Chapter 21

(C. J. L.)

1Urdūis a Turkish word meaning a camp or army with its followers, and is the origin of the European wordhorde.Rēkhtameans “scattered, strewn,” referring to the way in which Persian words are intermixed with those of Indian origin; it is used chiefly for the literary form of Urdū.2The only known exceptions are a work in Hindī called theChaurāsī Vārtā(mentioned below) and a few commentaries on poems; the latter can scarcely be called literature.3A fresh critical edition of the text by Paṇḍit Mōhan Lāl Vishnu Lāl Paṇḍia at Benares, under the auspices of theNāgarī Prachārinī Sabhā, had reached canto xxiv. in 1907.4SeeJ.A.S.B.(1886), pp. 6 sqq.5Annals and Antiquities, ii. 452 n. and 472 n.6Worshippers of the energic power—Śaktī—of Śiva, represented by his consort Pārvatī or Bhawāní.7Quoted from G. A. Grierson, chapter on “Literature,” in theIndia Gazetteer(ed. 1907).8The worship of Krishna is as old as Megasthenes (about 300B.C.), who calls him Herakles, and was then, as now, located at Mathurā on the Jumna river. That of Rāma is probably still more ancient; the name occurs in stories of the Buddha.9Religious Sects of the Hindus, p. 40.10This name of Krishna, which means “He who quits the battle,” is connected with the story of the transfer of the Yādava clan from Mathurā to the new capital on the coast of the peninsula of Kāthiawār, the city of Dwārāka. This migration was the result of an invasion of Braj by Jarāsandha, king of Magadhā, before whom Krishna resolved to retreat. As his path southwards took him through Rajpūtānā and Gujarāt, it is in these regions that his form Raṇchhōṛ is most generally venerated as a symbol of the shifting of the centre of divine life from Gangetic to southern India.11In theGranthNāmdēo is called a calico-printer,Chhīpī. The Marāthi tradition is that he was a tailor,Shimpī; it is probable that the latter word, being unknown in northern India, has been wrongly rendered by the former.12It will be remembered that Akbar’s reign was remarkable for the translation into Persian of a large number of Sanskrit works of religion and philosophy, most of the versions being made by, or in the names of, members of his court.13Religious Sects, p. 132.14Amīr Khusrau is credited with the authorship of many still popular rhymes, riddles or punning verses (calledpahēlīsandmukurīs); but these, though often containing Persian words, are in Hindī and scanned according to the prosody of that language; they are, therefore, like Malik Muḥammad’sPadmāwat, not Urdū or Rekhta verse (see Professor Āzād’sĀbi-Ḥayāt, pp. 72-76). A late Dakkhanī poet who used thetakkalluṣof Sa’dī is said by Āzād (p. 79) to have been confused by Mīrzā Rafī‘us-Saudā in hisTazkirawith Sa’dī of Shīrāz.15An exception may be made to this general statement in favour of thegenrepictures of city and country life contained in themasnavīsof Saudā and Naẕīr. These are often satires (in the vein of Horace rather than Juvenal), and are full of interest as pictures of society. In Saudā, however, the conventional language used in description is often Persian rather than Indian.16To be carefully distinguished from the reformer of the same name who flourished half a century later.

1Urdūis a Turkish word meaning a camp or army with its followers, and is the origin of the European wordhorde.Rēkhtameans “scattered, strewn,” referring to the way in which Persian words are intermixed with those of Indian origin; it is used chiefly for the literary form of Urdū.

2The only known exceptions are a work in Hindī called theChaurāsī Vārtā(mentioned below) and a few commentaries on poems; the latter can scarcely be called literature.

3A fresh critical edition of the text by Paṇḍit Mōhan Lāl Vishnu Lāl Paṇḍia at Benares, under the auspices of theNāgarī Prachārinī Sabhā, had reached canto xxiv. in 1907.

4SeeJ.A.S.B.(1886), pp. 6 sqq.

5Annals and Antiquities, ii. 452 n. and 472 n.

6Worshippers of the energic power—Śaktī—of Śiva, represented by his consort Pārvatī or Bhawāní.

7Quoted from G. A. Grierson, chapter on “Literature,” in theIndia Gazetteer(ed. 1907).

8The worship of Krishna is as old as Megasthenes (about 300B.C.), who calls him Herakles, and was then, as now, located at Mathurā on the Jumna river. That of Rāma is probably still more ancient; the name occurs in stories of the Buddha.

9Religious Sects of the Hindus, p. 40.

10This name of Krishna, which means “He who quits the battle,” is connected with the story of the transfer of the Yādava clan from Mathurā to the new capital on the coast of the peninsula of Kāthiawār, the city of Dwārāka. This migration was the result of an invasion of Braj by Jarāsandha, king of Magadhā, before whom Krishna resolved to retreat. As his path southwards took him through Rajpūtānā and Gujarāt, it is in these regions that his form Raṇchhōṛ is most generally venerated as a symbol of the shifting of the centre of divine life from Gangetic to southern India.

11In theGranthNāmdēo is called a calico-printer,Chhīpī. The Marāthi tradition is that he was a tailor,Shimpī; it is probable that the latter word, being unknown in northern India, has been wrongly rendered by the former.

12It will be remembered that Akbar’s reign was remarkable for the translation into Persian of a large number of Sanskrit works of religion and philosophy, most of the versions being made by, or in the names of, members of his court.

13Religious Sects, p. 132.

14Amīr Khusrau is credited with the authorship of many still popular rhymes, riddles or punning verses (calledpahēlīsandmukurīs); but these, though often containing Persian words, are in Hindī and scanned according to the prosody of that language; they are, therefore, like Malik Muḥammad’sPadmāwat, not Urdū or Rekhta verse (see Professor Āzād’sĀbi-Ḥayāt, pp. 72-76). A late Dakkhanī poet who used thetakkalluṣof Sa’dī is said by Āzād (p. 79) to have been confused by Mīrzā Rafī‘us-Saudā in hisTazkirawith Sa’dī of Shīrāz.

15An exception may be made to this general statement in favour of thegenrepictures of city and country life contained in themasnavīsof Saudā and Naẕīr. These are often satires (in the vein of Horace rather than Juvenal), and are full of interest as pictures of society. In Saudā, however, the conventional language used in description is often Persian rather than Indian.

16To be carefully distinguished from the reformer of the same name who flourished half a century later.

HINDU CHRONOLOGY.The subject of Hindu chronology divides naturally into three parts: the calendar, the eras, and other reckonings.

I. The Calendar

The Hindus have had from very ancient times the system of lunisolar cycles, made by the combination of solar years, regulated by the course of the sun, and lunar years, regulated by the course of the moon, but treated in such a manner as to keep the beginning of the lunar year near the beginning of the solar year. The exact manner in which they arranged the details of their earliest calendar is still a subject of research. We deal here with their calendar as it now stands, in a form which was developed from aboutA.D.400 under the influence of the Greek astronomy which had been introduced into India at no very long time previously.

The Hindu calendar, then, is determined by years of two kinds, solar and lunar. For civil purposes, solar years are used in Bengal, including Orissa, and in the Tamil and Malayāḷam districts of Madras, and lunar years throughout the rest of India. But the lunar year regulates everywhere the general religious rites and festivals, and the details of private and domestic life, such as the selection of auspicious occasions for marriages and for starting on journeys, the choice of lucky moments for shaving, and so on. Consequently, the details of the lunar year are shown even in the almanacs which follow the solar year. On the other hand, certain details of the solar year, such as the course of the sun through the signs and other divisions of the zodiac, are shown in the almanacs which follow the lunar year. We will treat the solar year first, because it governs the lunisolar system, and the explanation of it will greatly simplify the process of explaining the lunar calendar.

The civil solar year is determined by the astronomical solar year. The latter professes to begin at the vernal equinox, but the actual position is as follows. In our Western astronomy the signs of the zodiac have, in consequenceThe astronomical solar year.of the precession of the equinoxes, drawn away to a large extent from the constellations from which they derived their names; with the result that the sun now comes to the vernal equinox, at the first point of the sign Aries, not in the constellation Aries, but at a point in Pisces, about 28 degrees before the beginning of Aries. The Hindus, however, have disregarded precession in connexion with their calendar from the time (A.D.499, 522, or 527, according to different schools) when, by their system, the signs coincided with the constellations; and their sign Aries, called Mēsha by them, is still their constellation Aries, beginning, according to them, at or near the star ζ Piscium. Their astronomical solar year is, in fact, not the tropical year, in the course of which the sun really passes from one vernal equinox to the next, but a sidereal year, the period during which the earth makes one revolution in its orbit round the sun with reference to the first point of Mēsha; its beginning is the moment of the Mēsha-saṁkrānti, the entrance of the sun into the sidereal sign Mēsha, instead of the tropical sign Aries; and it begins, not with the true equinox, but with an artificial or nominal equinox.

