Elements of South-Indian Palæography, from the Fourth to the Seventeenth Century A.D. c6.s5.t2.28

c6.s5.t2.28

This formidable number of eras and complicated calendars might seem to encourage hopes of an accurate chronology, but such hopes are entirely delusive. The exact length of a king’s reign is seldom given in years and days, but fractions of years are taken as years. Again, Hindu kings in S. India often nominated and consecrated their successors, and the length of the reign is sometimes reckoned from this event; an approximation, not certainty, is then, all that is to be hoped for. The most important information likely to be soon available respecting Indian eras is to be hoped for in the edition and translation of Albīrūnī’s works already begun by Profr. Sachau. But it must not be forgotten that Albīrūnī himself found the greatest confusion in respect not only of Indian eras, but also of the beginning of the year, and that even he could not solve all the difficulties he detected (Reinaud, “Fragments”, pp. 139, 145). Hiouen Thsang³ long before this had occasion to notice the confusion that prevailed. From what is now known respecting Indian chronology, there can be little doubt that originally a number of local eras and calendars were used, and that these have been gradually superseded for the most part by the more precise eras and calendars of the astronomers, and in recent times by the ‘Lokakāla’.