Book of Indian Eras, with Tables for Calculating Indian Dates c18.19

c18.19

When I submitted these results to my learned friend Pandit Bâpu Deva, he pointed out that the 12th of Ashâdha-Sudi in A.D. 331 was a Friday, and not a Thursday. But it is so only by the reckoning of the Surya Siddhânta, which I have purposely rejected in dealing with these Gupta dates, as Varâha Mihira, the author of the Surya Siddhânta, lived at least two centuries later than Budha Gupta; so that it is quite impossible that his corrected tables could have been used in computing the calendar of the Gupta period. My calculations have been made from the tables of Aryabhatta, according to which the 12th of Ashâdha-Sudi in A.D. 331 was actually a Thursday. I am of course aware that Aryabhatta is also later than Budha Gupta; but as his length of year differs from that of his predecessor Parâsara by little more than half a second, the adoption of Aryabhatta’s table will not affect the week day. The case is different with Varâha Mihira, as his year is considerably longer than that of Parâsara and Aryabhatta. This difference was duly noticed by James Prinsep, who remarks that “Warren’s Kâla Sankâlita gives the beginning of the Hindu solar year invariably one day earlier than the reckoning followed in the tables of the Sudder Dewânee. This arises from his using the Tamil year of the Arya Siddhânta, while the Surya Siddhânta is used in Bengal.”