DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.2371#0205
PART II.—INTRODUCTION. 183
hereafter—and allow 50 years interval between each, we bring our
history down nearly to the Christian era. When we look at the
extent of the changes introduced, and the quantity of examples we
have to interpolate, it seems improbable to allow a less period
between each, nor that the position of any of these milestones can
be shifted more than ten or a dozen years without a violation of the
surest principles of archaeology.
After the Christian era, it is not quite so easy to arrange the
sequence of the caves, not from any change in the principles in which
this should be done, but from the variety of the features in the ex-
amples, and the distance from each other of the localities in which
they are found. It also appears that after the earlier centuries of
our era there seems to have been a pause in cave excavations.
After the fifth and sixth centuries, however, when they were re-
sumed, there is no longer any difficulty in ascertaining the age of
any cave with almost as much precision as can be desired.
The science of numismatics opens another source from which we
may hope to obtain a considerable amount of precise information as
to the age of the caves at some not distant date. In Gujarat and
the cave region north of Bombay a great number of coins have been
found belonging to a dynasty generally known as the Sah, kings of
Saurashtra. Most of these bear dates from some unspecified era. The
earlier coins are not dated, but the second series range from 102 to
271 at least,1 while the number of kings who reigned was certainly
not less than 25 or 26.2
Unfortunately numismatists have not yet been able to make up
their minds as to the era from which these dates are to be reckoned.
Mr. Newton assumes that it was the era of Vieramaditya, 56 B.C.,
buhyithout stopping to inquire if that era had then been established.
Mr. Thomas and others assume that they commenced earlier; but on
the whole it seems most probable that the era was that of Saka,
a.d. 78-9, and if this is so we have a thread extending through our
cave history down to the year 350 a.d., which eventually may be of
the greatest use in enabling us to fix the dates of the caves belonging
to that period of history.
Vhen all these various sources of information come to be
1 Newton on J. B. B., R. A. S., vol. viii. p. 27, et seq.
■ Thomas in Burgess, 2nd Report, p. 44.
hereafter—and allow 50 years interval between each, we bring our
history down nearly to the Christian era. When we look at the
extent of the changes introduced, and the quantity of examples we
have to interpolate, it seems improbable to allow a less period
between each, nor that the position of any of these milestones can
be shifted more than ten or a dozen years without a violation of the
surest principles of archaeology.
After the Christian era, it is not quite so easy to arrange the
sequence of the caves, not from any change in the principles in which
this should be done, but from the variety of the features in the ex-
amples, and the distance from each other of the localities in which
they are found. It also appears that after the earlier centuries of
our era there seems to have been a pause in cave excavations.
After the fifth and sixth centuries, however, when they were re-
sumed, there is no longer any difficulty in ascertaining the age of
any cave with almost as much precision as can be desired.
The science of numismatics opens another source from which we
may hope to obtain a considerable amount of precise information as
to the age of the caves at some not distant date. In Gujarat and
the cave region north of Bombay a great number of coins have been
found belonging to a dynasty generally known as the Sah, kings of
Saurashtra. Most of these bear dates from some unspecified era. The
earlier coins are not dated, but the second series range from 102 to
271 at least,1 while the number of kings who reigned was certainly
not less than 25 or 26.2
Unfortunately numismatists have not yet been able to make up
their minds as to the era from which these dates are to be reckoned.
Mr. Newton assumes that it was the era of Vieramaditya, 56 B.C.,
buhyithout stopping to inquire if that era had then been established.
Mr. Thomas and others assume that they commenced earlier; but on
the whole it seems most probable that the era was that of Saka,
a.d. 78-9, and if this is so we have a thread extending through our
cave history down to the year 350 a.d., which eventually may be of
the greatest use in enabling us to fix the dates of the caves belonging
to that period of history.
Vhen all these various sources of information come to be
1 Newton on J. B. B., R. A. S., vol. viii. p. 27, et seq.
■ Thomas in Burgess, 2nd Report, p. 44.