ut unscientific intuitions. Some would have us
believe that the Samvat era "is not demonstrable for times anteceding
the Christian era at all." Kern makes efforts to prove that the Indian
astronomers began to employ this era "only after the year of grace
1000." Prof. Weber, referring sarcastically to General Cunningham,
observes that "others, on the contrary, have no hesitation in at once
referring, wherever possible, every Samvat or Samvatsare-dated
inscription to the Samvat era." Thus, e.g., Cunningham (in his "Arch.
Survey of India," iii. 31, 39) directly assigns an inscription dated
Samvat 5 to the year "B.C. 52," &c., and winds up the statement with the
following plaint: "For the present, therefore, unfortunately, where
there is nothing else (but that unknown era) to guide us, it must
generally remain an open question, which era we have to do with in a
particular inscription, and what date consequently the inscription
bears." *

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* Op. cit., p. 203.
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The confession is significant. It is pleasant to find such a ring of
sincerity in a European Orientalist, though it does seem quite ominous
for Indian archeology. The initiated Brahmans know the positive dates
of their eras and remain therefore unconcerned. What the "Adepts" have
once said, they maintain; and no new discoveries or modified conjectures
of accepted authorities can exert any pressure upon their data. Even if
Western archeologists or numismatists took it into their heads to change
the date of our Lord and Glorified Deliverer from the 7th century "B.C."
to the 7th century "A.D.," we would but the more admire such a
remarkable gift for knocking about dates and eras, as though they were
so many lawn-tennis balls.

Meanwhile, to all sincere and inquiring Theosophists, we will say
plainly, it is useless for any one to speculate about the date of our
Lord Sanggyas's birth, while rejecting a priori all the Brahmanical,
Ceylonese, Chinese, and Tibetan dates. The pretext that these do not
agree with the chronology of a handful of Greeks who visited the country
300 years after the event in question, is too fallacious and bold.
Greece was never concerned with Buddhism, and besides the fact that the
classics furnish their few synchronistic dates simply upon the hearsay
of their respective authors--a few Greeks, who themselves lived
centuries before the writers quoted--their chronology is itself too
defective, and their historical record