In Nēpāl there is a reckoning, known as the Nēwār era and commencing in A.D. 879, which superseded the Gupta and Harsha eras there.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, 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 regards The Kaliyuga Era of 3102 B.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 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 with the number of cases of the use of the Vikrama and Śaka eras and other reckonings: from Northern India the earliest known instance of is A.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);[6] but 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 months amānta (ending with the new-moon) or pūrṇimānta (ending with the full-moon) as the case may be, according to the locality. Its initial point lies in 3102 B.C.; and the year 5002 began in A.D. 1900.[7]
This reckoning is not an historical era, actually running from 3102 B.C. It was devised for astronomical purposes at some time about A.D. 400, when the Hindu astronomers, having taken over the principles of the Greek astronomy, recognized that they required for purposes of computation a specific reckoning with a definite initial occasion. They found that occasion in a conjunction of the sun, the moon, and the five planets which were then known, at the first point of their sign Mēsha. There was not really such a conjunction; nor, apparently, is it even the case that the sun was actually at the first point of Mēsha at the moment arrived at. But there was an approach to such a conjunction, which was turned into an actual conjunction by taking the mean instead of the true positions of the sun, the moon, and the planets. And, partly from the reckoning which has come down to us, partly from the astronomical books, we know that the moment assigned to the assumed conjunction was according to one school the midnight between Thursday the 17th, and Friday the 18th, February, 3102 B.C., and according to another school the sunrise on the Friday.
The reckoning thus devised was subsequently identified with the Kaliyuga as the iron age, the last and shortest, with a duration of 432,000 years, of the four ages in each cycle of ages in the Hindu system of cosmical periods. Also, traditional history was fitted to it by one school, represented notably by the Purāṇas, which, referring the great war between the Pāṇḍavas and the Kurus, which is the topic of the Mahābhārata, to the close of the preceding age, the Dvāpara, placed on the last day of that age the culminating event which ushered in the Kali age; namely, the death of Kṛishṇa (the return to heaven of Vishṇu on the termination of his incarnation as Kṛishṇa), which was followed by the abdication of the Pāṇḍava king Yudhishṭhira, who, having installed his grand-nephew Parikshit as his successor, then set out on his own journey to heaven. Another school, however, placed the Pāṇḍavas and the Kurus 653 years later, in 2449 B.C. A third school places in 3102 B.C. the anointment of Yudhishṭhira to the sovereignty, and treats that event as inaugurating the Kali age; from this point of view, the first 3044 years of the Kaliyuga—the period from its commencement in 3102 B.C. to the commencement of the first historical era, the so-called Vikrama era, in 58 B.C.—are also known as “the era of Yudhishṭhira.”
The Vikrama era, which is the earliest of all the Hindu eras in respect of order of foundation, is the dominant era and the great historical reckoning of Northern India—that is, of the territory on the north of the rivers Narbadā The Vikrama Era of 58 B.C. and Mahānadī—to which part of the country its use has always been practically confined. Like, indeed, the Kaliyuga and Śaka 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 that have been obtained, prior to the 15th century A.D., come, along with the instance 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, but seem liable to be sometimes regarded as solar, with solar months, when they are cited in almanacs of Southern India which present the solar calendar. Originally they were Kārtti-kādi, with pūrṇimānta months (ending with the full-moon). They now exist in the following three varieties: in Kāṭhiāwār and Gujarāt, they are chiefly Kārttikādi, with amānta 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 Kāṭhiāwār and that neighbourhood an Āshāḍhādi variety, commencing with Āshāḍha śukla I, similarly with amānta months; in the rest of Northern India, they are Chaitrādi, with pūrṇimānta months. The era has its initial point in 58 B.C., and its first civil day, Kārttika śukla I, is 19th September in that year if we determine it with reference to the Hindu Tulā-saṁkrānti, or 18th October if we determine it with reference to the tropical equinox. The years of the three varieties, Chaitrādi, Āshaḍhādi, and Kārttikādi, all commence in the same year A.D.; and the year 1958 began in A.D. 1900.
Hindu legend connects the foundation of this era with a king Vikrama or Vikramāditya of Ujjain in Mālwā, Central India: one version is that he began to reign in 58 B.C.; another is that he died in that year, and that the reckoning commemorates his death. Modern research, however, based largely on the inscriptional records, has shown that there was no such king, and that the real facts are very different. The era owes its existence to the Kushan king Kaṇishka, a foreign invader, who established himself in Northern India and commenced to reign there in B.C. 58.[8] He was the founder of it, in the sense that the opening years of it were the years of his reign. It was established and set going as an era by his successor, who continued the reckoning so started, instead of breaking it by introducing another according to his own regnal years. And it was perpetuated as an era, and transmitted as such to posterity by the Mālavas, the people from whom the modern territory Mālwā derived its name, who were an important section of the subjects of Kaṇishka and his successors. In consonance with that, records ranging in date from A.D. 473 to 879 style it “the reckoning of the Mālavas, the years of the Mālava lords, the Mālava time or era.” Prior to that, it had no specific name; the years of it were simply cited, in ordinary Hindu fashion, by the term saṁvatsara, “the year (of such-and-such a number),” or by its abbreviations saṁvat and saṁ: and the same was frequently done in later times also, and is habitually done in the present day; and so, in modern times, this era has often been loosely styled “the Saṁvat era.” The idea of a king Vikrama in connexion with it appears to date from only the 9th or 10th century A.D.