The length of this sidereal solar year was determined in the following manner. The astronomer selected what the Greeks termed anexeligmos, the Romans anannus magnusormundanus, a period in the course of which a given order of things is completed by the sun, moon, and planets returning to a state of conjunction from which they have started. The usual Hinduexeligmoshas been the Great Age of 4,320,000 sidereal solar years, the aggregate of the Kṛita or golden age, the Trētā or silver age, the Dvāpara or brazen age, and the Kali or iron age, in which we now are; but it has sometimes been the Kalpa or aeon, consisting according to one view of 1000, according to another view of 1008, Great Ages. He then laid down the number of revolutions, in the period of hisexeligmos, of thenakshatras, certain stars and groups of stars which will be noticed more definitely in our account of the lunar year; that is, the number of rotations of the earth on its axis, or, in other words, the number of sidereal days. A deduction of the number of the years from the number of the sidereal days gave, as remainder, the number of civil days in theexeligmos. And, this remainder being divided by the number of the years, the quotient gave the length of the sidereal solar year: refinements, suggested by experience, inference, or extraneous information, were made by increasing or decreasing the number of sidereal days assigned to theexeligmos. The Hindus now recognize three standard sidereal solar years determined in that manner. (1) A year of 365 days 6 hrs. 12 min. 30 sec. according to theĀryabhaṭīya, otherwise called theFirst Ārya-Siddhānta, which was written by the astronomer Āryabhaṭa (b.A.D.476): this year is used in the Tamil and Malayāḷam districts, and, we may add, in Ceylon. (2) A year of 365 days 6 hrs. 12 min. 30.915 sec. according to theRājamṛigā ka, a treatise based on theBrāhma-Siddhāntaof Brahmagupta (b.A.D.598) and attributed to king Bhōja, of which the epoch, the point of time used in it for calculations, falls inA.D.1042: this year is used in parts of Gujarāt (Bombay) and in Rājputānā and other western parts of Northern India. (3) A year of 365 days 6 hrs. 12 min. 36.56 sec. according to the presentSūrya-Siddhānta, a work of unknown authorship which dates from probably aboutA.D.1000: this year is used in almost all the other parts of India. It may be remarked that, according to modern science, the true mean sidereal solar year measures 365 days 6 hrs. 9 min. 9.6 sec., and the mean tropical year measures 365 days 5 hrs. 48 min. 46.054440 sec.

The result of the use of this sidereal solar year is that the beginning of the Hindu astronomical solar year, and with it the civil solar year and the lunar year and the nominal incidence of the seasons, has always been, and still is, travelling slowly forward in our calendar year by an amount which varies according to the particular authority.1For instance, Āryabhaṭa’s year exceeds the Julian year by 12 min. 30 sec. This amounts to exactly one day in 1151⁄5years, and five days in 576 years. Thus, if we take the longer period and confine ourselves to a time when the Julian calendar (old style) was in use, according to Āryabhaṭa the Mēsha-saṁkrānti began to occur inA.D.603 on 20th March, and inA.D.1179 on 25th March. The intermediate advances arrange themselves into four steps of one day each in 116 years, followed by one step of one day in 112 years: thus, the Mēsha-saṁkrānti began to occur on 21st March inA.D.719, on 22nd March inA.D.835, on 23rd March inA.D.951, and on 24th March inA.D.1067 (whence 112 years take us to 25th March inA.D.1179). It is now occurring sometimes on 11th April, sometimes on the 12th; having first come to the 12th inA.D.1871.

The civil solar year exists in more varieties than one. The principal variety, conveniently called the Mēshādi year,i.e.“the year beginning at the Mēsha-saṁkrānti,” is the only one that we need notice at this point. TheThe civil solar year.beginning of it is determined directly by the astronomical solar year; and for religious purposes it begins, with that year, at the moment of the Mēsha-saṁkrānti. Its first civil day, however, may be either the day on which thesaṁkrāntioccurs, or the next day, or even the day after that: this is determined partly by the time of day or night at which thesaṁkrāntioccurs, which, moreover, of course varies in accordance with the locality as well as the particular authority that is followed; partly by differing details of practice in different parts of the country. In these circumstances an exact equivalent of the Mēshādi civil solar year cannot be stated; but it may be taken as now beginning on or closely about the 12th of April.

The solar year is divided into twelve months, in accordance with the successivesaṁkrāntisor entrances of the sun into the (sidereal) signs of the zodiac, which, as with us, are twelve in number. The names of the signs in Sanskṛit are asThe solar month.follows: Mēsha, the ram (Aries); Vṛishabha, the bull (Taurus); Mithuna, the pair, the twins (Gemini); Karka, Karkaṭa, Karkaṭaka, the crab (Cancer); Siṁha, the lion (Leo); Kanyā, the maiden (Virgo); Tulā, the scales (Libra); Vṛiśchika, the scorpion (Scorpio); Dhanus, the bow (Sagittarius); Makara, the sea-monster (Capricornus); Kumbha, the water-pot (Aquarius); and Mīna, the fishes (Pisces). The solar months are known in some parts by the names of the signs or by corrupted forms of them; and these are the best names for them for general use, because they lead to no confusion. But they have elsewhere another set of names, preserving the connexion of them with the lunar months: the Sanskṛit forms of these names are Chaitra, Vaiśākha, Jyaishṭha, Āshāḍha, Śrāvaṇa, Bhādrapada, Āśvina or Āśvayuja, Kārttika, Mārgaśira or Mārgaśīrsha (also known as Agrahāyaṇa), Pausha, Māgha, and Phālguna: in some localities these names are used in corrupted forms, and in others vernacular names are substituted for some of them; and, while in some parts the name Chaitra is attached to the month Mēsha, in other parts it is attached to the month Mīna, and so on throughout the series in each case. The astronomical solar month runs from the moment of onesaṁkrāntiof the sun to the moment of the nextsaṁkrānti; and, as the signs of the Hindu zodiac are all of equal length, 30 degrees, as with us, while the speed of the sun (the motion of the earth in its orbit round the sun) varies according to the time of the year, the length of the month is variable: the shortest month is Dhanus; thelongest is Mithuna. The civil solar month begins with its first civil day, which is determined, in different localities, in the same manner with the first civil day of the Mēshādi year, as indicated above. The civil month is of variable length; partly for that reason, partly because of the variation in the length of the astronomical month. No exact equivalents of the civil months, therefore, can be stated; but, speaking approximately, we may say that, while the month Mēsha now begins on or closely about 12th April, the beginning of a subsequent month may come as late as the 16th day of the English month in which it falls.The solar year is also divided into six seasons, the Sanskrit names of which are Vasanta, spring; Grīshma, the hot weather; Varshā, the rainy season; Śarad, autumn; Hēmanta, the cold weather; and Śiśira, the dewy season. Vasanta beginsThe seasons.at the Mīna-saṁkrānti; the other seasons begin at each successive secondsaṁkrāntifrom that. Originally, this scheme was laid out with reference to the true course of the sun, and the starting-point of it was the real winter solstice, with Śiśira, as the first season, beginning then; now, owing partly to the disregard of precession, partly to our introduction of New Style, each season comes about three weeks too late; Vasanta begins on or about 12th March, instead of 19th or 20th February, and so on with the rest. It may be added that in early times the year was also divided into three or four, and even into five or seven, seasons; and there appears to have been also a practice of reckoning the seasons according to the lunar months, which, however, would only give a very varying arrangement, in addition to neglecting the point that the seasons are naturally determined by the course of the sun, not of the moon. But there is now recognized only the division into six seasons, determined as stated above.The solar year is also divided into two parts called Uttarāyaṇa, the period during which the sun is moving to the north, and Dakshiṇāyana, the period during which it is moving to the south. The Uttarāyaṇa begins at the nominal winter solstice,The solstitial divisions of the year.as marked by the Makara-saṁkrānti; and the day on which this solstice occurs, usually 12th January at present, is still a special occasion of festivity and rejoicing; the Dakshiṇāyana begins at the nominal summer solstice, as marked by the Karka-saṁkrānti. It may be added here that, while the Hindus disregard precession in the actual computation of their years and the regulation of their calendar, they pay attention to it in certain other respects, and notably as regards the solstices: the precessional solstices are looked upon as auspicious occasions, as well as the non-precessional solstices, and are customarily shown in the almanacs; and some of the almanacs show also the other precessionalsaṁkrāntisof the sun.The civil days of the solar month begin at sunrise. They areThe civil day.numbered 1, 2, 3, &c., in unbroken succession to the end of the month. And, the length of the month being variable for the reasons stated above, the number of the civil days may range from twenty-nine to thirty-two.The civil days are named after the weekdays, of which the usual appellations (there are various synonyms in each case, and some of the names are used in corrupted forms) are in Sanskrit Ādityavāra or Ravivāra, the day of the sun, sometimes called Ādivāra, the beginning-day (Sunday); Sōmavāra,The weekday.the day of the moon (Monday); Maṅgalavāra, the day of Mars (Tuesday); Budhavāra, the day of Mercury (Wednesday); Bṛihas-pativāra or Guruvāra, the day of Jupiter (Thursday); Sukravāra, the day of Venus (Friday); and Śanivāra, the day of Saturn (Saturday). It may be mentioned, as a matter of archaeological interest, that, while some of the astronomical books perhaps postulate an earlier knowledge of the “lords of the days,” and other writings indicate a still earlier use of the period of seven days, the first proved instance of the use of the name of a weekday is of the yearA.D.484, and is furnished by an inscription in the Saugor district, Central India.The divisions of the civil day, as far as we need note them, are 60vipalas= 1pala= 24 seconds; 60palas= 1ghaṭikā= 24 minutes;Divisions of the day.60ghaṭikās= 24 hours = 1 day. There is also themuhūrta= 2ghaṭikās= 48 minutes: this is the nearest approach to the “hour.” The comparative value of these measures of time may perhaps be best illustrated thus: 2½muhūrtas= 2 hours; 2½ghaṭikās= 1 hour; 2½palas= 1 minute; 2½vipalas= 1 second.As their civil day begins at sunrise, the Hindus naturally count all their times, inghaṭikāsandpalas, from that moment. But the moment is a varying one, though not in India to anything like the extent to which it is so in EuropeanCivil time.latitudes; and under the British Government the Hindus have recognized the advantage, and in fact the necessity, especially in connexion with their lunar calendar, of having a convenient means of referring their own times to the time which prevails officially. Consequently, some of the almanacs have adopted the European practice of showing the time of sunrise, in hours and minutes, from midnight; and some of them add the time of sunset from noon.

