HINDU - CHRONOLOGY The early Hindu astronomers selected a period in the course of which a given order of things is completed by the sun, moon and planets returning to the state of conjunction from which they started. This is known as the Great age of 4,3 20,000 sidereal solar years, the aggregate of the Krita or Golden age, the Treta or Silver age, the Dvapara or Brazen age, and the Kali or Iron age (in which we now are). There is, however, the system of the Kalpa or aeon, consisting of i,000 (or 1,008) Great ages.
The Hindus now recognize three standard sidereal solar years determined in that manner. (I) A year of 365 days 6 hours 12 min. 3o sec. according to the Aryabhatiya, otherwise called the First Arya-Siddhanta, which was written by the astronomer Aryabhata (b. A.D. 476) ; this year is used in the Tamil and Malayalam districts, and in Ceylon. (2) A year of 365 days 6 hours 12 min. 30.915 sec. according to the Ra jamriga ka, a treatise based on the Brahma-Siddhanta of Brahmagupta (b. A.D. 598) and attributed to king Bhoja, of which the epoch, the point of time used in it for calculations, falls in A.D. 1042: this year is used in parts of Gujarat (Bombay) and in Rajputana and other western parts of Northern India. (3) A year of 365 days 6 hours 12 min. 36.56 sec. according to the present Surya-Siddhanta, a work of unknown authorship which dates from probably about A.D. 1000: this year is used in almost all the other parts of India. According to modern science, the true mean sidereal solar year measures 365 days 6 hours 9 min. 9.6 sec., and the mean tropical year measures 365 days 5 hours 48 min. 46.054440 seconds.
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. For instance, Aryabhata's year exceeds the Julian year by min. 3o seconds. This amounts to exactly one day in I I 5 s years, 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 Aryabhata the Mesha-satnkranti began to occur in A.D. 6o3 on March 20 and in A.D. I179 on March 25. The intermediate advances arrange them selves into four steps of one day each in 116 years, followed by one step of one day in 112 years : thus, the Mesha-sarhkranti began to occur on March 21 in A.D. 719, on March 22 in A.D. 835, on March 23 in A.D. 951, and on March 24 in A.D. 1067 (whence I12 years take us to March 25 in A.D. It is now occurring sometimes on April i 1, sometimes on the 12th; having first come to the I 2th in A.D. 1871. (See CALENDAR: Hindu.) Eras.—The Kalachuri or Chedi era, commencing in A.D. 248 or 249, is known best from inscriptional records, which range from the loth to the I 3th century A.D., of the Kalachuri kings of the Chedi country in Central India ; and from them it derived its name. In earlier times, this era was well established, without any appellation, in Western India, in Gujarat and the Thana district of Bombay, where it was used by kings and princes of the Chalukya, Gurjara, Sendraka, Katachchuri and Traikutaka fam ilies. It is traced back there to A.D. 457, to the reign of a Traiku taka king named Dahrasena. Beyond that point, we have at present no certain knowledge about it. But it seems probable that its founder was an Abhira king Isvarasena, or his father Sivadatta, who was reigning at Nasik about A.D. 248-249 The Gupta era, commencing in A.D. 32o, was founded by Chan dragupta I., the first paramount king in the great Gupta dynasty of Northern India. When the Guptas passed away, their reckon ing was taken over by the Maitraka kings of Valabhi, who suc ceeded them in Kathiawar and some of the neighbouring terri tories; and so it became also known as the Valabhi era.
From Halsi in the Belgaum district, Bombay, we have a record of the Kadamba king Kakusthavarman, which was framed during the time when he was the Yuvaraja or anointed successor to the sovereignty, and may be referred to about A.D. 500. It is dated in "the eightieth victorious year," and thus indicates the preserva tion of a reckoning running from the foundation of the Kadamba dynasty by Mayuravarman, the great-grandfather of Kakust havarman. But no other evidence of the existence of this era has been obtained.
The records of the Ganga kings of Kalinganagara, which is the modern Mukhalingam-Nagarikatakam in the Ganjam district, Madras, show the existence of a Ganga era, which ran for at any rate 254 years. And various details in the inscriptions enable us to trace the origin of the Ganga kings to Western India, and to place the initial point of their reckoning in A.D. 59o, when a cer tain Satyasraya-Dhruvaraja-Indravarman, an ancestor and prob ably the grandfather of the first Ganga king Rajasirhha-Indravar man I., commenced to govern a large province in the Konkan under the Chalukya king Kirtivarman I.
An era beginning in A.D. 6o5 or 6o6 was founded in Northern India by the great king Harshavardhana, who reigned first at Thanesar and then at Kanauj, and who was the third sovereign in a dynasty which traced its origin to a prince named Naravard hana. This era continued in use for apparently four centuries after Harshavardhana, though his line ended with him.
The inscriptions assert that the Western Chalukya king Vikrama or Vikramaditya VI. of Kalyani in the Nizam's dominions, who reigned from A.D. 1076 to 1126, abolished the use of the aka era in his dominions in favour of an era named after himself. He or his ministers adopted, for the first time in that dynasty, the system of regnal years, according to which, while the aka 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 Chalukya Vikrama-kala or Chalukya-Vikrama-varsha, "the time or years of the Chalukya Vikrama." There is some evidence that this reckoning survived Vikramaditya VI. for a short time. But his successors introduced their own regnal reckonings ; and that pre vented it from acquiring permanence.
