easily have been set back to 528 B.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 544 B.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 may
mention them, without giving them the detailed treatment
which the more important of the still existing
Bygone Eras of
royal origin.
reckonings demand.
The Kalachuri or Chēdi era, commencing in A.D. 248 or 249, is known best from inscriptional records, bearing dates which range from the 10th to the 13th century A.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 to A.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 about A.D. 248–49.
The Gupta era, commencing in A.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 about A.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 in A.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 in A.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 from A.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 in A.D. 1119. This era prevailed at one time throughout Bengal: we know this from a passage in the Akbarnāma, written in A.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 in A.D. 624 or in the preceding or the following year, and bears an appellation, Bhāṭika, Miscellaneous Eras. 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 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 1000 years; that we are now in the fourth cycle; and that the reckoning originated in 1176 B.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 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 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 year A.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 in A.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, in A.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 rate A.D. 1875.
Inscriptions disclose the use in Kāṭhiāwār and Gujarāt, in the 12th and 13th centuries, of a reckoning, commencing in A.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,
which have held their own and survived to the present
day. These are the Kaliyuga, Vikrama, and Śaka eras.
Three great Eras
in general use.
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 regards
the custom of previous times as far as we can judge it
The Kaliyuga Era
of 3102 B.C.
from the inscriptional use, which furnishes a good
guide, the position is as follows: from Southern India we
have one such instance of A.D. 634, one of A.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 comparison
