THE GREAT ANCIENT EMPIRESShakas wiped out the Indo-Greek kingdoms but largely adopted their
culture with which they had already become familiar in Bactria. The
Shaka kings translated their Iranian title ‘King of Kings’ into Greek
(basileus basileon), used the Greek names of the months and issued coins
in the Indo-Greek style.
A Jaina text of a later period, the Kalakacharyakathanaka, reports that
Kalaka went from Ujjain to the country of the Shakas. Kings were called
Shahi there and the mightiest king was called Shahanu Shahi. Kalaka
stayed with one of those Shahis and when this one, together with ninety-
five others, incurred the displeasure of the Shahanu Shahi, he persuaded
them to go to India. They first came to Saurashtra, but in the autumn they
moved on to Ujjain and conquered that city. The Shahi became the
superior king of that region and thus emerged the dynasty of the Shaka
kings. But some time later the king of Malwa, Vikramaditya, revolted and
defeated the Shakas and became the superior king. He started a new era.
After 135 years, another Shaka king vanquished the dynasty of
Vikramaditya and started another new era.^2
Despite this story of the origins of the two Indian eras, the Vikrama era,
which started in 58 BC and the more important Shaka era beginning in AD
78 (adopted officially by the government of independent India), historians
are still debating the issue. They generally agree that there was no king by
the name Vikramaditya of Malwa. The Vikrama era is now believed to be
connected with the Shaka king, Azes I. The beginning of the Shaka era is
supposed to coincide with the accession to the throne of the great Kushana
emperor, Kanishka, the dates of whose reign are still debated.
In other respects the Jaina text seems to reflect the situation in the
Shaka period of dominance fairly accurately. The Shaka political system
was obviously one of a confederation of chieftains who all had the Persian
title Shahi. The text mentions that there were ninety-five of them. The
Indian and Persian titles were ‘Great King’ (maharaja) and ‘King of Kings’
(shahanu shahi, or, in Sanskrit rajatiraja) which the Shakas assumed may
have reflected their real position rather than an exaggerated image of their
own importance. They were primus inter pares as leaders of tribal
confederations whose chieftains had the title Shahi. The grandiloquent title
‘King of Kings’ which the Shakas introduced into India, following Persian
and Greek precedents, thus implied not a notion of omnipotence but rather
the existence of a large number of fairly autonomous small kings. But the
Shaka kings also appointed provincial governors called Kshatrapas and
Mahakshatrapas (like the Persian satraps), though it is not quite clear how
they fitted into the pattern of a tribal confederation. Perhaps some of
them—particularly the Mahakshatrapas—may have been members of the
royal lineage, but there may also have been local Indian rulers among them
whom one accommodated in this way. Such a network of Kshatrapas may
have served as a counterweight to too powerful tribal chieftains.