[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Studies](https://indike.org/pramana/ins) › [Archaeology, epigraphy and coins](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy) › [Book of Indian Eras, with Tables for Calculating Indian Dates](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy.cunningham-1883) › c15 # Book of Indian Eras, with Tables for Calculating Indian Dates c15: X.—Vikramâditya Samvat Book of Indian Eras, with Tables for Calculating Indian Dates c15 - **Language:** English ### X.—Vikramâditya Samvat ### [c15.1](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy.cunningham-1883.c15.1) The Vikrâmâditya Samvat, or era of Vikrâmâditya, is reckoned from the vernal equinox of the year 57 B.C., and the completion of the Kâli-Yuga year 3044. It is used all over Northern India, except in Bengal, where the Saka era has been generally adopted. It is used also in Telingâna and Gujarât; but in the latter province the year does not begin until seven months later than in the north, or with the 1st of Kârtik-Sudi, which now falls during October, but which, at the beginning of the Christian era, fell between the middle of September and the middle of October. ### [c15.2](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy.cunningham-1883.c15.2) This era is said to have been established by Vikrâmâditya, a king of Ujain, to commemorate his victory over the Sakas. The earliest date yet found in any inscription, with the name of Vikrâmâditya attached to it, is one of Raja Jâika, whose name is already well known from the Morbi inscription bearing the date of 585 of the Gupta era. In this new inscription the date, as read by Pandit Bhagwân Lâl, is thus expressed: ### [c15.3](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy.cunningham-1883.c15.3) “In the Vikrama Samvatsara 94, in addition to 700, on the 30th day (amâvâsyâ) of the dark half of the month of Kârtika, Sunday, in the afternoon (?) on the occasion of a solar eclipse.” ### [c15.4](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy.cunningham-1883.c15.4) The text of this inscription has now been published by Dr. Bühler, who gives the following translation of the date:∗ ### [c15.5](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy.cunningham-1883.c15.5) ∗ Reinaud Fragments Drabes et Persans, pp. 145-146. ### [c15.6](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy.cunningham-1883.c15.6) “When seven hundred years of Vikrama exceeded by ninety-four (in figures) 794 (had passed) in the second half of the month Kârtika, at the new moon, on a Sunday, under the constellation Jyeshthâ, on the occasion of an eclipse of the sun.” ### [c15.7](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy.cunningham-1883.c15.7) Now the last day of Kârtika in the Vikrama Samvat 794 was the 28th of October A.D. 737, which day was a Monday, and not a Sunday as stated in the inscription, and there was no eclipse on that date; Dr. Bühler, therefore, suggests that, as "the figure for the year probably refers, as usual in Indian dates, to completed years, the grant must have been issued at the end of Kârtika (in Gujarât the first month) of Vikrama Samvat 795." Now this is absolutely impossible. All Indian dates are given in completed years, and the Gujarât year of Vikrama Samvat 794 began on the 30th September 737 A.D., and ended on the 18th October 738. On this point there is no possibility of mistake, as the date is recorded in words as well as in figures. It is true that there was an eclipse of the sun on the 18th October 738, but that date, according to Hindu reckoning, was the last day of Aswina, and was a Saturday and not a Sunday. At present the Vikramâditya years begin with the 1st of Kârtika; but Abu Rihan mentions that in Sindh the year began with the following month of Mânkhir, or Mârgasiras.\* Now, if this was the case in the neighbouring country of Gujarât, the month of Kârtika would have fallen in the end of the year 794; and if there had been no intercalary month, the last day of Kârtika would have been the actual eclipse day, 18th October 738 A.D. But, according to the usual reckoning, the month of Ashâdha was intercalary in that year, so that the last day of Kârtika fell on the 16th of November. As it is quite clear that there must be a mistake somewhere, I think it probable that it may be in the name of the month; I would, therefore, propose to read Aswina 794 for Kârtika 794, which would agree with the real eclipse day of 18th October 738. But as that day was a Saturday, a very inauspicious day, the writing of the grant was probably made on the following day, or Sunday, which was the first day of Kârtika, and this might have led to the substitution of the name of Kârtika for that of Aswina as the actual day of the eclipse. ### [c15.8](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy.cunningham-1883.c15.8) But a very much earlier date, presumably of Vikramâditya, has been brought to notice by Dr. Bühler in one of the Gujarât inscriptions of Jayabhata, which, although no era is named, must also certainly be referred to the Vikramâditya Samvat.