In Tirhut, there is still used a reckoning which is known as the Lakshmanasena era from the name of the king of Bengal by whom it was founded. The exact initial point of this reckoning appears to be in A.D. II19. This era prevailed at one time throughout Bengal, from a passage in the Akbarnama, written in A.D. 1584, which specifies the aka era as the reckoning of Gujarat and the Dekkan, the Vikrama era as the reckoning of Malwa, Delhi and those parts, and the Lakshmanasena era as the reckoning of Bengal.
The Rajyabhisheka-aka, "the era of the anointment to the sovereignty," was in use for a time in Western India. It dated from the day Jyaishtha sukla 13 of the 8aka year of 1597 current, =June 6, A.D. 1674, when the founder of the Maratha 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 Jesalmer in Rajputana, present a reckon ing which postulates an initial point in A.D. 624 or in the preced ing or the following year, and bears an appellation, Bhatika, which seems to be based on the name of the Bhatti tribe, to which the rulers of Jesalmer belong. No historical event is known, refer able 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 aka year 546 or thereabouts, laid down in some astronomical work composed then or soon afterwards and used in the Jesalmer 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 Malayalam 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 Kolamba reckoning, sometimes as the era of Parasurama. The years of it are solar: in the southern parts of the territory in which it is current, they be gin with the month Simha ; in the northern parts, they begin with the next month, Kanya. The initial point of the reckoning is in A.D. 825; and the year 1076 commenced in A.D. 1900. The popular view about this reckoning is that it consists of cycles of i,000 years; that we are now in the fourth cycle; and that the reckoning originated in 1176 B.C. with the mythical Parasurama, who ex terminated the Kshatriya or warrior caste, and reclaimed the Konkan countries, Western India below the Ghauts, from the ocean. But the earliest known date in it, of the year 149, falls in A.D. 973; and the reckoning has run on in continuation of the thousand, instead of beginning afresh in A.D. 1825. It seems probable, therefore, that the reckoning had no existence before A.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 in A.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 Parasurama 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 year A.D. with a century of the Saptarshi reckoning, this reckoning may be a southern offshoot of the Saptarshi reckoning, or at least may have had the same astrological origin.
In Nepal there is a reckoning, known as the Newer era and commencing in A.D. 879, which superseded the Gupta and Harsha eras there. One tradition attributes the foundation of it to a king Raghavadeva; another says that, in the time and with the permission of a king Jayadevamalla, a merchant named Sakhwal 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. The era may have been founded by some ruler of Nepal: but nothing authentic is known about the particular names mentioned in connection with it. This era appears to have been discarded for State and official purposes, in favour of the gaka era, in A.D. 1768, when the Gurkhas became masters of Nepal; but manuscripts show that in literary circles it has remained in use up to at any rate A.D. 1875.
Inscriptions disclose the use in Kathiawar and Gujarat, in the 12th and 13th centuries, of a reckoning, commencing in A.D. I I14, which is known as the Siihha-saiihvat. 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, which have held their own and survived to the present day. These are the Kaliyuga, Vikrama and gaka eras. The Kaliyuga era is the principal astronomical reckoning of the Hindus. It is frequently, if not generally, shown in the almanacs : but it is not now in practical use for civil purposes ; and in previous times we have instances of its use in inscriptions from Southern India, one of A.D. 634, one of A.D. 7 70, three of the loth century, and then, from the 12 th century onwards, but more particularly from the 14th, a certain number of instances extremely small in comparison with the use of the Vikrama and gaka eras and other reckonings : from Northern India the earliest known instance is A.D. 1169 or 1170, and the later ones number only four. Its years are by nature sidereal solar years, commencing with the Mesha-sarimkranti, the entrance of the sun into the Hindu constellation and sign Mesha, i.e., Aries (for this and other technical details, see above, under the Calendar) ; but they were probably cited as lunar years in the inscriptional records which present the reckoning; and the al manacs appear to treat them either as Meshadi civil solar years with solar months, or as Chaitradi lunar years with lunar months amdnta (ending with the new-moon) or purnimdnta (ending with the full-moon) as the case may be, according to the locality. Its initial point lay in 3102 B.C. ; and the year 5002 began in A.D.
1900.
The Vikrama Era, the earliest of all the Hindu eras, is the dominant era and the great historical reckoning of Northern India—that territory on the north of the rivers Narbada and Mahanadi to which part of the country its use has always been practically confined. Like, indeed, the Kaliyuga and gaka eras, it is freely cited in almanacs in any part of India; and it is sometimes used in the south by immigrants from the north: but it is, by nature, so essentially foreign to the south that the earliest known inscriptional instance of the use of it in Southern India only dates from A.D. 1218, and the very few later instances, prior to the 15th century A.D., come, along with that of A.D. 1218, from the close neighbourhood of the dividing-line between the north and the south. The Vikrama era has never been used for astronomical purposes. Its years are lunar, with lunar months, though sometimes regarded as solar, with solar months, when cited in almanacs of Southern India which present the solar calendar. Originally they were Karttikadi, with months (ending with the full-moon). They now exist in the following three varieties: in Kathiawar and Gujarat, they are chiefly Karttikadi, with amdnta months (ending with the new moon) ; and they are shown in this form in almanacs for the other parts of the Bombay Presidency: but there is also found in Kathiawar and that neighbourhood an Ashadhadi variety, com mencing with Ashadha sukla 1, similarly with amanta months; in the rest of Northern India, they are Chaitradi, with purnimenta months. The era has its initial point in 58 B.c., and its first civil day, Kqrttika sukla r, is Sept. 19, in that year if we determine it with reference to the Hindu Tula-samkranti, or October 18, if we determine it with reference to the tropical equinox. The years of the three varieties, Chaitradi, Ashadhadi and Karttikadi, all commence in the same year A.D. ; and the year 1958 began in A.D. 1900.