The solar year is divided into twelve months, in accordance with the successivesaṁkrāntisor entrances of the sun into the (sidereal) signs of the zodiac, which, as with us, are twelve in number. The names of the signs in Sanskṛit are asThe solar month.follows: Mēsha, the ram (Aries); Vṛishabha, the bull (Taurus); Mithuna, the pair, the twins (Gemini); Karka, Karkaṭa, Karkaṭaka, the crab (Cancer); Siṁha, the lion (Leo); Kanyā, the maiden (Virgo); Tulā, the scales (Libra); Vṛiśchika, the scorpion (Scorpio); Dhanus, the bow (Sagittarius); Makara, the sea-monster (Capricornus); Kumbha, the water-pot (Aquarius); and Mīna, the fishes (Pisces). The solar months are known in some parts by the names of the signs or by corrupted forms of them; and these are the best names for them for general use, because they lead to no confusion. But they have elsewhere another set of names, preserving the connexion of them with the lunar months: the Sanskṛit forms of these names are Chaitra, Vaiśākha, Jyaishṭha, Āshāḍha, Śrāvaṇa, Bhādrapada, Āśvina or Āśvayuja, Kārttika, Mārgaśira or Mārgaśīrsha (also known as Agrahāyaṇa), Pausha, Māgha, and Phālguna: in some localities these names are used in corrupted forms, and in others vernacular names are substituted for some of them; and, while in some parts the name Chaitra is attached to the month Mēsha, in other parts it is attached to the month Mīna, and so on throughout the series in each case. The astronomical solar month runs from the moment of onesaṁkrāntiof the sun to the moment of the nextsaṁkrānti; and, as the signs of the Hindu zodiac are all of equal length, 30 degrees, as with us, while the speed of the sun (the motion of the earth in its orbit round the sun) varies according to the time of the year, the length of the month is variable: the shortest month is Dhanus; thelongest is Mithuna. The civil solar month begins with its first civil day, which is determined, in different localities, in the same manner with the first civil day of the Mēshādi year, as indicated above. The civil month is of variable length; partly for that reason, partly because of the variation in the length of the astronomical month. No exact equivalents of the civil months, therefore, can be stated; but, speaking approximately, we may say that, while the month Mēsha now begins on or closely about 12th April, the beginning of a subsequent month may come as late as the 16th day of the English month in which it falls.

The solar year is also divided into six seasons, the Sanskrit names of which are Vasanta, spring; Grīshma, the hot weather; Varshā, the rainy season; Śarad, autumn; Hēmanta, the cold weather; and Śiśira, the dewy season. Vasanta beginsThe seasons.at the Mīna-saṁkrānti; the other seasons begin at each successive secondsaṁkrāntifrom that. Originally, this scheme was laid out with reference to the true course of the sun, and the starting-point of it was the real winter solstice, with Śiśira, as the first season, beginning then; now, owing partly to the disregard of precession, partly to our introduction of New Style, each season comes about three weeks too late; Vasanta begins on or about 12th March, instead of 19th or 20th February, and so on with the rest. It may be added that in early times the year was also divided into three or four, and even into five or seven, seasons; and there appears to have been also a practice of reckoning the seasons according to the lunar months, which, however, would only give a very varying arrangement, in addition to neglecting the point that the seasons are naturally determined by the course of the sun, not of the moon. But there is now recognized only the division into six seasons, determined as stated above.

The solar year is also divided into two parts called Uttarāyaṇa, the period during which the sun is moving to the north, and Dakshiṇāyana, the period during which it is moving to the south. The Uttarāyaṇa begins at the nominal winter solstice,The solstitial divisions of the year.as marked by the Makara-saṁkrānti; and the day on which this solstice occurs, usually 12th January at present, is still a special occasion of festivity and rejoicing; the Dakshiṇāyana begins at the nominal summer solstice, as marked by the Karka-saṁkrānti. It may be added here that, while the Hindus disregard precession in the actual computation of their years and the regulation of their calendar, they pay attention to it in certain other respects, and notably as regards the solstices: the precessional solstices are looked upon as auspicious occasions, as well as the non-precessional solstices, and are customarily shown in the almanacs; and some of the almanacs show also the other precessionalsaṁkrāntisof the sun.

The civil days of the solar month begin at sunrise. They areThe civil day.numbered 1, 2, 3, &c., in unbroken succession to the end of the month. And, the length of the month being variable for the reasons stated above, the number of the civil days may range from twenty-nine to thirty-two.

The civil days are named after the weekdays, of which the usual appellations (there are various synonyms in each case, and some of the names are used in corrupted forms) are in Sanskrit Ādityavāra or Ravivāra, the day of the sun, sometimes called Ādivāra, the beginning-day (Sunday); Sōmavāra,The weekday.the day of the moon (Monday); Maṅgalavāra, the day of Mars (Tuesday); Budhavāra, the day of Mercury (Wednesday); Bṛihas-pativāra or Guruvāra, the day of Jupiter (Thursday); Sukravāra, the day of Venus (Friday); and Śanivāra, the day of Saturn (Saturday). It may be mentioned, as a matter of archaeological interest, that, while some of the astronomical books perhaps postulate an earlier knowledge of the “lords of the days,” and other writings indicate a still earlier use of the period of seven days, the first proved instance of the use of the name of a weekday is of the yearA.D.484, and is furnished by an inscription in the Saugor district, Central India.

The divisions of the civil day, as far as we need note them, are 60vipalas= 1pala= 24 seconds; 60palas= 1ghaṭikā= 24 minutes;Divisions of the day.60ghaṭikās= 24 hours = 1 day. There is also themuhūrta= 2ghaṭikās= 48 minutes: this is the nearest approach to the “hour.” The comparative value of these measures of time may perhaps be best illustrated thus: 2½muhūrtas= 2 hours; 2½ghaṭikās= 1 hour; 2½palas= 1 minute; 2½vipalas= 1 second.

As their civil day begins at sunrise, the Hindus naturally count all their times, inghaṭikāsandpalas, from that moment. But the moment is a varying one, though not in India to anything like the extent to which it is so in EuropeanCivil time.latitudes; and under the British Government the Hindus have recognized the advantage, and in fact the necessity, especially in connexion with their lunar calendar, of having a convenient means of referring their own times to the time which prevails officially. Consequently, some of the almanacs have adopted the European practice of showing the time of sunrise, in hours and minutes, from midnight; and some of them add the time of sunset from noon.

The lunar year consists primarily of twelve lunations or lunar months, of which the present Sanskṛit names, generally used in more or less corrupted forms, are Chaitra, Vaiśākha, &c., to Phālguna, as given above in connexion with the solarThe lunar year.months. It is of two principal varieties, according as it begins with a certain day in the month Chaitra, or with the corresponding day in Kārttika: the former variety is conveniently known as the Chaitrādi year; the latter as the Kārttikādi year. For religious purposes the lunar year begins with its first lunar day: for civil purposes it begins with its first civil day, the relation of which to the lunar day will be explained below. Owing to the manner in which, as we shall explain, the beginning of the lunar year is always shifting backwards and forwards, it is not practicable to lay down any close equivalents for comparison: but an indication may be given as follows. The first civil day of the Chaitrādi year is the day after the new-moon conjunction which occurs next after the entrance of the sun into Mīna, and it now falls from about 13th March to about 11th April: the first civil day of the Kārttikādi year is the first day after the new-moon conjunction which occurs next after the entrance of the sun into Tulā, and it now falls from about 17th October to about 15th November.

