timeline of Indian dynasty

                                   Dating of Indian Kings after Mahabharatha

 

Dating of Indian rulers are difficult task Various scholars give different date for Mahabharatha war , according to OIT scholar Talageri it is dated around 1500BCE based on Terracotta plaque, the authenticity of which is not established

https://openthemagazine.com/special/new-nepal-terracotta-tablet-predates-mahabharata-harappa-culture/

Another method of dating by scholars is based on genology of rulers of Magadha .

First definite historic date we have is that of Mahanandin (end:345BCE) there are 4 rulers in that dynasty  starting date of shishunaga(413BCE). we have 68 years of rule by Shishunaga dynasty on average a king ruled maximum of 17 years.

Next Haryanka Dynasty ruled from 544BCE to 413BCE which is 131 years , there are 6 kings who are recorded and on average we get 21.8 or 22 years per ruler.

Prior to that there pradyota dynasty from 682BCE to 544BCE that is 138 years information of these rulers are scarce it believed there are 5 rulers and on average they ruled 27.6 years .

Dynasty prior to pradyota is that of vedic dynasty of Brihadratha  there are 24 rulers including brihadratha . Only dates from somadhi(1661BCE) to last king ripunjaya(682BCE) is mention which means only 21 . So date we get is 979 years we get whopping 47 years per king .

Its impossible to believe the time period of rule of a king in Brihadratha dynasty . Generally vedic tradition of Vanaprashta is between 50-74 , If  vanaprashta became prevalent only after 700BCE we dont need to take this into account but Traditional sources speak about it prior to Mahabharatha .

Anyway on average a kings rule rarely exceed 30 years in many case it wont last half of that .

To know how long a dynasty last I had to take Japanese dynasty as reference . Japanese dynasty started around 660BCE and still continues to this day . 128 rulers are documented in which date till kofun king 3 (405AD) looks improbable so if we calculate from 405AD we get 1610 years for 115 kings and we get average of 14 years . If we consider from 600BCE to 2021AD we get total 2680 years and total of 132 kings we get max of 21 years .

The reason we cannot give average 47 years for a king in Magadha because of religious , health and military situation . In case of japan we can assume that there was no usurpers to throne and there was no war . However in case of India pre/post Mahabharata was a period of implosion all over india . Any way we can consider max of 30 year of rule so if there are 24 rulers we could arrive 720 years. We will arrive date of Brihadratha max of 1400BCE . Jarasandha and his son were killed in less than 10 years from each other so we have to deduce 50 and arrive the date to 1350BCE for Mahabharatha war .

Total number of rulers from Bhrihadratha to nanda there are 39 documented rulers ruling Magadha for 1000 years prior to Nanda .