13. The earliest inscription-date known to Professor Kielhorn which was certainly given in amānta lunar-month reckoning, and which belongs to a genuine inscription of India Proper, bears date corresponding to 4th May, A.D. 794. It is contained in the Paiṭhaṇ plates of the Rāshṭrakūṭa king Gōvinda III. (Epig. Ind., III., 105; Ind. Ant. XVII., p. 142, No. 9.)
13a. From Kielhorn's "Lists" for Southern India I find that in all the early Chalukya and Rāshṭrakūṭa inscriptions dates are stated in lunar reckoning with luni-solar years; solar months and days not being mentioned. Reckoning
adopted in
different tracts. This practice seems to have been general in earlier times in the south. The recording of the occurrence of saṁkrāntis begins apparently in about the ninth century, becoming common only after the close of the eleventh century A.D. The earliest mention of the solar saṁkrānti in an undoubtedly genuine inscription of the Western Gaṅgas is met with in A.D. 975. The Kalachuri records mention saṁkrāntis from about A.D. 1150, but continue afterwards, as before, to name no solar month. The Śilāhāra records follow the same practice, the first of their inscriptions that mentions a solar saṁkrānti being one of A.D. 997. Saṁkrāntis are alluded to very sparingly in inscriptions of the Yādavas of Dēvagiri, and only after A.D. 1200. The Hoysaḷas of the Maisūr country took notice, after about A.D. 1050, of the lagnas of the solar signs; but from the middle of the thirteenth century the solar months are regularly named after the Tamil fashion, and in several inscriptions after that date they use the Tamil names for the solar months. Even the Vijayanagar kings, whose accession to power began in the fourteenth century, appear to avoid all mention of solar months except in their inscriptions in the Tamil country. The Eastern Chālukyas of the Telugu tracts mention solar signs and months after about A.D. 950, but as additions to the principal part of the date, which was given in lunar reckoning. No mention of saṁkrāntis or solar months occur in inscriptions of the ancient Pallavas, Kadambas, and Bāṇas. For the last ten centuries or so, however, the Tamils proper have stated their dates in their own fashion, which includes full solar as well as lunar reckoning. They generally state first the week-day and current nakshatra, then the number and fortnight of the tithi current at or very shortly after sunrise, coupling this tithi not with its lunar month name but with the name of the current solar month. Occasionally the serial day of the solar month is recorded. West-Coast inscriptions are often dated in the fashion of the Tamils, but in that country they seem to have paid closer attention to the position of Jupiter than the Tamilians did. In North -Western India the usual reckoning was luni-solar, and in North-Eastern India solar.
The only saṁkrāntis which appear to have been much considered from the tenth to the thirteenth centuries were the solstitial ones, the Uttarāyaṇa and Dakshiṇāyana saṁkrāntis, of which the former was by far the most important. Afterwards the equinoctial saṁkrāntis, Mēsha and Tulā, were taken into account; and later on we find occasional mention of the other saṁkrāntis.
The use of names for week-days is also a matter to be noticed when dealing with early inscriptions. The earliest instance, in Kielhorn's Lists, of the use of the week-day is found in A.D. 484 (Northern List, No. 454); the next occurs in A.D. 664 (Southern List, No. 550); the next in A.D. 692 (ibid. No. 29). The use of it became general only after about A.D. 900. The first is a Gupta inscription from the Sāgar District of the Central Provinces; the second belongs to the Nellore District, Madras Presidency; and the third to the neighbourhood of Banawāsi in North Kanara. The citation of the week-day in a date professedly earlier than about A.D. 400 at once raises a suspicion as to the genuineness of the record.
These notes may help workers to judge of the authenticity of some documents or records which claim to be of great age.