The present names of the lunar months, indicated above, were derived from thenakshatras, which are certain conspicuous stars and groups of stars lying more or less along the neighbourhood of the ecliptic. Thenakshatrasare regardedThe lunar month.sometimes as twenty-seven in number, sometimes as twenty-eight, and are grouped in twelve sets of two or three each, beginning, according to the earlier arrangement of the list, with the pair Kṛittikā and Rōhiṇī, and including in the sixth place Chitrā and Svāti, and ending with the triplet Rēvatī, Aśvinī and Bharaṇī. They are sometimes styled lunar mansions, and are sometimes spoken of as the signs of the lunar zodiac; and it is, no doubt, chiefly in connexion with the moon that they are now taken into consideration. But they mark divisions of the ecliptic: according to one system, twenty-seven divisions, each of 13 degrees 20 minutes; according to two other systems, twenty-seven or twenty-eight unequal divisions, which we need not explain here. The almanacs show the course of the sun through them, as well as the course of the moon; and the course of the sun was marked by them only, before the time when the Hindus began to use the twelve signs of the solar zodiac. So there is nothing exclusively lunar about them. The present names of the lunar months were derived from thenakshatrasin the following manner: the full-moon which occurred when the moon was in conjunction with Chitrā (the star α Virginis) was named Chaitrī, and the lunar month, which contained the Chaitrī full-moon, was named Chaitra; and so on with the others. The present names have superseded another set of names which were at one time in use concurrently with them; these other names are Madhu (= Chaitra), Mādhava, Śukra, Śuchi, Nabhas, Nabhasya, Isha, Ūrja (= Kārttika), Sahas, Sahasya, Tapas, and Tapasya (= Phālguna): they seem to have marked originally solar season-months of the solar year, rather than lunar months of the lunar year.A lunar month may be regarded as ending either with the new-moon, which is calledamāvāsyā, or with the full-moon, which is calledpūrṇamāsī,pūrṇimā: a month of the former kind is termedamānta, “ending with the new-moon,” orśuklādi, “beginning with the bright fortnight;” a month of the latter kind is termed pūrṇimānta, “ending with the full-moon,” orkṛishṇādi, “beginning with the dark fortnight.” For all purposes of the calendar, theamāntamonth is used in Southern India, and thepūrṇimāntamonth in Northern India. But only theamāntamonth, the period of the synodic revolution of the moon, is recognized in Hindu astronomy, and for the purpose of naming the lunations and adjusting the lunar to the solar year by the intercalation and suppression of lunar months; and the rule is that the lunar Chaitra is theamāntaor synodic month at the first moment of which the sun is in the sign Mīna, and in the course of which the sun enters Mēsha: the other months follow in the same way; and the lunar Kārttika is theamāntamonth at the first moment of which the sun is in Tulā, and in the course of which the sun enters Vṛiśchika. The connexion between the lunar and the solar months is maintained by the point that the name Chaitra is applied according to one practice to the solar Mīna, in which the lunar Chaitra begins, and according to another practice to the solar Mēsha, in which the lunar Chaitra ends. Like the lunar year, the lunar month begins for religious purposes with its first lunar day, and for civil purposes with its first civil day.One mean lunar year of twelve lunations measures very nearly 354 days 8 hrs. 48 min. 34 sec.; and one Hindu solar year measures 365 days 6 hrs. 12 min. 30 sec. according to Āryabhaṭa, or slightly more according to the other two authorities. Consequently, theIntercalation and suppression of lunar months.beginning of a lunar year pure and simple would be always travelling backwards through the solar year, by about eleven days oneach occasion, and would in course of time recede entirely through the solar year, as it does in the Mahommedan calendar. The Hindus prevent that in the following manner. The length of the Hindu astronomical solar month, measured by thesaṁkrāntisof the sun, its successive entrances into the signs of the zodiac, ranges, in accordance with periodical variations in the speed of the sun, from about 29 days 7 hrs. 38 min. up to about 31 days 15 hrs. 28 min. The length of theamāntaor synodic lunar month ranges, in accordance with periodical variations in the speed of the moon and the sun, from about 29 days 19 hrs. 30 min. down to about 29 days 7 hrs. 20 min. Consequently, it happens from time to time that there are two new-moon conjunctions, so that two lunations begin, in one astronomical solar month, between twosaṁkrāntisof the sun, while the sun is in one and the same sign of the zodiac, and there is nosaṁkrāntiin the lunation ending with the second new-moon: when this is the case, there are two lunations to which the same name is applicable, and so there is an additional or intercalated month, in the sense that a name is repeated: thus, when two new-moons occur while the sun is in Mēsha, the lunation ending with the first of them, during which the sun has entered Mēsha, is Chaitra; the next lunation, in which there is nosaṁkrānti, is Vāiśākha, because it begins when the sun is in Mēsha; and the next lunation after that is again Vaiśākha, for the same reason, and also because the sun enters Vṛishabha in the course of it: in these circumstances, the first of the two Vaiśākhas is called Adhika-Vaiśākha, “the additional or intercalated Vaiśākha,” and the second is called simply Vaiśākha, or sometimes Nija-Vaiśākha, “the natural Vaiśākha.” On the other hand, it occasionally happens, in an autumn or winter month, that there are twosaṁkrāntisof the sun in one and the sameamāntaor synodic lunar month, between two new-moon conjunctions, so that no lunation begins between the twosaṁkrāntis: when this is the case, there is one lunation to which two names are applicable, and there is a suppressed month, in the sense that a name is omitted: thus, if the sun enters both Dhanus and Makara during one synodic lunation, that lunation is Mārgaśira, because the sun was in Vṛiśchika at the first moment of it and enters Dhanus in the course of it;2the next lunation is Māgha, because the sun is in Makara by the time when it begins and will enter Kumbha in the course of it; and the name Pausha, between Mārgaśira and Māgha, is omitted. When a month is thus suppressed, there is always one intercalated month, and sometimes two, in the same Chaitrādi lunar year, so that the lunar year never contains less than twelve months, and from time to time consists of thirteen months. There are normally seven intercalated months, rising to eight when a month is suppressed, in 19 solar years, which equal very nearly 235 lunations;3and there is never less than one year without an intercalated month between two years with intercalated months, except when there is only one such month in a year in which a month is suppressed; then there is always an intercalated month in the next year also. The suppression of a month takes place at intervals of 19 years and upwards, regarding which no definite statement can conveniently be made here. It may be added that an intercalated Chaitra or Kārttika takes the place of the ordinary month as the first month of the year; an intercalated month is not rejected for that purpose, though it is tabooed from the religious and auspicious points of view.The manner in which this arrangement of intercalated and suppressed months works out, so as to prevent the beginning of the Chaitrādi lunar year departing far from the beginning of the Mēshādi solar year, may be illustrated as follows. InA.D.1815 the Mēsha-saṁkrānti occurred on 11th April; and the first civil day of the Chaitrādi year was 10th April. InA.D.1816 and 1817 the first civil day of the Chaitrādi year fell back to 29th March and 18th March. InA.D.1817, however, there was an intercalated month, Śrāvaṇa; with the result that inA.D.1818 the first civil day of the Chaitrādi year advanced to 6th April. And, after various shiftings of the same kind—including inA.D.1822 an intercalation of Āśvina and a suppression of Pausha, followed inA.D.1823, when the first civil day of the Chaitrādi year had fallen back to 13th March, by an intercalation of Chaitra itself—inA.D.1834, when the Mēsha-saṁkrānti occurred again on 11th April, the first civil day of the Chaitrādi year was again 10th April.The lunar month is divided into two fortnights (paksha), called bright and dark, or, in Indian terms,śuklaorśuddha,śudi,sudi, andkṛishṇaorbahula,badi,vadi: the bright fortnight,śukla-paksha, is the period of the waxing moon, endingThe lunar fortnight.at the full-moon; the dark fortnight,kṛishṇa-paksha, is the period of the waning moon, ending at the new-moon. In theamāntaorśuklādimonth, the bright fortnight precedes the dark; in thepūrṇimāntaorkṛishṇādimonth, the dark fortnight comes first; and the result is that, whereas, for instance, the bright fortnight of Chaitra is the same period of time throughout India, the preceding dark fortnight is known in Northern India as the dark fortnight of Chaitra, but in Southern India as the dark fortnight of Phālguna. This, however, does not affect the period covered by the lunar year; the Chaitrādi and Kārttikādi years begin everywhere with the bright fortnight of Chaitra and Kārttika respectively; simply, by theamāntasystem the dark fortnights of Chaitra and Kārttika are the second fortnights, and by thepūrṇimāntasystem they are the last fortnights, of the years. Like the month, the fortnight begins for religious purposes with its first lunar day, and for civil purposes with its first civil day.The lunar fortnights are divided each into fifteen tithis or lunar days.4Thetithiis the time in which the moon increases her distance from the sun round the circle by twelve degrees; and the almanacs show eachtithiby its ending-time; that is,The lunar day.by the moment, expressed inghaṭikāsandpalas, after sunrise, at which the moon completes that distance. In accordance with that, thetithiis usually used and cited with the weekday on which it ends; but there are special rules regarding certain rites, festivals, &c., which sometimes require thetithito be used and cited with the weekday on which it begins or is current at a particular time. The firsttithiof each fortnight begins immediately after the moment of new-moon and full-moon respectively; the lasttithiends at the moment of full-moon and new-moon. Thetithisare primarily denoted by the numbers 1, 2, 3, &c., for each fortnight; but, while the full-moontithiis always numbered 15, the new-moontithiis generally numbered 30, even where thepūrṇimāntamonth is used. Thetithismay be cited either by their figures or by the Sanskṛit ordinal wordsprathamā, “first,”dvitīyā, “second,” &c., or corruptions of them. But usually the firsttithiof either fortnight is cited by the termpratipad,pratipadā, and the new-moon and full-moontithisare cited by the termsamāvāsyāandpūrṇimā; or here, again, corruptions of the Sanskṛit terms are used. And special names are sometimes prefixed to the numbers of thetithis, according to the rites, festivals, &c., prescribed for them, or events or merits assigned to them: for instance, Vaiśākha śukla 3 is Akshaya or Akshayya-tṛitīyā, the thirdtithiwhich ensures permanence to acts performed on it; Bhādrapada śukla 4 is Gaṇēsa-chaturthī, the fourthtithidedicated to the worship of the god Gaṇēśa, Gaṇapati, and theamāntaBhādrapada orpūrṇimāntaĀśvina kṛishṇa 13 is Kaliyugādi-trayōdaśī, as being regarded (for some reason which is not apparent) as the anniversary of the beginning of the Kaliyuga, the present Age. The firsttithiof the year is styled Saṁvatsara-pratipadā, which term answers closely to our “New Year’s Day.”The civil days of the lunar month begin, like those of the solar month, at sunrise, and bear in the same way the names of the weekdays. But they are numbered in a different manner; fortnight by fortnight and according to thetithis. TheThe civil day.general rule is that the civil day takes the number of thetithiwhich is current at its sunrise. And the results are as follows. As the motions of the sun and the moon vary periodically, a tithi is of variable length, ranging, according to the Hindu calculations, from 21 hrs. 34 min. 24 sec. to 26 hrs. 6 min. 24 sec.: it may, therefore, be either shorter or longer than a civil day, the duration of which is practically 24 hours (one minute, roughly, more or less, according to the time of the year). Atithimay end at any moment during the civil day; and ordinarily it ends on the civil day after that on which it begins, and covers only one sunrise and gives its number to the day on which it ends. It may, however, begin onone civil day and end on the next but one, and so cover two sunrises; and it is then treated as a repeatedtithi, in the sense that its number is repeated: for instance, if the seventhtithiso begins and ends, the civil day on which it begins is numbered 6, from thetithiwhich is current at the sunrise of that day and ends on it; the day covered entirely by the seventhtithiis numbered 7, because thattithiis current at its sunrise; the next day, at the sunrise of which the seventhtithiis still current and during which it ends, is again numbered 7; and the number 8 falls to the next day after that, when the eighth tithi is current at sunrise.5On the other hand, atithimay begin and end during one and the same civil day, so as not to touch a sunrise at all: in this case, it exists for any practical purposes for which it may be wanted (it is, however, to be avoided if possible, as being an unlucky occasion), but it is suppressed or expunged for the numbering of the civil day, in the sense that its number is omitted; for instance, if the seventhtithibegins and ends during one civil day, that day is numbered 6 from, as before, thetithiwhich is current at its sunrise and ends when the seventhtithibegins; the next day is numbered 8, because the eighthtithiis current at its sunrise; and there is, in this case, no civil day bearing the number seven. In consequence of this method of numbering, it sometimes happens, as the result of the suppression of atithi, that the day of a full-moon is numbered 14 instead of 15; that the day of a new-moon is numbered 14 instead of 30; and that the first day of a fortnight, and even the first day of a lunar year, is numbered 2 instead of 1.There are, on an average, thirteen suppressedtithisand seven repeatedtithisin twelve lunar months; and so the lunar year averages 354 days, rising to about 384 when a month is intercalated. It occasionally happens that there are two suppressions oftithisin one and the same fortnight; and the almanacs show such a case in the bright fortnight of Jyaishṭha,A.D.1878: but this occurs only after very long intervals.Thetithiis divided into twokaranas; eachkaranabeing the time in which the moon increases her distance from the sun by six degrees. But this is a detail of astrological rather than chronological interest. So, also, are two other detailsThe Karana.to which a prominent place is given in the lunar calendars; to yōga, or time in which the joint motion in longitude, the sum of the motions of the sun and the moon, is increased by 13 degrees 20 minutes; and thenakshatra, the position of the moon as referred to the ecliptic by means of the stars and groups of stars which have been mentioned above under the lunar month.In the Indian calendar everything depends upon exact times, which differ, of course, on every different meridian; and (to cite what is perhaps the most frequent and generally important occurrence) suppression and repetition may affect onetithiand civil day in one locality, and anothertithiand civil day in another locality not very far distant. Consequently, neither for the lunar nor for the solar calendar is there any almanac which is applicable to even the whole area in which any particular length of the astronomical solar year prevails; much less, for the whole of India. Different almanacs are prepared and published for places of leading importance; details for minor places, when wanted, have to be worked out by the local astrologer, the modern representative of an ancient official known as Sāṁmvatsara, the “clerk of the year.”

