Ad. A. From Kuru to Devâpi who retires (that is, is driven away), Sântanu, Bahlîka, the Bactrian (?), there are eleven reigns. Then the three generations to Duryodhana and Arguna.
Parikshit represents the beginning of the Interregnum.
The list in the Vishnu-purâna of twenty-nine kings, from Parikshit to Kshemaka, with whom the race becomes extinct in the Kali age, does not concern us.
They are the lines of the pretenders, who did not again acquire the throne. The oldest list is probably only of six reigns; for the son of Satânîka, the third V. P. king of this list, is also called Udayana (Lassen, xxvi. note 23), and the same is the name of the twenty-fifth king, the son of Satânîka II. Therefore Brihadratha, Vasudâna, and Sudâsa (21, 22, 23) are likewise the last of a Parikshit line. But they do not count chronologically.
Fourth Period.
The kingdom of Magadha. Chronological clews for Megasthenes. The first part of the Magadha list preserved to us (Lassen, xxxi.) from Kuru to Sahadeva is an unchronological list of collateral lines of the third period, therefore of no value for the computation of time. The Kali list of Magadha begins with Somâpi to Ripungaya, 20 kings. The numbers are cooked in so stupid a way that they neither agree with each other nor are possible. One can only find the right number from lower down.
Restoration of the Chronology.
| Kali II. Pradyota, five kings with | 138 years. |
| Kali III. Saisunâga, ten kings with | 360 years. |
| Kali IV. Nanda, father with eight or nine sons | 22 years. |
| —— | |
| Kali V. Kandragupta king | 317 B. C. |
| —— | |
| 837 years. |
If one deducts these 837 years from 1182, the first year of the Kali age, there remain 345 years for the twenty kings from Somâpi to Ripungaya (First Dynasty), averaging 17-1/2 years. (That will do!) I adopt 1182 years, because 1354 is impossible, [pg 467] but 1181 is the historical chronological beginning of a kingdom in Kashmir. Semiramis invaded India under a Sthavirapati (probably only a title), about 1250. This time must therefore fall in the interregnum (120 years, after Megasthenes). The history of the war with Assyria (Asura?) is smothered by pushing forward the Abhîra, that is, the Naval War on the Indus (Diodorus).
I pass over the approximate restoration of the first three periods. I have given you a scanty abstract of my treatise, which I naturally only look upon as a frame-work. But if the frame-work be right, and of this I feel convinced, if I have discovered the true grooves and the system—then the unfalsified remains of traditions in the Vedas must afford further confirmation. The Kali can be fixed for about 1150/1190 by powerful synchronisms. The three earlier ages can be approximately restored. One thus arrives, by adding 200 + 300 + 120 (=620) to each of the earlier and thus separated periods, to the beginning of the Tretâ (foundation of the Bharata kingdom beginning with Puru). This leads to the following computation.