Book of Indian Eras, with Tables for Calculating Indian Dates c15.18

c15.18

2. But Tod's mistake is even more curious. He quotes the well-known Balabhi inscription, which gives the month of Ashâdha of the year 1320 of Vikrama along with the year 945 of the Balabhi era. He accordingly takes the year 375 [or 1320 — 945] of Vikrama as the initial point of the Balabhi era, from which, deducting 56, he obtains A.D. 319. Here his equation of 56 gives a true result, because he is dealing with an inscription from Gujarât, where the Vikrama year does not begin until 1st Kârtika-Sudi. In the same inscription the Hijra date is also given as 662. Now, as this year did not begin until the 4th November 1263, it is obvious that the Hindu month of Ashâdha, or June-July, must belong to A.D. 1264, and not to A.D. 1263. We thus learn that the Vikrama Samvat year referred to in the inscription must have begun in October, as is still the practice in Gujarât, and that the year 1320 must be reckoned from 1st Kârtika-Sudi, or from October A.D. 1263 to October 1264, and not from March 1263 to March 1264. The equation for the Gujarât reckoning of the Vikrama Samvat is, therefore, 56¼, or, in round numbers, 56, which gives A.D. 1264 as the equivalent of the Vikrama Samvat 1320, as well as of the Hijra year 662. If the year of Vikrama had been reckoned from the last new moon preceding the vernal equinox, the date of the inscription would have been 1320 — 57 = 1263 A.D., so that the month of Ashâdha (or June-July) would have fallen four months before the beginning of the Muhammadan year 662.