The present names of the lunar months, indicated above, were derived from thenakshatras, which are certain conspicuous stars and groups of stars lying more or less along the neighbourhood of the ecliptic. Thenakshatrasare regardedThe lunar month.sometimes as twenty-seven in number, sometimes as twenty-eight, and are grouped in twelve sets of two or three each, beginning, according to the earlier arrangement of the list, with the pair Kṛittikā and Rōhiṇī, and including in the sixth place Chitrā and Svāti, and ending with the triplet Rēvatī, Aśvinī and Bharaṇī. They are sometimes styled lunar mansions, and are sometimes spoken of as the signs of the lunar zodiac; and it is, no doubt, chiefly in connexion with the moon that they are now taken into consideration. But they mark divisions of the ecliptic: according to one system, twenty-seven divisions, each of 13 degrees 20 minutes; according to two other systems, twenty-seven or twenty-eight unequal divisions, which we need not explain here. The almanacs show the course of the sun through them, as well as the course of the moon; and the course of the sun was marked by them only, before the time when the Hindus began to use the twelve signs of the solar zodiac. So there is nothing exclusively lunar about them. The present names of the lunar months were derived from thenakshatrasin the following manner: the full-moon which occurred when the moon was in conjunction with Chitrā (the star α Virginis) was named Chaitrī, and the lunar month, which contained the Chaitrī full-moon, was named Chaitra; and so on with the others. The present names have superseded another set of names which were at one time in use concurrently with them; these other names are Madhu (= Chaitra), Mādhava, Śukra, Śuchi, Nabhas, Nabhasya, Isha, Ūrja (= Kārttika), Sahas, Sahasya, Tapas, and Tapasya (= Phālguna): they seem to have marked originally solar season-months of the solar year, rather than lunar months of the lunar year.

A lunar month may be regarded as ending either with the new-moon, which is calledamāvāsyā, or with the full-moon, which is calledpūrṇamāsī,pūrṇimā: a month of the former kind is termedamānta, “ending with the new-moon,” orśuklādi, “beginning with the bright fortnight;” a month of the latter kind is termed pūrṇimānta, “ending with the full-moon,” orkṛishṇādi, “beginning with the dark fortnight.” For all purposes of the calendar, theamāntamonth is used in Southern India, and thepūrṇimāntamonth in Northern India. But only theamāntamonth, the period of the synodic revolution of the moon, is recognized in Hindu astronomy, and for the purpose of naming the lunations and adjusting the lunar to the solar year by the intercalation and suppression of lunar months; and the rule is that the lunar Chaitra is theamāntaor synodic month at the first moment of which the sun is in the sign Mīna, and in the course of which the sun enters Mēsha: the other months follow in the same way; and the lunar Kārttika is theamāntamonth at the first moment of which the sun is in Tulā, and in the course of which the sun enters Vṛiśchika. The connexion between the lunar and the solar months is maintained by the point that the name Chaitra is applied according to one practice to the solar Mīna, in which the lunar Chaitra begins, and according to another practice to the solar Mēsha, in which the lunar Chaitra ends. Like the lunar year, the lunar month begins for religious purposes with its first lunar day, and for civil purposes with its first civil day.

One mean lunar year of twelve lunations measures very nearly 354 days 8 hrs. 48 min. 34 sec.; and one Hindu solar year measures 365 days 6 hrs. 12 min. 30 sec. according to Āryabhaṭa, or slightly more according to the other two authorities. Consequently, theIntercalation and suppression of lunar months.beginning of a lunar year pure and simple would be always travelling backwards through the solar year, by about eleven days oneach occasion, and would in course of time recede entirely through the solar year, as it does in the Mahommedan calendar. The Hindus prevent that in the following manner. The length of the Hindu astronomical solar month, measured by thesaṁkrāntisof the sun, its successive entrances into the signs of the zodiac, ranges, in accordance with periodical variations in the speed of the sun, from about 29 days 7 hrs. 38 min. up to about 31 days 15 hrs. 28 min. The length of theamāntaor synodic lunar month ranges, in accordance with periodical variations in the speed of the moon and the sun, from about 29 days 19 hrs. 30 min. down to about 29 days 7 hrs. 20 min. Consequently, it happens from time to time that there are two new-moon conjunctions, so that two lunations begin, in one astronomical solar month, between twosaṁkrāntisof the sun, while the sun is in one and the same sign of the zodiac, and there is nosaṁkrāntiin the lunation ending with the second new-moon: when this is the case, there are two lunations to which the same name is applicable, and so there is an additional or intercalated month, in the sense that a name is repeated: thus, when two new-moons occur while the sun is in Mēsha, the lunation ending with the first of them, during which the sun has entered Mēsha, is Chaitra; the next lunation, in which there is nosaṁkrānti, is Vāiśākha, because it begins when the sun is in Mēsha; and the next lunation after that is again Vaiśākha, for the same reason, and also because the sun enters Vṛishabha in the course of it: in these circumstances, the first of the two Vaiśākhas is called Adhika-Vaiśākha, “the additional or intercalated Vaiśākha,” and the second is called simply Vaiśākha, or sometimes Nija-Vaiśākha, “the natural Vaiśākha.” On the other hand, it occasionally happens, in an autumn or winter month, that there are twosaṁkrāntisof the sun in one and the sameamāntaor synodic lunar month, between two new-moon conjunctions, so that no lunation begins between the twosaṁkrāntis: when this is the case, there is one lunation to which two names are applicable, and there is a suppressed month, in the sense that a name is omitted: thus, if the sun enters both Dhanus and Makara during one synodic lunation, that lunation is Mārgaśira, because the sun was in Vṛiśchika at the first moment of it and enters Dhanus in the course of it;2the next lunation is Māgha, because the sun is in Makara by the time when it begins and will enter Kumbha in the course of it; and the name Pausha, between Mārgaśira and Māgha, is omitted. When a month is thus suppressed, there is always one intercalated month, and sometimes two, in the same Chaitrādi lunar year, so that the lunar year never contains less than twelve months, and from time to time consists of thirteen months. There are normally seven intercalated months, rising to eight when a month is suppressed, in 19 solar years, which equal very nearly 235 lunations;3and there is never less than one year without an intercalated month between two years with intercalated months, except when there is only one such month in a year in which a month is suppressed; then there is always an intercalated month in the next year also. The suppression of a month takes place at intervals of 19 years and upwards, regarding which no definite statement can conveniently be made here. It may be added that an intercalated Chaitra or Kārttika takes the place of the ordinary month as the first month of the year; an intercalated month is not rejected for that purpose, though it is tabooed from the religious and auspicious points of view.

The manner in which this arrangement of intercalated and suppressed months works out, so as to prevent the beginning of the Chaitrādi lunar year departing far from the beginning of the Mēshādi solar year, may be illustrated as follows. InA.D.1815 the Mēsha-saṁkrānti occurred on 11th April; and the first civil day of the Chaitrādi year was 10th April. InA.D.1816 and 1817 the first civil day of the Chaitrādi year fell back to 29th March and 18th March. InA.D.1817, however, there was an intercalated month, Śrāvaṇa; with the result that inA.D.1818 the first civil day of the Chaitrādi year advanced to 6th April. And, after various shiftings of the same kind—including inA.D.1822 an intercalation of Āśvina and a suppression of Pausha, followed inA.D.1823, when the first civil day of the Chaitrādi year had fallen back to 13th March, by an intercalation of Chaitra itself—inA.D.1834, when the Mēsha-saṁkrānti occurred again on 11th April, the first civil day of the Chaitrādi year was again 10th April.