The Śaka era, though it actually had its origin in the south-west corner of Northern India, is the dominant era and the great historical reckoning of Southern India; that is, of the territory below the rivers Narbadā and The Śaka Era of A.D. 78. Mahānadī. It is also the subsidiary astronomical reckoning, largely used, from the 6th century A.D. onwards, in the Karaṇas, the works dealing with practical details of the calendar, for laying down epochs or points of time furnishing convenient bases for computation. As a result of that, it came to be used in past times for general purposes also, to a limited extent, in parts of Northern India where it was not indigenous. And it is now used more or less freely, and is cited in almanacs everywhere. Its years are usually lunar, Chaitrādi, and its months are pūrṇimānta (ending with the full-moon) in Northern India, and amānta (ending with the new-moon) in Southern India; but in times gone by it was sometimes treated for purposes of calculation as having astronomical solar years, and it is now treated as having Mēsh di civil solar years and solar months in those parts of India where that form of the solar calendar prevails. It has its initial point in A.D. 78; and its first civil day, Chaitra śukla I, is 3rd March in that year, as determined with reference either to the Hindu M’na-saṁkrānti or to the entrance of the sun into the tropical Pisces. The year 1823 began in A.D. 1900.
Regarding the origin of the Śaka era, there was current in the 10th and 11th centuries A.D. a belief which, ignoring the difference of a hundred and thirty-five years between the two reckonings, connected the legendary king Vikrāmaditya of Ujjain, mentioned above under the Vikrama era, with the foundation of this era also. The story runs, from this point of view, that the Śakas were a barbarous people who established themselves in the western and north-western dominions of that king, but were met in battle and destroyed by him, and that the era was established in celebration of that event. The modern belief, however, ascribes the foundation of this era to a king Śālivāhana of Pratishṭhāna, which is the modern Paiṭhaṇ, on the Gōdāvarī, in the Nizam’s dominions. But in this case, again, research has shown that the facts are very different. Like the Vikrama era, the Śaka era owes its existence to foreign invaders. It was founded by the Chhaharāta or Kshaharāta king Nahapāna, who appears to have been a Pahlava or Palhava, i.e. of Parthian extraction, and who reigned from A.D. 78 to about 125.[9] He established himself first in Kāṭhiāwār, but subsequently brought under his sway northern Gujarāt (Bombay) and Ujjain, and, below the Narbadā, southern Gujarāt, Nāsik and probably Khāndēsh. His capital seems to have been Dōhad, in the Pańch Mahāls. And he had two viceroys: one, named Bhūmaka, of the same family with himself, in Kāṭhiāwār; and another, Chashṭana, son of Ghsamotika, at Ujjain. Soon after A.D. 125, Nahapāna was overthrown, and his family was wiped out, by the Sātavāhana-Sātakarṇi king Gautamīputra-Śrī-Sātakarṇi, who thereby recovered the territories on the south of the Narbadā, and perhaps secured for a time Kāṭhiāwār and some other parts on the north of that river. Very soon, however, Chashṭana, or else his son Jayadāman, established his sway over all the territory which had belonged to Nahapāna on the north of the Narbadā; founded a line of Hinduized foreign kings, who ruled there for more than three centuries; and, continuing Nahapāna’s regnal reckoning, established the era to which the name Śaka eventually became attached. Inscriptions and coins show that, up to at least the second decade of its fourth century, this reckoning had no specific appellation; its years were simply cited, in the usual fashion, as varsha, “the year (of such-and-such a number).” The reckoning was then taken up by the astronomers. And we find it first called Śakakāla, “the time or era of the Śakas,” in an epochal date, the end of the year 427, falling in A.D. 505, which was used by the astronomer Varāhamihira (d. A.D. 587) in his Pańchasiddhāntikā. That this name came to be attached to it appears to be due to the points that, along with some of the Pahlavas or Palhavas and the Yavanas or descendants of the Asiatic Greeks, some of the Śakas, the Scythians, had made their way into Kāṭhiāwār and neighbouring parts by about A.D. 100, and that the Śakas incidentally came to acquire prominence in the memory of the Hindus regarding these occurrences, in such a manner that their name was selected when the occasion arose to devise an appellation for an era the exact origin of which had been forgotten. The name of the imaginary king Sālivāhana first figures in connexion with the era in a record of A.D. 1272, and seems plainly to have been introduced in imitation of the coupling of the name Vikrama, Vikramāditya, with the era of B.C. 58.