from Kali 2710(or 392 BCE) to Kali 3001(or 101 BCE). This intentionalbungling was necessitated by the theory which makes Alexander and Chandragupta Maurya,contemporaries. The Chronology of ancient Indian History right from the time of Mahabharata War (3138 BCE) down to the beginning of Gupta dynasty (327 BCE) had to becompressed by 1207 years so as to suit the contemporaneity of Alexander andChandragupta. ** Kali era begins in the year 3102

LegendYearBeginning of Kali Yuga 20th Feb. at 2-27-30 hrs3102 BCEMahabharata war 36 years beforeKali3138 BCEAfter the war Somadhi of theBarhadradha dynastyWas crowned as king of Magadha in3138 BCEAnd the dynasty ruled for 1006years3138-2132 BCEPradyota dynasty ruled for 138 years 2132-1994 BCE

For this very purpose Gautama Buddha who actually flourished in the 19

century BCE. isplaced in the 6

century; Chandragupta Maurya who lived in 1534 BCE is brought down to323 BCE . The Andhra Satavahana dynasty which commenced in 833 BCE is dragged downto 220 BCE and is made to last till 240 CE i.e. for a period of 460 years. Even then they hadto meet with certain difficulties. They made the Sunga, the Kanwa and the Andhra dynasties,contemporaneous simply to compress the chronology. They had to drive away the two greatemperors and era founders-Vikramaditya and Salivahana-out of the historical field

Vide, the Oxford Students’ History of India P.P 80, 81 by V.A Smith Ed 1915