Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Hero" to "Hindu Chronology" / Volume 13, Slice 4

by Various

That the Śaka era, though it had its origin in the south-west corner of Northern India, is essentially an era of Southern India, is proved by its inscriptional and numismatic history. During the period before the time when it was taken up by the astronomers, it is found only in the inscriptions of Nahapāna, and in the similar records and on the coins of the descendants of Chashṭana. After that same time, it figures first in a record of the Chalukya king Kīrtivarman I., at Bādāmi in the Bijāpūr district, Bombay, which is dated on the full-moon day of the month Kārttika, falling in A.D. 578, “when there had elapsed five centuries of the years of the anointment of the Śaka king to the sovereignty.” And from this date onwards the records of a large part of Southern India are mostly dated in this era, by various expressions all of which include the term Śaka or Śāka. In Northern India the case is very different. We have a record dated in the month Kārttika, the Śaka year 631 (expired), falling in A.D. 709: it comes from Multāī in the Bētūl district, Central Provinces, that is, from the south of the Narbadā; but it belongs to Gujarāt (Bombay), and perhaps to the north, though more probably to the south, of that province. But, setting that aside, the earliest inscriptional instance of the use of this era in Northern India, outside Kāṭhiāwār and Gujarāt, is found in a record of A.D. 862 at Dēōgaṛh near Lalitpūr, the headquarters town of the Lalitpūr district, United Provinces of Agra and Oude; here, however, the record is primarily dated, with the full details of the month, &c., in “Saṁvat 919,” that is, in the Vikrama year 919; it is only as a subsidiary detail that the Śaka year 784 is given in a separate passage at the end of the record, a sort of postscript. From this date onwards the era is found in other records of Northern India, but to any appreciable extent only from A.D. 1137, and to only a very small extent in comparison with the Vikrama and other northern eras; and the cases in which it was used exclusively there, without being coupled with one or other of the northern reckonings, are still more conspicuously few. In short, the general position is that the Śaka era has been essentially foreign to Northern India until recent times; it was used there quite exceptionally and sporadically, and in very few cases indeed at any appreciable distance from the dividing-line between the north and the south. That it found its way into Northern India, outside Kāṭhiāwār and northern Gujarāt at all, is unquestionably due to its use by the astronomers. It also travelled, across the sea, by the 7th century A.D. to Cambodia, and somewhat later to Java; to which parts it was doubtless taken in almanacs, or in invoices, statements of account, &c., by the persons engaged in the trade between Broach and the far east via Tagara (Tēr) and the east coast. It also found its way in subsequent times to Assam and Ceylon, and more recently still to Nēpāl.

III. Other Reckonings

We come now to certain reckonings consisting of cycles, and will take first the cycles of Guru or Bṛihaspati, Jupiter. This planet, a very conspicuous object in eastern skies, requires a period of 4332.6 days, = 50.4 days The Cycles of Jupiter. less than twelve Julian years, to make a circuit of the heavens, and has provided the Hindus with two reckonings, each in more than one variety; a cycle of twelve years, and a cycle of sixty years. The years of Jupiter, in all their varieties, are usually styled saṁvatsara; and it is convenient to use this term here, in order to preserve clearly the distinction between them and the solar and lunar years. The saṁvatsaras have no divisions of their own; the months, days, &c., cited with them are those of the ordinary solar or lunar calendar, as the case may be.

The older reckoning of Jupiter appears to be that of the 12-years cycle, which is found in two varieties; in both of them the saṁvatsaras bear, according to certain rules which need not be explained here, the same names with the The 12-years Cycle. lunar months, Chaitra, Vaiśākha, &c. In one variety, each saṁvatsara runs from one of the planet’s heliacal risings—that is, from the day on which it becomes visible as a morning star on the eastern horizon—to the next such rising; and the length of such a saṁvatsara, according to the Hindu data, is from 392 to 405 days, with an average of 399 days. Inscriptional instances of the use of this cycle are found in six of the Gupta records of Northern India, ranging from A.D. 475 to 528.

In the other variety of the 12-years cycle, which is mentioned in astronomical works from the time of Āryabhaṭa onwards (b. A.D. 476), the saṁvatsaras are regulated by Jupiter’s course with reference to his mean motion and mean longitude: a saṁvatsara of this variety commences when Jupiter thus enters a sign of the zodiac, and lasts for the time occupied by him in traversing that sign from the same point of view; and the period taken by him to do that—that is, the duration of such a saṁvatsara—is slightly in excess, according to the Hindu data, of 361.02 days, which amount is very close to the actual fact, 361.05 days. Inscriptional instances of the use of this cycle are perhaps found in two records of Southern India of the Kadamba series, belonging to about A.D. 575.

The 12-years mean-sign cycle seems to be still used in some parts. And the heliacal risings of Jupiter, as also, indeed, those of the other planets, are shown in almanacs for astrological purposes. In either variety, however, the 12-years cycle is now chiefly of antiquarian interest.

The cycle of Jupiter now in general use is a cycle of sixty years, the saṁvatsaras of which bear certain special names, Prabhava, Vibhava, Śukla, Pramōda, &c., again The 60-years cycle. in accordance with certain rules which we need not explain here. This cycle exists in three varieties.

According to the original constitution of this cycle, the saṁvatsaras are determined as in the second or mean-sign variety of the 12-years cycle: each saṁvatsara commences when Jupiter enters a sign of the zodiac with reference to his mean motion and longitude; and it lasts for slightly more than 361.02 days. This variety is traced back in inscriptional records to A.D. 602, and is still used in Northern India.

Now, the saṁvatsaras are calculated by means of the astronomical solar year commencing with the Mēsha-saṁkrānti, the entrance of the sun into the sign Mēsha (Aries). The process gives the number of the saṁvatsara last expired before any particular Mēsha-saṁkrānti, with a remainder denoting the portion of the current saṁvatsara elapsed up to the same time; and the remainder, reduced to months, &c., gives the moment of the commencement of the current saṁvatsara, by reckoning back from the Mēsha-saṁkrānti. As the result, apparently, of unwillingness to take the trouble to work out the full details, at some time about A.D. 800 a practice arose, in some quarters, according to which that saṁvatsara of the 60-years cycle which was current at any particular Mēsha-saṁkrānti was taken as coinciding with the astronomical solar year beginning at that saṁkrānti, and with the Chaitrādi lunar year belonging to that same solar year. And this practice set up a lunisolar variety of the cycle, in connexion with which we have to notice the following point. While the duration of a mean-sign saṁvatsara is closely about 361.02 days, the length of the Hindu astronomical solar year is closely about 365.258 days. It consequently happens, after every 85 or 86 years, that a mean-sign saṁvatsara begins and ends between two successive Mēsha-saṁkrāntis. In the mean-sign cycle, such a saṁvatsara retains its existence unaffected; and the names Prabhava, Vibhava, &c., run on without any interruption. According to the lunisolar system, however, the position is different; the saṁvatsara beginning and ending between the two Mēsha-saṁkrāntis is expunged or suppressed, in the sense that its name is omitted and is replaced by the next name on the list. The second variety of the 60-years cycle, thus started, ran on alongside of the mean-sign variety, and, being eventually transferred, with that variety, to Northern India, is now known as the northern lunisolar variety. It preserves a connexion between the saṁvatsaras and the movements of Jupiter: but the connexion is an imperfect one; and both in this variety, and still more markedly in the remaining one still to be described, the saṁvatsaras practically became mere appellations for the solar and lunar years.