The lunar month is divided into two fortnights (paksha), called bright and dark, or, in Indian terms,śuklaorśuddha,śudi,sudi, andkṛishṇaorbahula,badi,vadi: the bright fortnight,śukla-paksha, is the period of the waxing moon, endingThe lunar fortnight.at the full-moon; the dark fortnight,kṛishṇa-paksha, is the period of the waning moon, ending at the new-moon. In theamāntaorśuklādimonth, the bright fortnight precedes the dark; in thepūrṇimāntaorkṛishṇādimonth, the dark fortnight comes first; and the result is that, whereas, for instance, the bright fortnight of Chaitra is the same period of time throughout India, the preceding dark fortnight is known in Northern India as the dark fortnight of Chaitra, but in Southern India as the dark fortnight of Phālguna. This, however, does not affect the period covered by the lunar year; the Chaitrādi and Kārttikādi years begin everywhere with the bright fortnight of Chaitra and Kārttika respectively; simply, by theamāntasystem the dark fortnights of Chaitra and Kārttika are the second fortnights, and by thepūrṇimāntasystem they are the last fortnights, of the years. Like the month, the fortnight begins for religious purposes with its first lunar day, and for civil purposes with its first civil day.

The lunar fortnights are divided each into fifteen tithis or lunar days.4Thetithiis the time in which the moon increases her distance from the sun round the circle by twelve degrees; and the almanacs show eachtithiby its ending-time; that is,The lunar day.by the moment, expressed inghaṭikāsandpalas, after sunrise, at which the moon completes that distance. In accordance with that, thetithiis usually used and cited with the weekday on which it ends; but there are special rules regarding certain rites, festivals, &c., which sometimes require thetithito be used and cited with the weekday on which it begins or is current at a particular time. The firsttithiof each fortnight begins immediately after the moment of new-moon and full-moon respectively; the lasttithiends at the moment of full-moon and new-moon. Thetithisare primarily denoted by the numbers 1, 2, 3, &c., for each fortnight; but, while the full-moontithiis always numbered 15, the new-moontithiis generally numbered 30, even where thepūrṇimāntamonth is used. Thetithismay be cited either by their figures or by the Sanskṛit ordinal wordsprathamā, “first,”dvitīyā, “second,” &c., or corruptions of them. But usually the firsttithiof either fortnight is cited by the termpratipad,pratipadā, and the new-moon and full-moontithisare cited by the termsamāvāsyāandpūrṇimā; or here, again, corruptions of the Sanskṛit terms are used. And special names are sometimes prefixed to the numbers of thetithis, according to the rites, festivals, &c., prescribed for them, or events or merits assigned to them: for instance, Vaiśākha śukla 3 is Akshaya or Akshayya-tṛitīyā, the thirdtithiwhich ensures permanence to acts performed on it; Bhādrapada śukla 4 is Gaṇēsa-chaturthī, the fourthtithidedicated to the worship of the god Gaṇēśa, Gaṇapati, and theamāntaBhādrapada orpūrṇimāntaĀśvina kṛishṇa 13 is Kaliyugādi-trayōdaśī, as being regarded (for some reason which is not apparent) as the anniversary of the beginning of the Kaliyuga, the present Age. The firsttithiof the year is styled Saṁvatsara-pratipadā, which term answers closely to our “New Year’s Day.”

The civil days of the lunar month begin, like those of the solar month, at sunrise, and bear in the same way the names of the weekdays. But they are numbered in a different manner; fortnight by fortnight and according to thetithis. TheThe civil day.general rule is that the civil day takes the number of thetithiwhich is current at its sunrise. And the results are as follows. As the motions of the sun and the moon vary periodically, a tithi is of variable length, ranging, according to the Hindu calculations, from 21 hrs. 34 min. 24 sec. to 26 hrs. 6 min. 24 sec.: it may, therefore, be either shorter or longer than a civil day, the duration of which is practically 24 hours (one minute, roughly, more or less, according to the time of the year). Atithimay end at any moment during the civil day; and ordinarily it ends on the civil day after that on which it begins, and covers only one sunrise and gives its number to the day on which it ends. It may, however, begin onone civil day and end on the next but one, and so cover two sunrises; and it is then treated as a repeatedtithi, in the sense that its number is repeated: for instance, if the seventhtithiso begins and ends, the civil day on which it begins is numbered 6, from thetithiwhich is current at the sunrise of that day and ends on it; the day covered entirely by the seventhtithiis numbered 7, because thattithiis current at its sunrise; the next day, at the sunrise of which the seventhtithiis still current and during which it ends, is again numbered 7; and the number 8 falls to the next day after that, when the eighth tithi is current at sunrise.5On the other hand, atithimay begin and end during one and the same civil day, so as not to touch a sunrise at all: in this case, it exists for any practical purposes for which it may be wanted (it is, however, to be avoided if possible, as being an unlucky occasion), but it is suppressed or expunged for the numbering of the civil day, in the sense that its number is omitted; for instance, if the seventhtithibegins and ends during one civil day, that day is numbered 6 from, as before, thetithiwhich is current at its sunrise and ends when the seventhtithibegins; the next day is numbered 8, because the eighthtithiis current at its sunrise; and there is, in this case, no civil day bearing the number seven. In consequence of this method of numbering, it sometimes happens, as the result of the suppression of atithi, that the day of a full-moon is numbered 14 instead of 15; that the day of a new-moon is numbered 14 instead of 30; and that the first day of a fortnight, and even the first day of a lunar year, is numbered 2 instead of 1.

There are, on an average, thirteen suppressedtithisand seven repeatedtithisin twelve lunar months; and so the lunar year averages 354 days, rising to about 384 when a month is intercalated. It occasionally happens that there are two suppressions oftithisin one and the same fortnight; and the almanacs show such a case in the bright fortnight of Jyaishṭha,A.D.1878: but this occurs only after very long intervals.

Thetithiis divided into twokaranas; eachkaranabeing the time in which the moon increases her distance from the sun by six degrees. But this is a detail of astrological rather than chronological interest. So, also, are two other detailsThe Karana.to which a prominent place is given in the lunar calendars; to yōga, or time in which the joint motion in longitude, the sum of the motions of the sun and the moon, is increased by 13 degrees 20 minutes; and thenakshatra, the position of the moon as referred to the ecliptic by means of the stars and groups of stars which have been mentioned above under the lunar month.

In the Indian calendar everything depends upon exact times, which differ, of course, on every different meridian; and (to cite what is perhaps the most frequent and generally important occurrence) suppression and repetition may affect onetithiand civil day in one locality, and anothertithiand civil day in another locality not very far distant. Consequently, neither for the lunar nor for the solar calendar is there any almanac which is applicable to even the whole area in which any particular length of the astronomical solar year prevails; much less, for the whole of India. Different almanacs are prepared and published for places of leading importance; details for minor places, when wanted, have to be worked out by the local astrologer, the modern representative of an ancient official known as Sāṁmvatsara, the “clerk of the year.”

II. Eras

As far as the available evidence goes (and we have no reason to expect to discover anything opposed to it), any use of eras, in the sense of continuous reckonings which originated in historical occurrences or astronomical epochs and were employed for official and other public chronological purposes, did not prevail in India before the 1st centuryB.C.Prior to that time, there existed, indeed, in connexion with the sacrificial calendar, a five-years lunisolar cycle, and possibly some extended cycles of the same nature; and there was in Buddhist circles a record of the years elapsed since the death of Buddha, which we shall mention again further on. But, as is gathered from books and is well illustrated by the edicts of Aśōka (reigned 264-227B.C.) and the inscriptions of other rulers, the years of the reign of each successive king were found sufficient for the public dating of proclamations and the record of events. There is no known case in which any Indian king, of really ancient times, deliberately applied himself to the foundation of an era: and we have no reason for thinking that such a thing was ever done, or that any Hindu reckoning at all owes its existence to a recognition of historical requirements. The eras which came into existence from the 1st centuryB.C.onwards mostly had their origin in the fortuitous extension of regnal reckonings. The usual course has been that, under the influence of filial piety, pride in ancestry, loyalty to a paramount sovereign, or some other such motive, the successor of some king continued the regnal reckoning of his predecessor, who was not necessarily the first king in the dynasty, and perhaps did not even reign for any long time, instead of starting a new reckoning, beginning again with the year 1, according to the years of his own reign. Having thus run for two reigns, the reckoning was sufficiently well established to continue in the same form, and to eventually develop into a generally accepted local era, which might or might not be taken over by subsequent dynasties ruling afterwards over the same territory. In these circumstances, we find the establisher of any particular era in that king who first continued his predecessor’s regnal reckoning, instead of replacing it by his own; but we regard as the founder of the era that king whose regnal reckoning was so continued. We may add here that it was only in advanced stages that any of the Hindu eras assumed specific names: during the earlier period of each of them, the years were simply cited by the termsaṁvatsaraorvarsha, “the year (bearing such-and-such a number),” or by the abbreviationssaṁvatandsam, without any appellative designation.

The Hindus have had two religious reckonings, which it will be convenient to notice first. Certain, statements in the Ceylonese chronicles, theDīpavaṁsaandMahāvaṁsa, endorsed by an entry in a record of Aśōka, show that inThe Buddhist and Jain religious reckonings.the 3rd centuryB.C.there existed among the Buddhists a record of the time elapsed since the death of Buddha in 483B.C., from which it was known that Aśōka was anointed to the sovereignty 218 years after the death. The reckoning, however, was confined to esoteric Buddhist circles, and did not commend itself for any public use; and the only known inscriptional use of it, which also furnishes the latest known date recorded in it, is found in the Last Edict of Aśōka, which presents his dying speech delivered in 226B.C., 256 years after the death of Buddha. In Ceylon, where, also the original reckoning was not maintained, there was devised in the 12th centuryA.D.a reckoning styled Buddhavarsha, “the years of Buddha,” which still exists, and which purports to run from the death of Buddha, but has set up an erroneous date for that event in 544B.C.This later reckoning spread from Ceylon to Burma and Siam, where, also, it is still used. It did not obtain any general recognition in India, because, when it was devised, Buddhism had practically died out there, except at Bōdh-Gayā. But, as there seems to have been constant intercourse between Bōdh-Gayā and Ceylon as well as other foreign Buddhist countries, we should not be surprised to find an occasional instance of its use at Bōdh-Gayā: and it is believed that one such instance, belonging toA.D.1270, has been obtained.

