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Imperial Gazetteer of India, v. 17, p. 101.

HISTORY Toy rather involved accounts, it appears that the tract now known as Mālwā was not so called till the tenth century A. D., or even later. The Brihat Sanhitd, written in the sixth century, does indeed mention a country called Malava; but the name is not applied to the present Maiwa, which is called Avant! in the same work, while its inhabitants were known as Avantikas or Ujjayantikas. The latter country, of which Avant! (Ujjain) was the chief town, comprised the tract lying between the Vindhyas on the south, Jhalrapatan (in Rājputāna) on the north, the Chambal river on the west, and the Parbati on the east. To the east of the Parbati lay the country of Akara, or Eastern Malwā, of which Vidisha, now Bhllsa, was the recognized capital. In the seventh century Mālwā and Ujjain were described as separate principalities by the Chinese traveller Hiuen Tsiang, who placed the former to the west of the latter, possibly in Gujarat. Another branch of the Malavas appears to have occupied the country round Nagaur in Rājputāna, 45 miles north of Kotah, where large numbers of their coins have been found, dating probably from not later than the fourth century A. D. The Malavas seem to have been at first a nomadic tribe composed of separate units, each under its own headman, but subsequently they formed a regular tribal constitution. They also inaugurated an era which has long been in use among Hindus north of the Narbadā, and is now known as the Vikrama Samvat, the initial year corresponding to 57 B. c. Till the tenth century, however, the word Vikrama is never employed with dates given in this era, which are always designated as of the Malava era, the era of the lords of Malavā, or of the tribal constitution of the Malavas. No historical event can be connected with its initial year, or with the adoption of the title Vikrama, which certainly has no connexion with any king of that name living in 57 B.c., as is popularly supposed. All the earliest records in this era come from Rājputāna, north-west of Malwa, and the first inscrip- tion in Malwa proper is that at MANDASOR, dated in the year 443 of the tribal constitution of the Mālavas, or A. D. 436. According to the early Buddhist books, Avantidesa was one of the sixteen powers of India in Buddha's lifetime, its chief town, Ujjain, being important as one of the principal stages on the great route from the Deccan to Nepal, which History. passed through Mahissat! or Mahishmatl; now Maheshwar, and Vidisha or Bhllsa. The Maurya dynasty held Mālwā among their western pro- vinces, Asoka being governor during his father's lifetime, with his head-quarters at Ujjain. On his accession he erected the great stiapa at Sanchl, where a fragment of one of his edicts has been found. Early in the Christian era the Western Satraps extended their rule over Malwa. The Kshatrapa, or Satrap, Chashtana is mentioned by Ptolemy (A.D. x53), who calls him Tiastenos king of Ozene (Ujjain):