been read as "prathame" ("first"). According to these interpretations, the inscription is thus dated in year 61 of the Gupta era, and either the first or the fifth regnal year of Chandragupta. Assuming that the Gupta era starts around 319–320 CE, the beginning of Chandragupta's reign can be dated to either 376–377 CE or 380–381 CE. Falk agrees that the missing letters denote a numerical year, but dismisses Sircar's reading as "mere imagination", pointing out that the missing letters are "abraded beyond recovery". In support of his Kushana era theory, Falk presents four Gupta inscriptions (in chronological order) that mention the term kālānuvarttamāna-saṃvatsare: Falk notes that the "dynastic year" in the table above appears to be a year of the Gupta era. The kālānuvarttamāna year cannot be regnal year, because Chandragupta I is not known to have ruled for as long as 61 years. If we assume "61" of the Mathura pillar inscription denotes a year of the Gupta era (as assumed by Bhandarkar, Sircar and other scholars), we must assume that "15" of the Buddhist image pedestal also denotes a year of the Gupta era: this is obviously incorrect, since Kumaragupta I ruled after Chandragupta II. Scholars K.K. Thaplyal and R.C. Sharma, who studied the Buddhist image pedestal inscription, speculated that the scribe had mistakenly interchanged the years 121 and 15, but Falk calls this assumption unnecessary. According to Falk, the discrepancy can be explained satisfactorily, if we assume that the kālānuvarttamāna era denotes a system that restarts counting after a hundred years. The Yaksha figure inscription is dated to year 112 of the Gupta era (c. 432 CE), which corresponds to the kālānuvarttamāna year 5. Thus, the kālānuvarttamāna era used during Kumaragupta's time must have started in 432-5 = 427 CE. The years mentioned in the Buddhist image pedestal inscription also suggests that the epoch of this era was c. 426-427 CE. Since the kālānuvarttamāna system restarts counting every 100 years, the kālānuvarttamāna era used during the reign of Chandragupta II must have started in 327 CE. Thus, the Mathura inscription can be dated to 327+61 = c. 388 CE. While Falk's theory does not change the Gupta chronology significantly, it implies that the date of the Mathura inscription cannot be used to determine the beginning of Chandragupta's reign. The Sanchi inscription, dated to 412-413 CE (year 93 of the Gupta era), is the last known dated inscription