The Jains have had, and still maintain, a reckoning from the death of the founder of their faith, Vīra, Mahāvīra, Vardhamāna, which event is placed by them in 528B.C.This reckoning figures largely in the Jain books, which put forward dates in it for very early times. But the earliest known synchronous date in it—by which we mean a date given by a writer who recorded the year in which he himself was writing—is one of the year 980, or, according to a different view mentioned in the passage itself, of the year 993. This reckoning, again, did not commend itself for any official or other public use. And the only known inscriptional instances of the use of it are modern ones, of the 19th century. While it is certain that the Jain reckoning, as it exists, has its initial point in 528B.C.it has not yet been determined whether that is actually the year in which Vīra died. All that can be said on this point is that the date is not inconsistent with certain statements in Buddhist books, which mention, by a Prākrit name of which the Sanskṛit form is Nirgrantha-Jńāta-putra, a contemporary of Buddha, in whom there is recognized the original of the Jain Vīra, Mahāvīra, or Vardhamāna, and who, the same books say, died while Buddha was still alive. But there are some indications that Nirgrantha-Jñātaputra may have died only a short time before Buddha himself; and the event mayeasily have been set back to 528B.C.in circumstances, attending a determination of the reckoning long after the occurrence, analogous to those in which the Ceylonese Buddhavarsha set up the erroneous date of 544B.C.for the death of Buddha.

In the class of eras of royal origin, brought into existence in the manner indicated above, the Hindus have had various reckonings which have now mostly fallen into disuse. We mayBygone Eras of royal origin.mention them, without giving them the detailed treatment which the more important of the still existing reckonings demand.The Kalachuri or Chēdi era, commencing inA.D.248 or 249, is known best from inscriptional records, bearing dates which range from the 10th to the 13th centuryA.D., of the Kalachuri kings of the Chēdi country in Central India; and it is from them that it derived the name under which it passes. In earlier times, however, we find this era well established, without any appellation, in Western India, in Gujarāt and the Ṭhāṇa district of Bombay, where it was used by kings and princes of the Chalukya, Gurjara, Sēndraka, Kaṭachchuri and Traikūṭaka families. It is traced back there toA.D.457, at which time there was reigning a Traikūṭaka king named Dahrasēna. Beyond that point, we have at present no certain knowledge about it. But it seems probable that the founder of it may be recognized in an Ābhīra king Īśvaṛasēna, or else in his father Śivadatta, who was reigning at Nāsik in or closely aboutA.D.248-49.The Gupta era, commencing inA.D.320, was founded by Chandragupta I., the first paramount king in the great Gupta dynasty of Northern India. When the Guptas passed away, their reckoning was taken over by the Maitraka kings of Valabhī, who succeeded them in Kāṭhiāwār and some of the neighbouring territories; and so it became also known as the Valabhī era.From Halsi in the Beḷgaum district, Bombay, we have a record of the Kadamba king Kākusthavarman, which was framed during the time when he was the Yuvarāja or anointed successor to the sovereignty, and may be referred to aboutA.D.500. It is dated in “the eightieth victorious year,” and thus indicates the preservation of a reckoning running from the foundation of the Kadamba dynasty by Mayūravarman, the great-grandfather of Kākusthavarman. But no other evidence of the existence of this era has been obtained.The records of the Gāṅga kings of Kaliṅganagara, which is the modern Mukhaliṅgam-Nagarikaṭakam in the Gañjām district, Madras, show the existence of a Gāṅga era which ran for at any rate 254 years. And various details in the inscriptions enable us to trace the origin of the Gāṅga kings to Western India, and to place the initial point of their reckoning inA.D.590, when a certain Satyāśraya-Dhruvarāja-Indravarman, an ancestor and probably the grandfather of the first Gāṅga king Rājasiṁha-Indravarman I., commenced to govern a large province in the Koṅkaṇ under the Chalukya king Kīrtivarman I.An era commencing inA.D.605 or 606 was founded in Northern India by the great king Harshavardhana, who reigned first at Ṭhāṇēsar and then at Kanauj, and who was the third sovereign in a dynasty which traced its origin to a prince named Naravardhana. A peculiarity about this era is that it continued in use for apparently four centuries after Harshavardhana, in spite of the fact that his line ended with him.The inscriptions assert that the Western Chālukya king Vikrama or Vikramāditya VI. of Kalyāṇi in the Nizam’s dominions, who reigned fromA.D.1076 to 1126, abolished the use of the Śaka era in his dominions in favour of an era named after himself. What he or his ministers did was to adopt, for the first time in that dynasty, the system of regnal years, according to which, while the Śaka era also remained in use, most of the records of his time are dated, not in that era, but in the year so-and-so of the Chālukya-Vikrama-kāla or Chālukya-Vikrama-varsha, “the time or years of the Chālukya Vikrama.” There is some evidence that this reckoning survived Vikramāditya VI. for a short time. But his successors introduced their own regnal reckonings; and that prevented it from acquiring permanence.In Tirhut, there is still used a reckoning which is known as the Lakshmaṇasēna era from the name of the king of Bengal by whom it was founded. There is a difference of opinion as to the exact initial point of this reckoning; but the best conclusion appears to be that which places it inA.D.1119. This era prevailed at one time throughout Bengal: we know this from a passage in theAkbarnāma, written inA.D.1584, which specifies the Śaka era as the reckoning of Gujarāt and the Dekkan, the Vikrama era as the reckoning of Mālwā, Delhi, and those parts, and the Lakshmaṇasēna era as the reckoning of Bengal.The last reckoning that we have to mention here is one known as the Rājyābhishēka-Śaka, “the era of the anointment to the sovereignty,” which was in use for a time in Western India. It dated from the day Jyaishṭha śukla 13 of the Śaka year 1597 current, = 6 June,A.D.1674, when Śivajī, the founder of the Marāṭhā kingdom, had himself enthroned.There are four reckonings which it is difficult at present to class exactly. Two inscriptions of the 15th and 17th centuries, recently brought to notice from Jēsalmēr in Rājputānā, present a reckoning which postulates an initial point inA.D.624 or in the precedingMiscellaneous Eras.or the following year, and bears an appellation, Bhāṭika, which seems to be based on the name of the Bhaṭṭi tribe, to which the rulers of Jēsalmēr belong. No historical event is known, referable to that time, which can have given rise to an era. It is possible that the apparent initial date represents an epoch, at the end of the Śaka year 546 or thereabouts, laid down in some astronomical work composed then or soon afterwards and used in the Jēsalmēr territory. But it seems more probable that it is a purely fictitious date, set up by an attempt to evolve an early history Of the ruling family.In the Tinnevelly district of Madras, and in the territories of the same presidency in which the Malayāḷam language prevails, namely, South Kanara below Mangalore, the Malabar district, and the Cochin and Travancore states, there is used a reckoning which is known sometimes as the Kollam or Kōlamba reckoning, sometimes as the era of Paraśurāma. The years of it are solar: in the southern parts of the territory in which it is current, they begin with the month Siṁha; in the northern parts, they begin with the next month, Kanyā. The initial point of the reckoning is inA.D.825; and the year 1076 commenced inA.D.1900. The popular view about this reckoning is that it consists of cycles of 1000 years; that we are now in the fourth cycle; and that the reckoning originated in 1176B.C.with the mythical Paraśurāma, who exterminated the Kshatriya or warrior caste, and reclaimed the Koṅkaṇ countries, Western India below the Ghauts, from the ocean. But the earliest known date in it, of the year 149, falls inA.D.973; and the reckoning has run on in continuation of the thousand, instead of beginning afresh inA.D.1825. It seems probable, therefore, that the reckoning had no existence beforeA.D.825. The years are cited sometimes as “the Kollam year (of such-and-such a number),” sometimes as “the year (so-and-so) after Kollam appeared;” and this suggests that the reckoning may possibly owe its origin to some event, occurring inA.D.825, connected with one or other of the towns and ports named Kollam, on the Malabar coast; perhaps Northern Kollam in the Malabar district, perhaps Southern Kollam, better known as Quilon, in Travancore. But the introduction of Paraśurāma into the matter, which would carry back (let us say) the foundation of Kollam to legendary times, may indicate, rather, a purely imaginative origin. Or, again, since each century of the Kollam reckoning begins in the same yearA.D.with a century of the Saptarshi reckoning (see below under III. Other Reckonings), it is not impossible that this reckoning may be a southern offshoot of the Saptarshi reckoning, or at least may have had the same astrological origin.In Nēpāl there is a reckoning, known as the Nēwār era and commencing inA.D.879, which superseded the Gupta and Harsha eras there. One tradition attributes the foundation of it to a king Rāghavadēva; another says that, in the time and with the permission of a king Jayadēvamalla, a merchant named Sākhwāl paid off, by means of wealth acquired from sand which turned into gold, all the debts then existing in the country, and introduced the new era in commemoration of the occurrence. It is possible that the era may have been founded by some ruler of Nēpāl: but nothing authentic is known about the particular names mentioned in connexion with it. This era appears to have been discarded for state and official purposes, in favour of the Śaka era, inA.D.1768, when the Gūrkhas became masters of Nēpāl; but manuscripts show that in literary circles it has remained in use up to at any rateA.D.1875.Inscriptions disclose the use in Kāṭhiāwār and Gujarāt, in the 12th and 13th centuries, of a reckoning, commencing inA.D.1114, which is known as the Siṁha-saṁvat. No historical occurrence is known, on which it can have been based; and the origin of it is obscure.