† He reads the year as "Samvat 486, Sunday, the tenth day of the bright half of Ashâdha-Sudi, when the sun entered the sign of the Scorpion." ### [c15.9](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy.cunningham-1883.c15.9) The Vikrama Samvat year 486 began in Gujarât, according to the present reckoning, on the 1st Kârtika-Sudi, or 28th September A.D. 429, ### [c15.10](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy.cunningham-1883.c15.10) \[^ \*\]: Indian Antiquary, Vol. XII, p. 155. \[^ †\]: Ibid, Vol. V, p. 114. ### [c15.11](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy.cunningham-1883.c15.11) so that the 10th of Ashâdha-Sudi would have fallen in the following year, A.D. 430. As there was no intercalary month in that year, the 10th of Ashâdha-Sudi was the 99th day calculated from the 1st Chaitra-Sudi, or Tuesday, 11th March 430, which brings the date to Tuesday the 17th June, thus agreeing with the Tuesday already calculated by two Bombay authorities for Dr. Bühler. But as the day was a Sunday, according to the inscription, it seems to me not improbable that the date may not have been read quite correctly. The only year which I can find that agrees with the week day indicated is Vikrama Samvat 497, in which year the 10th of Ashâdha-Sudi fell on Sunday, the 15th June A.D. 441. If the figure for 80 was injured below, as the figure for 400 certainly was, then the decimal figure read as 80, might have been 90 and the Samvat year might, perhaps, be 497. ### [c15.12](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy.cunningham-1883.c15.12) In the Jain books also there is very early mention of the Vikrama Samvat. Thus the Satrunjaya Mahâtmya professes to have been written 477 years after Vikrama, or in A.D. 420, when “Silâditya, king of Vallabhi, expelled the Buddhists from Saurashtra, recovered Satrunjaya and other places of pilgrimage from them, and erected many Jain temples.”\* The era of Vikrama also is said to have been established by Vikramârka Raja 470 years after Mahâvira, or in 527 — 470 = 57 B.C. From the way in which he is spoken of as “honouring the advice of Siddha Sena Suri as the words of Jaina,” it would appear that Vikramârka was a Jaina, which would account for the use of his era in the Jaina books, as well as for the non-mention of it in early Brahmanical inscriptions. ### [c15.13](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy.cunningham-1883.c15.13) Most of our early writers, as Colebrooke, Wilford, Tod, and Jervis, have vitiated their chronology by placing the initial point of the Vikrama-ditya era in 56 B.C., instead of in 57 B.C., as shown by Prinsep.† The following examples from Colebrooke and Tod show how necessary it is to be strictly exact in dealing with dates: ### [c15.14](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy.cunningham-1883.c15.14) † See Prinsep's Useful Tables, p. 82, where the origin of the error is pointed out. ### [c15.15](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy.cunningham-1883.c15.15) 1. In one of “Three grants of land found at Ujjayini,” the recorded date is an eclipse of the moon in Srâvana of 1200 Samvat. Using the erroneous equation of 56, Colebrooke identifies this eclipse with that of the 16th July 1144 A.D.‡ But the true date was 1200 — 57 = 1143 A.D., in which year there was an eclipse of the moon on 28th July, which day was also the full moon of Srâvana. ### [c15.16](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy.cunningham-1883.c15.16) ∗ Dr. Bhau Dâji, in Bombay Asiatic Society's Journal, Vol. VI, 29-30. ### [c15.17](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy.cunningham-1883.c15.17) ‡ Colebrooke's Essays, Vol. II, p. 264. ### [c15.18](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy.cunningham-1883.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. --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy.cunningham-1883.c15](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy.cunningham-1883.c15) · Pramāṇa