In the class of eras of royal origin, brought into existence in the manner indicated above, the Hindus have had various reckonings which have now mostly fallen into disuse. We mayBygone Eras of royal origin.mention them, without giving them the detailed treatment which the more important of the still existing reckonings demand.

The Kalachuri or Chēdi era, commencing inA.D.248 or 249, is known best from inscriptional records, bearing dates which range from the 10th to the 13th centuryA.D., of the Kalachuri kings of the Chēdi country in Central India; and it is from them that it derived the name under which it passes. In earlier times, however, we find this era well established, without any appellation, in Western India, in Gujarāt and the Ṭhāṇa district of Bombay, where it was used by kings and princes of the Chalukya, Gurjara, Sēndraka, Kaṭachchuri and Traikūṭaka families. It is traced back there toA.D.457, at which time there was reigning a Traikūṭaka king named Dahrasēna. Beyond that point, we have at present no certain knowledge about it. But it seems probable that the founder of it may be recognized in an Ābhīra king Īśvaṛasēna, or else in his father Śivadatta, who was reigning at Nāsik in or closely aboutA.D.248-49.

The Gupta era, commencing inA.D.320, was founded by Chandragupta I., the first paramount king in the great Gupta dynasty of Northern India. When the Guptas passed away, their reckoning was taken over by the Maitraka kings of Valabhī, who succeeded them in Kāṭhiāwār and some of the neighbouring territories; and so it became also known as the Valabhī era.

From Halsi in the Beḷgaum district, Bombay, we have a record of the Kadamba king Kākusthavarman, which was framed during the time when he was the Yuvarāja or anointed successor to the sovereignty, and may be referred to aboutA.D.500. It is dated in “the eightieth victorious year,” and thus indicates the preservation of a reckoning running from the foundation of the Kadamba dynasty by Mayūravarman, the great-grandfather of Kākusthavarman. But no other evidence of the existence of this era has been obtained.

The records of the Gāṅga kings of Kaliṅganagara, which is the modern Mukhaliṅgam-Nagarikaṭakam in the Gañjām district, Madras, show the existence of a Gāṅga era which ran for at any rate 254 years. And various details in the inscriptions enable us to trace the origin of the Gāṅga kings to Western India, and to place the initial point of their reckoning inA.D.590, when a certain Satyāśraya-Dhruvarāja-Indravarman, an ancestor and probably the grandfather of the first Gāṅga king Rājasiṁha-Indravarman I., commenced to govern a large province in the Koṅkaṇ under the Chalukya king Kīrtivarman I.

An era commencing inA.D.605 or 606 was founded in Northern India by the great king Harshavardhana, who reigned first at Ṭhāṇēsar and then at Kanauj, and who was the third sovereign in a dynasty which traced its origin to a prince named Naravardhana. A peculiarity about this era is that it continued in use for apparently four centuries after Harshavardhana, in spite of the fact that his line ended with him.

The inscriptions assert that the Western Chālukya king Vikrama or Vikramāditya VI. of Kalyāṇi in the Nizam’s dominions, who reigned fromA.D.1076 to 1126, abolished the use of the Śaka era in his dominions in favour of an era named after himself. What he or his ministers did was to adopt, for the first time in that dynasty, the system of regnal years, according to which, while the Śaka era also remained in use, most of the records of his time are dated, not in that era, but in the year so-and-so of the Chālukya-Vikrama-kāla or Chālukya-Vikrama-varsha, “the time or years of the Chālukya Vikrama.” There is some evidence that this reckoning survived Vikramāditya VI. for a short time. But his successors introduced their own regnal reckonings; and that prevented it from acquiring permanence.

In Tirhut, there is still used a reckoning which is known as the Lakshmaṇasēna era from the name of the king of Bengal by whom it was founded. There is a difference of opinion as to the exact initial point of this reckoning; but the best conclusion appears to be that which places it inA.D.1119. This era prevailed at one time throughout Bengal: we know this from a passage in theAkbarnāma, written inA.D.1584, which specifies the Śaka era as the reckoning of Gujarāt and the Dekkan, the Vikrama era as the reckoning of Mālwā, Delhi, and those parts, and the Lakshmaṇasēna era as the reckoning of Bengal.

The last reckoning that we have to mention here is one known as the Rājyābhishēka-Śaka, “the era of the anointment to the sovereignty,” which was in use for a time in Western India. It dated from the day Jyaishṭha śukla 13 of the Śaka year 1597 current, = 6 June,A.D.1674, when Śivajī, the founder of the Marāṭhā kingdom, had himself enthroned.

There are four reckonings which it is difficult at present to class exactly. Two inscriptions of the 15th and 17th centuries, recently brought to notice from Jēsalmēr in Rājputānā, present a reckoning which postulates an initial point inA.D.624 or in the precedingMiscellaneous Eras.or the following year, and bears an appellation, Bhāṭika, which seems to be based on the name of the Bhaṭṭi tribe, to which the rulers of Jēsalmēr belong. No historical event is known, referable to that time, which can have given rise to an era. It is possible that the apparent initial date represents an epoch, at the end of the Śaka year 546 or thereabouts, laid down in some astronomical work composed then or soon afterwards and used in the Jēsalmēr territory. But it seems more probable that it is a purely fictitious date, set up by an attempt to evolve an early history Of the ruling family.

In the Tinnevelly district of Madras, and in the territories of the same presidency in which the Malayāḷam language prevails, namely, South Kanara below Mangalore, the Malabar district, and the Cochin and Travancore states, there is used a reckoning which is known sometimes as the Kollam or Kōlamba reckoning, sometimes as the era of Paraśurāma. The years of it are solar: in the southern parts of the territory in which it is current, they begin with the month Siṁha; in the northern parts, they begin with the next month, Kanyā. The initial point of the reckoning is inA.D.825; and the year 1076 commenced inA.D.1900. The popular view about this reckoning is that it consists of cycles of 1000 years; that we are now in the fourth cycle; and that the reckoning originated in 1176B.C.with the mythical Paraśurāma, who exterminated the Kshatriya or warrior caste, and reclaimed the Koṅkaṇ countries, Western India below the Ghauts, from the ocean. But the earliest known date in it, of the year 149, falls inA.D.973; and the reckoning has run on in continuation of the thousand, instead of beginning afresh inA.D.1825. It seems probable, therefore, that the reckoning had no existence beforeA.D.825. The years are cited sometimes as “the Kollam year (of such-and-such a number),” sometimes as “the year (so-and-so) after Kollam appeared;” and this suggests that the reckoning may possibly owe its origin to some event, occurring inA.D.825, connected with one or other of the towns and ports named Kollam, on the Malabar coast; perhaps Northern Kollam in the Malabar district, perhaps Southern Kollam, better known as Quilon, in Travancore. But the introduction of Paraśurāma into the matter, which would carry back (let us say) the foundation of Kollam to legendary times, may indicate, rather, a purely imaginative origin. Or, again, since each century of the Kollam reckoning begins in the same yearA.D.with a century of the Saptarshi reckoning (see below under III. Other Reckonings), it is not impossible that this reckoning may be a southern offshoot of the Saptarshi reckoning, or at least may have had the same astrological origin.

In Nēpāl there is a reckoning, known as the Nēwār era and commencing inA.D.879, which superseded the Gupta and Harsha eras there. One tradition attributes the foundation of it to a king Rāghavadēva; another says that, in the time and with the permission of a king Jayadēvamalla, a merchant named Sākhwāl paid off, by means of wealth acquired from sand which turned into gold, all the debts then existing in the country, and introduced the new era in commemoration of the occurrence. It is possible that the era may have been founded by some ruler of Nēpāl: but nothing authentic is known about the particular names mentioned in connexion with it. This era appears to have been discarded for state and official purposes, in favour of the Śaka era, inA.D.1768, when the Gūrkhas became masters of Nēpāl; but manuscripts show that in literary circles it has remained in use up to at any rateA.D.1875.

Inscriptions disclose the use in Kāṭhiāwār and Gujarāt, in the 12th and 13th centuries, of a reckoning, commencing inA.D.1114, which is known as the Siṁha-saṁvat. No historical occurrence is known, on which it can have been based; and the origin of it is obscure.

The eras mentioned above have for the most part served their purposes and died out. But there are three great reckonings, dating from a very respectable antiquity,Three great Eras in general use.which have held their own and survived to the present day. These are the Kaliyuga, Vikrama, and Śaka eras. It will be convenient to treat the Kaliyuga first, though, in spite of having the greatest apparent antiquity, it is the latest of the three in respect of actual date of origin.

The Kaliyuga era is the principal astronomical reckoning of the Hindus. It is frequently, if not generally, shown in the almanacs: but it can hardly be looked upon as being now in practical use for civil purposes; and, as regardsThe Kaliyuga Era of 3102B.C.the custom of previous times as far as we can judge it from the inscriptional use, which furnishes a good guide, the position is as follows: from Southern India we have one such instance ofA.D.634, one ofA.D.770, three of the 10th century, and then, from the 12th century onwards, but more particularly from the 14th, a certain number of instances, not exactly very small in itself, but extremely so in comparisonwith the number of cases of the use of the Vikrama and Śaka eras and other reckonings: from Northern India the earliest known instance of isA.D.1169 or 1170, and the later ones number only four. Its years are by nature sidereal solar years, commencing with the Mēsha-saṁkrānti, the entrance of the sun into the Hindu constellation and sign Mēsha,i.e.Aries (for this and other technical details, see above, under the Calendar);6but they were probably cited as lunar years in the inscriptional records which present the reckoning; and the almanacs appear to treat them either as Mēshādi civil solar years with solar months, or as Chaitrādi lunar years with lunar monthsamānta(ending with the new-moon) orpūrṇimānta(ending with the full-moon) as the case may be, according to the locality. Its initial point lies in 3102B.C.; and the year 5002 began inA.D.1900.7

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